Making sense of cloud computing in the public sector.

• Author: Olsaker, Eva

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Every other article or news clip about government technology seems to mention "the cloud." A jurisdiction is migrating to the cloud for e-mail, or another organization is using the cloud for data backup services. The trend continues to gain momentum because of the variety of services the cloud can offer, often at a significant savings. And the promise of lower costs provides a major incentive in the current economy, despite lingering concerns about security

Cloud computing is "a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction," according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology website (at http://csrc.nist. gov). Wikipedia explains: "Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, wherein end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service." Cloud computing providers deliver applications or services via the Internet, and the actual data is stored in the cloud (web sewers), usually in one or more remote locations. The primary cloud computing service models are software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

UNDERSTANDING THE SERVICE MODELS

Software as a Service. SaaS makes software accessible through the Internet; clients access applications using the web browser on their computers. The customer doesn't manage or control the cloud applications network--services, operating systems, storage, security, or functions--although some applications allow for minimal configurations. SaaS is sometimes referred to as on-demand software.

Platform as a Service. PaaS allows customers to use hardware, operating systems, storage, and network capacity as a service over the Internet. This model allows the customer to rent or lease virtualized servers and services to run applications, but without the costs of purchasing and maintaining the underlying hardware and software.

Infrastructure as a Service. IaaS cloud services deliver computer infrastructure and allow organizations to outsource the equipment (i.e., storage, hardware, servers) needed for the organization's technical operations. Rather than purchasing sewers, software, data-center space, and network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service. IaaS is sometimes referred to as hardware as a service.

EDGING TOWARD THE CLOUD

At this point, e-mail and office...