Taking Those First Steps into

the Clouds
Eric Won, Chief Technologist
Office of Policy Initiatives
Office of Governmentwide Policy
General Services Administration
October 28, 2009
eric.won@gsa.gov
 Three Observations to Share
• The IT business paradigm is shifting

• The migration from our current hybrid of

mainframe and client/server environments
will take tremendous planning

• The major benefits will be reaped over

years rather than months.
Shifting Our Business Paradigm
• Cloud computing establishes a new
relationship with our business owners
– Moves from a “commodity” understanding
of technology to one of “service
provisioning”.
– Optimization will be “baked” into our
solutions.
– Standardization will be a cornerstone
• Business processes
• Data definitions, interfaces, and exchanges.
 Planning is a Key
• If there ever was a time to invest in enterprise
architecture, it is now!
– “To be” vision will determine which cloud migration strategy
makes the most sense.
– Transition sequencing plans will improve probability of success.
– Major choices among migration paths should be carefully
assessed. For example:
• Should I proceed with virtualization before consolidation, then
consolidation before cloud migration?
• Do I migrate applications to a cloud infrastructure ~ or do I take
the time to reengineer my applications and only migrate data?
• Do I establish a private (or community) cloud as a staging
platform as we learn more about public clouds?
Major Benefits are Longer Term
• Infrastructure: Major returns will begin once
excess capacity ~ which includes the
consolidation of data centers ~ is eliminated.
Migration will increase underutilization over
the short term. [Note: Redundancy is not
excess capacity.]
• Applications: Major returns will occur once
standardization of business processes,
virtualization of applications, and seamless data
interfaces are completed.
• Data: The data architecture will be normalized
and governmentwide data exchanges will occur.
 So What Should You Do?
• Take a more active role in
governmentwide cloud computing
activities
– Collaborate with other agencies on MAX
– Contact Katie Lewin or Pete Tseronis on
opportunities to work with governmentwide
task forces
– Commit to taking baby steps.
– Leaps and bounds will follow!