The CIA Is About To Sign A Game-Changing $600 Million Deal With Amazon
What is the CIA doing signing a deal with Amazon ??? :-\
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-600-million-deal-for-amazons-cloud-2013-3#ixzz2O7pvT7wk
http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-600-million-deal-for-amazons-cloud-2013-3
The CIA is on the verge of signing a cloud computing contract with Amazon, worth up to $600 million over 10 years, reports Frank Konkel at Federal Computer Week.
If the details about this deal are true, it could be a game-changer for the enterprise cloud market.
That's because Amazon Web Services will help the CIA build a "private cloud" filled with technologies like big data, reports Konkel, citing unnamed sources.
The CIA is pretty closed-lipped about its business, as spies are apt to be. This is no exception. It won't confirm the deal or comment on it, so details are sketchy. But the contract is expected to be for a "private" cloud, which is not what AWS is known for.
AWS is the largest "public" cloud provider. In general, the term "private cloud" means using cloud computing technologies in a company's own data center. Public clouds are in hosted facilities, where the hardware is shared with many users. Sharing the hardware saves money.
Amazon hasn't been very interested private clouds. Years ago, it even argued against them. If companies want private clouds based on Amazon's tech, they often go to startups like Eucalyptus Systems.
Amazon's approach has been its "Virtual Private Cloud." This still uses hardware hosted by Amazon, but adds extra security to make it behave more like a private datacenter.
If Amazon were really to enter the private cloud business, this could be a big threat to VMware and Citrix, the two biggest players in this market. (Also to HP, IBM, Cisco, and other hardware vendors pushing private clouds.)
Whether Amazon has had a massive change of heart about private clouds or not, gaining the CIA as a customer is a major coup. Competitors like IBM, HP, and Rackspace say their clouds are more reliable and far more secure than Amazon's.
Looks like the CIA disagrees.
We reached out to Amazon for comment but have not yet heard back.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-600-million-deal-for-amazons-cloud-2013-3#ixzz2O7na0qnT
Web services run on any computer, so a "cloud" can either be on the Internet, on a private network that is connected (or even part) of the Internet or in a completely isolated network.
I really don't understand why they talk as if this is about hardware. ???
It depends on where you put your basket. :)
A "cloud" can be just another cluster of servers inside an organisation.
I find it hard to believe that the CIA don't have the resources to host their own cloud. If they have paid Amazon $600 Million then there has to be another reason....
A clue from a few years ago????
Cloud computing can help the Central Intelligence Agency do its job better, faster, cheaper, and even more securely, CIA CTO Gus Hunt said in a keynote address Tuesday at InformationWeek Government's GovCloud event in Washington, D.C.
"Cloud computing has emerged to enable us to deliver capabilities we weren't able to deliver before at a scale and price and agility level we were never able to do before," Hunt said. "I have a petascale problem and need a petascale solution."
http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud-saas/cia-cloud-solving-our-petascale-data-pro/231901640 (http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud-saas/cia-cloud-solving-our-petascale-data-pro/231901640)
And then,flash forward to today....
http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud (http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud)
To much to break it down individually.
Hosting their own cloud, or the NSA hosting it makes more sense to me. Why have your sensitive data on someone else servers? This is disinfo mate.
I think people are seeing it from the wrong perspective.
To me, what they are buying is two things:
- knowledge about how to make, host and use webservices created to work with large amounts of data
- some already made webservices
Quote from: ArMaP on March 21, 2013, 12:33:54 AM
To me, what they are buying is two things:
- knowledge about how to make, host and use webservices created to work with large amounts of data
- some already made webservices
That sounds more likely than them hosting their own data in "in the cloud". There are many services they could use.