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America's New CIO Loves Google
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Mar 06, 2009 09:17 AM
from the government-in-the-clouds dept.
from the government-in-the-clouds dept.
theodp writes "On Thursday, Barack Obama tapped Vivek Kundra for the post of Federal CIO, giving him responsibility for establishing and overseeing enterprise architecture across the federal government. So what might that look like? Well, little more than a month ago Kundra was slated to sing the praises of Google Apps to government officials in a webcast. A Kundra quote from the presentation slides: 'Why should I spend millions on enterprise apps when I can do it [with Google] at one-tenth cost and ten times the speed? It's a win-win for me.' You can follow Kundra's love affair with Google on YouTube, from his announcement of the Google-Washington DC partnership he brokered through a co-starring role with a Google attorney on a video pitching Google-enabled technology for the Obama Administration. Not surprisingly, some say Obama's choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft."
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google running our government IT? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:google running our government IT? (Score:5, Funny)
Hi. I'm from Google, and I'm here to help you.
Parent
Re:google running our government IT? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
At least Microsoft just sells software.
Xbox
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Xbox
The important word was sells not software. He likes the fact that after a transaction with Microsoft, their employees have no ongoing access to what you bought.
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because you can only run it off Google's servers and they see EVERYTHING THAT GOES ON. I can't believe this Google fanboy Obama brought in would even consider this. Arkowitz
calm down, sit back, wait for the news reports of the next "leaked" email scandal :)
He'll get the security and privacy message pretty damn soon you know.
Re:google running our government IT? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Uh..it's been done for close to 40 years. The government has been using offsite contrators with mainframes and servers at corporate locations since the 60's.
What's the fuss? Google is a contractor like any other out there that deals with the government and has to abide by the same rules. Your data is as safe with google as it is with any other contractor that works onsite or offsite with the government.
Parent
Yeah, thank god that MS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why if they were power hungry, they would be
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one have a problem with our government documents and processes being hosted by a private company. At least Microsoft just sells software.
Quote from Microsoft paralegal: "They [Gates, Ballmer] aren't in it for the money anymore, they're multi-billionaires. They have a chance to change the world." I for one have a problem with unelected civilians having that level of influence, especially without the consent of government.
Re:google running our government IT? (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that Google also licenses out their applications for you to run internally right? Or how about the fact that even government applications experience outtages, it's not like the hardware they purchase is magically protected by a "never goes down" forcefield. Google as an entity isn't going anywhere and you can't call a business a single point of failure, trust me, their infrastructure is well built to sustain multiple failure. Better yet, I would prefer if our government leveraged Google's superior and private workforce and farm of server hardware that has proven itself than try to build the infrastructure from the ground up. Particularly if in 4 years or 8 years when the administration changes all of that work setting it up prefers to go with M$ exchange or Zimbra, or Netscape Mail, or Lotus, etc.
I work in government IT. Government doesn't have the buying power to hire the trained workstaff to set up an infrastructure like this reliably. I would prefer they "outsource" to Google.
In other words, shut the hell up because you don't know what you're talking about.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Google as an entity isn't going anywhere
As a Google fanboi you would know that Google's primary source of revenue is advertising. If that ever dries up or declines for whatever reason, there is no way in hell they could afford to keep going without actually charging large sums of money for all the free services they provide that are currently funded by ad revenue. This is Google's single point of failure and Achilles' heel. In other word, only an idiot would outsource a companies IT infrastructure to an advertising company.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Reliability is not the problem. A private company handling documents is. Especially if that company is great in doing searches.
What if in 5 years time Google starts abusing its monopoly and the government decides to take action? If they decide to buy the apps from Google AND they are open source, great. But somehow I doubt that.
Re:google running our government IT? (Score:4, Informative)
Reliability is not the problem. A private company handling documents is. ... If they decide to buy the apps from Google AND they are open source, great. But somehow I doubt that.
Read the presentation linked to in TFS. He specifically talks about using Google appliances for internal stuff — meaning it's nicely hidden away from the public and from Google — and using Google-hosted applications for documents that are supposed to be publicly accessible — meaning the public has greater access to information.
Parent
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You do realize that Google also licenses out their applications for you to run internally right?
I didn't know they did that, but I don't see why they couldn't. With a client as big--and with as many special requirements--as the federal government, it would make total sense for Google to help the feds set up their own servers running Google apps. That would address security/privacy concerns and give the government access to all that Google goodness.
Microsoft should worry.
Re: (Score:2)
There are valid reasons for a heterogeneous computer system, spread out, with different servers and OS's...so that one event doesn't bring everything down to a complete standstill. Haven't we all learned that single point of failure is a dangerous thing?
No worries, mate. I hear that a copy of everything important gets downloaded to Woodlawn, Maryland [wikipedia.org] for safekeeping and isn't accessible by anyone without top secret clearance.
Bonus points for anyone who can come up with a Chris "Red Hat" [wikipedia.org] Cooper joke.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly... It's the move to a more transparent govt. of course. No more need to file that silly Freedom of Information Act form. Everything will out in the open.
Re:google running our government IT? (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think it will be out in the open just because it is hosted by Google?
Just because it is POSSIBLE to be out in the open, doesn't mean that it will.
I agree with your sentiment that we need a more transparent government, but I disagree that using Google will necessarily achieve that.
I use Google every day and have seen no reason to suspect they are up to no good, but it makes me a bit nervous when I see that people seem to trust them completely.
They are a large, powerful corporation. Even if the current management proves to be saintly, a corporation can change its management. Sometimes against the will of the current management (I'm looking at YOU Yahoo).
Having the government's information held by a private corporation seems a bit dangerous.
Cheaper, definitely. More transparent, maybe. Good idea, remains to be seen...
I certainly hope that if the govt. really goes down that road, that the process by which they do so is absolutely transparent.
Really well written contracts (and possibly legislative actions) need to spell out EXACTLY what Google can and can't do. It could be implemented very well or very badly. AND there needs to be a fall back. It may be unthinkable for Google to fail, but not that long ago people thought the same of GM, AIG, Citigroup, etc, etc...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A motivated attacker can get into any private IT system. If all the world's data is in one place, there will be a heaping load of motivation.
If all the government's data is in Google's datacenter, it will be made available... to someone...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly... It's the move to a more transparent govt. of course. No more need to file that silly Freedom of Information Act form. Everything will out in the open.
Silly citizen. FOIA doesn't apply to private entities. And if Google doesn't want to be transparent, well, no FOIA is going to make that happen.
It might also lower the barrier to the gov't strong-arming Google for personal information on the users.
Now, get back to work so you can pay your entire wage in taxes, komrade.
Am I the only one who cringes at "America's CIO"? (Score:2, Insightful)
It sounds as idiotic as "America's Sweetheart" or "America's Team" or anything else that assumes some kind of lockstep agreement.
America's CIO -- bitching about timesheets, hiring H1-Bs, taking kickbacks from vendors, expecting unpaid overtime & on-call time and canceling vacations at the last minute.
Re: (Score:2)
You are not alone. Using google apps are fine for your run of the mill type up needs. But for government documents especially that of the sensitive issue, google apps are horribly inadequate. For starters, google stores the documents on their server farms and do not really delete anything. This can be a security issue. Second, the default for ssl is log in only, potential for unencrypted transmission of sensitive data being intercepted is huge. Data retention, data backup, and data recovery are also huge is
As long as he can separate business from tech (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
And some iffy business practices, such as scanning books in copyright
Why is that an iffy business practise?
Aw shucks. (Score:2, Funny)
"Not surprisingly, some say Obama's choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft."
Man, that's just terrible news.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Not surprisingly, some say Obama's choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft."
Man, that's just terrible news.
It kinda is. While I understand the CIO's point that their solution is inexpensive (I don't know if it's faster), I'm concerned that the CIO might make another party just as much of a government supported monopoly as Microsoft used to be. Do we really need to have that sort of thinking occurring?
While I'm a current supporter (and by supporter I mean us
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Finally someone who gets it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like the intelligence community is not.
Re:Finally someone who gets it (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of the complaints from other posters so far are about Google owning the govt's data, but that's not necessarily true. We can take their applications, like Google Earth as an example, and run it on our classified networks without Google seeing any of our data.
Parent
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The first rule of Intelligence Community Club is...
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, the black helicopters have already locked on to him. We've entered his coordinates into Google Earth (Special Operations Edition) and they'll be there shortly.
BTW looks like they caught him working on his truck when they took the photos with the KH-13. Nice butt crack, dude.
google apps? (Score:2, Interesting)
No responsible business (or government!) would use Google Apps. Would you want all your most important company data, as well as all of your customer's information, in the hands (and datacenter) of a search company?
Google may be the next evil empire but.... (Score:2)
...At least Microsoft won't hold a monopoly on that title anymore.
Do you even have to ask? (Score:2)
Well, for one, you cannot use Google Apps on any classified network (that would cover most federal employees, as most of the federal government is DoD) unless Google is willing to sell a permanent, certified copy of Google Apps to be loaded onto each network and isolated from the rest of the world. For another, the federal government is already starting to look
Re:Do you even have to ask? (Score:5, Informative)
What's to stop us from using some of their other applications as well?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Google does have a history of providing software on local hardware:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search_Appliance [wikipedia.org]
Headaches for Microsoft (Score:2)
Google is not exactly hostile to well-behaved competition. They helped Yahoo when they started to have troubles (and yahoo is the company that matches most of google services since the start), and didnt stop helping Firefox after releasing Chrome. And don't think they are in ve
Hope he helps with ODF (Score:2)
I mean, I hope the new appointee helps in pushing `open standards' including ODF. For Google, while I love the company itself, I do not understand why it still has no filter for searching ODF documents just like PDFs and MS Office documents.
Have a look [google.ca].
What also does not help is the fact that there is not a single application in the Open Source world that is 100% compliant to ODF! Think about it...we push open standards (when attacking Microsoft), but cannot create an application that is 100% compliant with
He should be Fired (Score:4, Funny)
Why is everyone so worried... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems every third comment is along the lines of... "do we really want our data on a private companies servers?"
Get a clue, what this guy might do is switch the government to government owned servers running google software. Right now, my email, on the DHS network, is pulled from an exchange server... MS does not own the server. The great thing about google's code is that it would scale much better than anyone else's, eliminate the need for client software on individual workstations, and prevent users from storing mail locally on their machines (archive pst's) as is so commonly done now with the tiny mailboxes and huge attachments that inexperienced users are so fond of sending around here. Because each exchange server has it's own mail store, an attachment could exist on every mail server in our organization... while on google, an attachment is stored very efficiently and only on multiple servers for redundancy purposes.
My vote is for google code on government owned equipment... it would be by far the most efficient and cost effective solution.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they added all of the training and support needed to make this viable do you think that Google would do all of this for free?
It's called a Support Contract. You aren't getting all that help for free from MS. I'm sure Google is capable of providing a support contract along with a customized solution appropriate for government use.
Forget data... (Score:2, Redundant)
Oh good (Score:5, Funny)
I'm okay with Google just taking over the whole government, really. They seem to run things pretty well. Hell, scrap income taxes and make it all add-supported.
Not America's CIO (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Nationalize google!!!!
That would never happen. We only subsidize failure. We tax the hell out of success to discourage others from attempting it though ;)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I think the government tying themselves to any contractor and using leased apps is a bad idea. It will eventually back them into a corner and they will be looking at more huge costs to migrate to something else.
I think Open Source software is the only course right now. If there are going to be conversion costs, spend them to migrate to software that doesn't cost out the wazoo or that ties you to any single vendor. There will be support costs no matter which path they take, but getting away fro
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I, the customer, am responsible for that job. The customers can make companies rich and big, if I like their product. I want the government to be fair to all companies. Just be neutral.
No. I mean, yes.
In an ideal world, it would be great if the government could be completely neutral to every company out there. They could take parts from every company and use them to build their infrastructure and everybody would be happy.
In an ideal world, though, we'd all be rich and nobody would ever fight or say bad things to each other.
The fact of the matter is, Google does a great job at what it does - manage information. At the end of the day, the government, as a voice for the people, has to mak