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The administration's cloud computing initiative is getting started immediately, at least in small measure, on the brand-new Apps.gov Web site.
(Credit: Apps.gov)MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a far-reaching and long-term cloud computing policy intended to cut costs on infrastructure and reduce the environmental impact of government computing systems.
Speaking at NASA's Ames Research Center here, federal CIO Vivek Kundra unveiled the administration's first formal efforts to roll out a broad system designed to leverage existing infrastructure and in the process, slash federal spending on information technology, especially expensive data centers.
According to Kundra, the federal government today has an IT budget of $76 billion, of which more than $19 billion is spent on infrastructure alone. And within that system, he said, the government "has been building data center after data center," resulting in an environment in which the Department of Homeland Security alone, for example, has 23 data centers.
Obama administration CIO Vivek Kundra on Tuesday unveiled the government's new cloud computing initiative.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)All told, this has resulted in a doubling of federal energy consumption from 2000 to 2006. "We cannot continue on this trajectory," Kundra said.
That's why the administration is now committed to a policy of reducing infrastructure spending and instead, relying on existing systems, at least as much as is possible, given security considerations, Kundra said.
As an example of what's possible with cloud computing, Kundra pointed to a revamping of the General Services Administration's USA.gov site. Using a traditional approach to add scalability and flexibility, he said, it would have taken six months and cost the government $2.5 million a year. But by turning to a cloud computing approach, the upgrade took just a day and cost only $800,000 a year.
But while some of the benefits of the administration's cloud computing initiative are on display today--mainly at the brand new Apps.gov Web site--Kundra's presentation was short on specifics and vague about how long it may take the government to transition fully to its new paradigm.
Indeed, Kundra hinted that it could take as much as a decade to complete the cloud computing "journey."
Three-part initiative
While repeatedly referencing the realities that many government efforts must make allowances in their IT needs for security, Kundra argued strongly that in many other cases, there is little reason that federal agencies cannot turn to online resources for quick, easy, and cheap provisioning of applications.
As a result, the first major element of the initiative is the brand new Apps.gov site, a clearinghouse for business, social media, and productivity applications, as well as cloud IT services. To be sure, the site isn't fully functional yet. In fact, a brief survey of it resulted in a series of error messages. But it's evident that the administration hopes that for many agencies, the site will eventually be a one-stop shop for the kinds of services that to date have required extensive IT spending, and Kundra said he believes that some at the Department of Energy has already been using the site for some of its needs.
The second element of the effort, Kundra said, will be budgeting. For fiscal year 2010, the administration will be pushing cloud computing pilot projects, reflecting the effort's priority and hopes that many lightweight workflows can be moved into the cloud. For fiscal 2011, it will be issuing guidance to agencies throughout government.
Finally, the initiative will include policy planning and architecture that will be made up of centralized certifications, target architecture and security, privacy, and procurement concerns. Kundra said every effort will be made to ensure that data is protected and secure, and that whatever changes are made are "pragmatic and responsible."
Clearly, though, the administration has seen benefits in the way private industry uses cloud computing, and intends to mirror those benefits. Ultimately, he added, the idea is to make it simple for agencies to procure the applications they need. "Why should the government pay for and build infrastructure that may be available for free," Kundra said.
One inspiration, he explained, are advances the government has already seen in the streamlining of student aid application forms. The so-called FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form is "more complicated" than the federal 1040 tax form, Kundra said. But in a joint effort between the IRS and the Department of Education, it has become possible with one click of a mouse button for IRS data to populate the FAFSA form, Kundra said, eliminating more than 70 questions and 20 screens.
That, then, should be the kind of thing that the government seeks to do across the board, ultimately delivering large savings to taxpayers and significantly reducing the environmental impact of government IT systems.
First, though, the FCC must write the rules dictating how that spectrum will be used by the auction winner. That means (as things historically go at the Commission) mediating between several powerhouse companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Google who really want to get their paws on this money-making resource. If they're lucky, a little start-up or even consumers will have a voice in the rulemaking.
Wait a minute. Google? Aren't they an Internet search company? Since when do they want to be a wireless company like Verizon and AT&T?
Well, Google is really messing up the plans the good old boys had for winning this auction and keeping the spectrum all for themselves with very few restrictions on who they can restrict from using it in a restrictive manner. And, gosh darnit, Google has so much money and such a brand name and so much money and so many new lobbyists and so much money that they might screw around with the way things are supposed to work.
Google wants the FCC to make at least part of the spectrum available to anyone who wants to use it -- "open access". It's sort of the net neutrality fight for wireless.
The Commission, which oversees the nation's telecom, broadcast, cable, and satellite industries, decides who gets to use our publicly-owned airwaves and for what. So, they tell the radio and TV stations what channels to use, the military and police what frequencies are theirs, and the wireless phone companies where to provide their services. Now that broadcast TV stations have migrated to high definition frequencies, their old analog channels are available for other uses.
What does Google want to do? For starters, they want to offer $4.6 billion as an opening bid. Then, they want the FCC to require that the auction winner:
1. allow any wireless handset, not just the ones the wireless carrier allows you to buy, to work on the new spectrum; and
2. make capacity available on a wholesale basis to allow third-parties and other carriers to use it.
So, as any good FCC would do, they are going to split the spectrum baby (possibly ignoring consumers, fire & police, and start-ups).
On Tuesday before Congress, the Commission's chairman, Kevin Martin, said that he's OK with Google's #1 but not with #2.
Of course, Google complains that if they can't get everything they want, they're taking their $4.6 billion (give or take a couple of million) and going home. Is this a Google negotiating bluff or a promise?
Chairman Martin said, "Google is upset about the lack of inclusion of a wholesale requirement," just as others were upset about the open device rule.
The FCC should decide on final rules for the use of this spectrum in the next week or two, so stay tuned.
By the way, where's Apple and Steve Jobs' I-Phone in all this?
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate leadership, has opened the virtual doors of law writing to Internet citizens. This is a compelling idea as the Internet continues to find ways to democratize information and support the flattening of the political process in our country.
The senator writes in OpenLeft.com, the new project hosting this:
"Today I'm writing to invite you to participate in an experiment--an interactive approach to drafting legislation on one of the most significant public policy questions today: What should be America's national broadband strategy?"
One of the new Web site's leaders describes the idea of online legislation this way:
"Legislating is often known as a sausage factory, or a contest of interests done in private...a lot of the negative impressions of our lawmaking bodies comes from the secrecy of the process. With the Internet, we can put everyone and every lobbyist on a level playing field, and have a genuinely open contest of ideas."
It's doubtful that the Web will put every citizen on a level-playing field with the legions of professional congressional staff whose job is to study an issue and craft legislation with their elected bosses. It's doubtful, actually, that we would want avocation to play an equal role with vocation in this arena. It's also difficult to see how the thousands of full-time lobbyists in D.C., many of whom represent very powerful and well-funded corporations, will be outdone by part-time online activists.
Yet, even if this OpenLeft effort does not create equality, opening up the legislative process even a little bit can make a difference in D.C.
Happily, the Internet, as the CNN/YouTube debates demonstrate, continues to provide new tools for Americans to do politics in the most old-fashioned way--by participating.
Stay tuned.
Old-fashioned politicking
The truth is, no matter how much new technology comes running into our lives and no matter how many mountaintops the tech evangelists find to shout from, politics -- the kind of old-fashioned, gotta-get-more-votes-than-the-other-guy politics -- really does not change.
Voters depend fundamentally on two things to make their decisions. First, they want to know the candidate is a human being they can relate to and would even invite home to dinner with their family. Think about Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton versus Bob Dole and John Kerry. Second, voters look for cures from those people they know and trust. This might be their minister, their local labor president, their spouse, their co-workers, or even (Heaven help us) a celebrity like Oprah Winfrey or Charlton Heston.
The dot-commers in the late 90s traveled to DC insisting that EVERYTHING was going to change and that those Luddite senators, congressmen, and especially the back-room-cigar-chomping-money-grubbing POLITICAL CONSULTANTS would know that the train hit them only when they looked back and saw the caboose on its way down the track. Ooops. Didn't happen. Al Gore and George Bush and John Kerry still had massive campaigns going door-to-door with clipboards, held campaign rallies and rubber chicken fundraising dinners, and good old-fashioned call-me-at-dinner phonebanks never stopped running.
Disintermediation / Giving more voices more outlets
On the other hand, this YouTube thing and technology in general has truly democratized the power of communication and information in politics. Howard Dean's presidential campaign manager Joe Trippi talks about "disintermediation", which may in fact be the truly revolutionary thing about technology. If you assume that information is power and you want to accumulate power (what good DC politico does not?), then getting and hording information is your pathway. The Internet has disrupted this whole thing. Access to elected officials is easier because of telephones (once a new technology itself), the Internet, well-read political blogs, citizen journalists researching and spreading data, and the occasional Macaca who chases a Virginia U.S. Senator around until he says something just plain stupid and ignorant helping cost the poor fellow his seat.
Journalists vs. people
There are differences and advantages in having regular folks ask questions rather than journalists. This is true for a regular, in-person town hall as well. For example, one journalist on CNN actually admitted that there are questions that he would never ask a presidential candidate, though he knows that regular folks might ask them. (When pressed to offer an example, the reporter declined! What are they afraid of?)
Participation
Finally and perhaps most importantly, the CNN-YouTube debate provides something that is essential to a thriving democracy -- a way to participate and a belief that citizens will be heard. Whether citizens have this opportunity because of a novel use of new technology or because they simply feel like the system is responding, the CNN-YouTube debate is great for the process.
Small donors are having a significant impact on the amount of money that the Republican and Democratic candidates for president are raising. The Internet, providing the tools for grassroots activists to self-organize and conduct "p-commerce" by giving political money online, has clearly contributed to this.
The interesting story after six months of presidential fund-raising is that some candidates, notably Barack Obama, are doing much better at reaching small donors than others.
In a July 3 CNET post on what the Internet has done for presidential campaign fund-raising, I wrote, "the story technophiles should celebrate and fear how the Internet has enabled such an extraordinary, incredible, surprising increase in dollars (raised by candidates running for president). The Internet has created a new paradigm, connecting once-dormant activists to politics and telling them how important money is to victory."
An even deeper look, comparing the leading presidential candidates from both parties, shows that some have mastered the art of the small donor ($200 or less) better than others. Obama is the leader here, just as he is winning the overall nomination fund-raising fight for both the Democrats and Republicans.
The Campaign Finance Institute, which reviews the legally required raising and spending reports for each candidate, has crunched lots of numbers. Here's a bit of what the numbers reveal:
First, Obama has benefited much more than fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton from smaller donors. This probably shows a breadth of voter support among Democratic activists that Clinton either does not have or has not yet tapped into. This also means that Obama has a larger base of small givers to whom he can return for another installment (that means more cash), and it might mean that he has a grassroots movement that is larger and even more energized than Clinton's.
Obama has received more than $16 million in donations of $200 or less (29 percent of his total), while Clinton has received only $4 million in similar-size donations (10 percent of her total). Even John Edwards has beaten her with $5 million in small donations (24 percent of this total).
The leading Republicans (Romney and Giuliani) did far worse than the leading Democrats in raising smaller donations. Romney's small-donor percentage was 9 percent, and Giuliani's was 6 percent. Not coincidentally, they have raised less money, partly because they have appeared to focus fund-raising only from big donors. The Cadillac market must just be more their style than the Chevrolet set.
Second, despite the huge numbers of small-dollar donors, most money still comes from larger donors ($1,000 to the legal limit of $2,300). Even Obama's phenomenal "grassroots" fund-raising ($200 and less) has not cut too much into his reliance on larger donors. He has gathered 71 percent of his money from the larger donors. But compared to Giuliani, Romney and Clinton--who got 80 percent to 90 percent of their money from the larger donors--Obama is downright dirty in the grassroots fund-raising realm.
What conclusions can be drawn from these small-dollar versus big-dollar comparisons? There is a lot of money to be made by having an energized group of supporters who are willing to give smaller dollars. Any candidate who doesn't have a grassroots base of activists or who chooses not to approach them for contributions puts herself or himself at a serious disadvantage over time.
Further, technology, including the ability to self-organize over the Internet and to contribute online, has clearly factored in the rise in donations, especially the ones less than $200.
Finally, contributors represent one subset of overall voter support. Perhaps Obama's ability to get so many people to write small checks tells a different story from the one believed by the national political press corps and many weavers of conventional wisdom --that Clinton is the inevitable nominee for the Democrats. We'll know for sure in about seven months, when the first nominating elections begin happening.
- - -
Campaign Finance Institute
Daily Kos: Small Dollars and Max Donors, Part II
There's a tremendous amount of attention focused on whether the Federal Communication Commission's September auction of new wireless spectrum in the 700 MHz band will be "open access," available to many mobile providers and applications, or be limited to whatever the auction winner wants to do with it.
There is also an important public safety issue in this debate that is not getting as much attention. That is whether some of this valuable wireless real estate should be reserved by the FCC for our first responders--the people who drive our ambulances, show up for fires, and are around to solve and prevent crimes.
Our police officers, firefighters, and public safety workers deserve an integrated communications network so they can talk to each other. Remember when police and firefighters were unable to effectively communicate in the middle of the September 11 disaster? Firefighters' radios failed, and many could not contact their brothers and sisters in the NYPD. The disaster was worse because of it.
The FCC plans to decide in the next week or two what rules will apply to the winners of the upcoming auction. CNN describes the public safety rule this way: "(It would) combine some spectrum acquired through the auction with some that will be controlled by public safety to build a broadband wireless network for use by the country's fire, police and emergency services workers."
Anything wrong with that, in the midst of all the money that the auction winner stands to make on commercial uses of these airwaves? Write, call, or mail FCC Chairman Kevin Martin with you views. As an FCC veteran, I can tell you that these communications matter and that the big corporate interests are not short on expressing their own views.
Chairman Kevin Martin
Federal Communications Commission
445 Twelfth Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554
Phone: 202.418.1000
Fax: 202-418-2801
Reference: WT Docket Nos. 06-150, 06-169, and 96-86; PS Docket No. 06-229
- - -
News stories:
CNET News.com: Unlock the cell phone? It's a high-stakes debate
CNN: FCC Draft Auction Rules A Win For Google, Hi-Tech Industry
KQED Radio's Forum: Net Neutrality
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What's one of the really amazing stories? It's not that Clinton the Democratic "frontrunner" raised about $10 million less than Obama the "challenger" in the last three months or that McCain the Republican "frontrunner" is in third place in fundraising for his party. (Well, those are pretty neat.)
The story technophiles should celebrate and fear is how the Internet has enabled such an extraordinary, incredible, surprising increase in dollars collected compared to the outrageously expensive 2000 and 2004 nominating cycles. The Internet has created a new paradigm, connecting once dormant activists to politics and telling them how important money is to victory. Campaigns have mastered the Internet to reach these otherwise hard to reach small givers (those who pay $10, $25, $150). Before John McCain in 2000 and Howard Dean in 2004 showed that the information highway was paved with gold, Republicans and Democrats relied almost entirely on direct mail to reach these smaller donors. The big rubber chicken fundraising events with Barbara Streisand and Clint Black were only for those could pay $1,000 or more.
There were no cheap seats. But now, just about anyone can get in. On the one hand, there are more people voting with their pocketbook AND their ballot. On the other, it's just more money in a process already full of it.
The details are below, but take this one point as proof of the huge gap that the Internet has created between 2000 & 2004 and the beginning of this 2008 election cycle:
- Al Gore raised a TOTAL of $43 million to oust former Senator Bill Bradley (starting in 1999 and going through the Democratic National Convention in August 2000)
- John Kerry raised a TOTAL of $31 million to get rid or Dean, Clark, Gephardt, & Sharpton (from the beginning of 2003 through February 2004)
- Now in only two quarters in the year before the election Clinton has banked $63 million while Obama has collected $58.3 million and Republican leader Mitt Romney has deposited $43.9 million.
Let me restate that for those of you keeping score at home:
Gore 2000: $43 million in 6 quarters
Kerry 2004: $31 million in 5 quarters
Clinton 2008: $63 million in 2 quarters
Obama '08: $58.3 million in 2 quarters
Romney '08: 43.9 million in 2 quarters
Here are even more details for you junkies ...
2000 Nomination Season (1999 Q1 - 2000 National Convention)
Bush $ 94 million
Gore $ 43 million
2004 Nomination Season (2003 Q1 - 2004 National Convention)
Bush $ 257 million
Kerry $ 215 million ($24 million thru 1/31/04, $31 million thru 2/28/04, $74.7 million thru 3/31/04, and so on)
Dean $ 53 million
Edwards $ 33.6 million
Clark $ 29.5 million
Gephardt $ 21.5 million
2008 Season (2007 Q1 + 2007 Q2)
Clinton $ 63 million
Obama $ 58.3 million
Edwards $ 23 million
*
Romney $ 43.9 million
Giulani $ 33.6 million
McCain $ 24.2 million
To make a little more sense of these numbers and why I focused only on the nomination season, here is a primer on raising money to run for president. Candidates begin raising in January of the year before the general election. So Bush and Gore started in January of 1999 for the 2000 general election; Kerry and Bush started in January of 2003 for 2004; and all the candidates now running started only six months ago for 2008. Traditionally, candidates quit raising money at their national convention in the summer of the general election year . That's because the federal government has always paid the Democratic and Republican nominee a lump sum to run their general election campaign as long as he agrees not to raise any additional cash. (This year, however, it looks like the nominees will decline that subsidy because they believe they can raise more than the government would otherwise give them.)
* SOURCES: Federal Election Commission, OpenSecrets.org, and ABC's "The Note" (7/3/08)
It's hard to tell sometimes whether the debate over stem cell research is about politics, religion, ideology, or science. Many folks might believe that this is a Democratic-Republican thing because of the fight that went on in Congress and the White House. It ended with Bush issuing his second veto of federal funding for such research. It's not entirely clear, however, based on polling among the American people and votes taken in Congress that stem cell research is a Republican-Democratic thing.
What's the answer then? Are those little stem cells, who promise to give us some help in curing diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, blue or red?
BLUE! George Bush's second veto sure makes it look like a partisan issue. After all, he's the biggest, baddest Republican going. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership in Congress fought hard for the legislation and even used it as a powerful argument for throwing the Republicans out of power during the 2006 congressional elections.
RED! Wait just a minute, you lovers of the partisan divide. Some of the Republicans who want to replace Bush in the Oval Office, notably Senator John McCain and former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani back the expansion of federal funding for such research. (A future "tax and stem" Republican in the White House, you say?)
REDDER! There were also Republicans in Congress who supported federal funding when the House voted 247-176 for passage following a Senate pro-vote of 63-34. And what about the wife of the ultimate of ultimate Republicans, Mrs. Ronald Reagan, who openly campaigns for federal funding?
NO, NO, NO. I'M GONNA HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL I TURN ... Despite some Republican support in Congress, however, a majority of the GOP's senators and congressmen voted against federal funding for research. Moreover, public polling shows that only 49% of Republicans in the U.S . support federal funding.
THE TRUTH: STEM CELLS DON'T LIKE POLITICS. Here's the reality. A vast majority of Americans -- almost 70% -- support stem cell research. This includes Democrats, Independents, and almost half of Republicans. Sixty percent favor loosening the current Bush-imposed restrictions on federal funding, something the legislation would have done if it became law. This support has been consistently high since 2001.
Where there is a separation comes from the most socially conservative Americans, Bush included, and those Republicans who oppose federal funding for most things generally. Some would argue (that would include me) that this is not a Republican or Democratic thing, but an ideological, even anti-science, approach to public policy. Nonetheless, the political realities will make the fight appear more partisan than it really is. The Democrats will continue to use opposition among very conservative Republicans for electoral advantages by attempting to paint the entire GOP with a backwoods brush, and the Republicans will try to rally their most loyal base voters with vetoes and congressional votes.
At the end of the day, though, most Americans are not really that divided over federal funding for stem cell research. They support it. This means those stem cells free to cast their ballots for the best man, woman, or embryo ... no matter what political party he or she comes from.
To hear them tell it, they are the base of the political parties who have the power to elevate and destroy. To hear their detractors talk about it, they are know-nothing brats with a keyboard. The political blogosphere has come a long way, baby. But it's still the new kid on the block, wanting desperately to fit in but being shut out by all the self-styled cool kids that were on the playground first.
Just ask a political blogger, probably a white guy, over-educated, higher-than-average income, and in his late 30s. Fueled by technology-enhanced testosterone, these folks see themselves as enforcers of a sometimes moving ideological purity and as fighters for a cause that they, and only they, are allowed to define. Sometimes more interested in being against something (John McCain, Hillary Clinton, the "establishment," weak-kneed moderates) than being for something, many of these folks are just as likely to hit one of their own party loyalists as they are to take it out on the other side. They blame others when things don't go well and take credit when they weren't the only ones to deliver success.
For their nasty bark, though, the bloggers so far have not really shown good enough teeth for a real dogfight. The Democratic blogroll, for example, is not impressive, even in Democratic primaries where it's mostly Democrats who vote -- Howard Dean for President, Wesley Clark for President, Paul Hackett for Senate (OH), Marcy Winograd for Congress (CA). Oh, yes, and there's that guy from Connecticut. Declaring their own jihad against Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman in 2006 with comments like Matt Stoller's of MyDD, "Lieberman has no principle, no vision, and no ability to lead this country," the lefty bloggers convinced themselves that only George W. Bush himself could be worse than a moderate Democrat. Yep. Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to a wealthy venture capitalist who (shhhh!!) was really not all that liberal. But very, very few Connecticut primary voters read the blogs, even though every national political reporter did. Besides, Senator Lieberman's seeds of destruction were planted long before the digital stork delivered Web 2.0 to the pajama-clad masses. And, Lieberman won the general election, the real prize. Still a senator. And despite the guarantees by many bloggers that he would personally keep the Senate red by switching parties, he's still a Democrat. That's pretty important where a single senator switching parties would take power away from the blue team. So why should the blogs get accolades for a victory that, in the end, mattered as much as parsley?
Stop right there. You technological Luddites, you short-sighted "establishment" operatives, you blogo-phobes. Before you pat yourself on your analog back, take note. The political blogs and their readers are actually here to stay (at least until something else like mobile YouTube captures the attention of the political class). Any candidate or political party who ignores them is making a mistake that can cost them support and even do irreparable damage. The recent grassroots uprising that killed the U.S. Senate's and President Bush's immigration legislation came from conservative (and a few lefty) activists who organized using the Internet.
So blogs do matter after all? Why? First of all, the leading blog writers do not fully speak for their entire readership and, more importantly, cannot deliver their votes in a bloc. So even if the leading bloggers don't like you, Mr. and Mrs. Candidate, you might still get their readers to give you votes and (pretty please!) dollars be engaging with them in their own political arena of choice.
Second, the blogosphere -- or as one leading blogger said, "the highly engaged avant-garde of American politics" -- does represent one of many important constituencies in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. (Avante-garde? Really?) Just because a Republican candidate is not the darling of conservative Christian leaders like Pat Robertson or James Dobson, no Republican is going to ignore church-going voters. Just because a Democratic candidate is not the favorite of labor presidents or is not the darling of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, that candidate is still going to visit labor halls and talk to African-Americans.
The lesson of the way the political blogosphere has developed: just because some of the blog writers and even many blog readers do not support your candidate or cause, ignoring this vital constituency and new technology in your political endeavors would be short-sighted. Really, it would make you about as significant as that little green plant limply laying next to your steak and potatoes.
