Government Track at Cloud Expo

Mark Kryzko spoke in Washington today about how the Cloud is helping the DoD to buy weapons systems more wisely.

"How does the DoD, a huge bureaucracy, get data to flow fast enough to get what it needs to do done?" Kryzko asked out loud, before answering that $1.6 trillion is spent by the DoD on major weapons systems, and that what now supports the decision-making - thanks to Cloud Computing - is something called Acquisition Information Visibility.

"Acquisition Visibillity" is basically an umbrella term for asking the right questions, noted Mark Krzysko, Acting Deputy Director ARA, EI &OS.

Kryzko then described how, back in February 2008, the team he was involved in chose 12 systems - divisible into 4 major weapons systems programs per service, across the three services, Arm, Navy, and Military - and ran a pilot in 2008-2009 to work out the best way to keep 61 data elements up to date and make them transparent - to transform data into information and the sustain it in real time.

In December 2008 the project provided acquisition oversight decision-making information for 37 Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) totalling approx. $1.2 trillion program value.

In the Fall of 2009 the pilot scaled up to 102 MDAPs and other major programs totalling approx $1.67 trillion. By June the aim will be to supply acquisition oversight decision-making information for ALL major programs.

The cloud changes some of the dynamics of how people work together, he explained. There are five different authoritative sources and twenty common accounting definitions, just for starters.

"We have decades ahead of us in terms of getting this to work," because there are many barriers still to be overcome in terms of sheer resistance to change.

His team is really beginning to think about  Acquisition Information Visibility as being provided via services.

What is the moral of all this, Kryzko asked rhetorically.

In the best line of the morning so far here in Washington DC, the moral he said, is that "It's not about the Cloud [in itself]. Clouds are ragged, they're not perfect little circles."

He added: "Clouds are only important if it rains."