cloud computing market The DOE National Laboratories deploy cloud services for scientific computing. U.S. Department of Energy is developing the high-bandwidth networking to transport the high volumes of data between DOE and cloud service providers required by scientific computing. The National Laboratories are also exploring hybrid solutions which would give them the ability to maintain control over the user authorization process while using cloud services such as email, calendaring and collaboration tools for instances which require strong authentication of service users.

A recent study of Market Research Media “U.S. Federal Cloud Computing Market Forecast 2010-2015” forecasts that U.S. Government spending on cloud computing enters an explosive growth phase – at about 40% CAGR over the next six years, with federal cloud computing expenditure to pass $7 billion by 2015.

Cloud computing is a pay-per-use model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable and reliable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal user effort or service provider interaction.

DOE deploys the cloud concept with its federal partners to identify opportunities to provide better service at lower cost through cloud services. The cloud model comprises five key characteristics, three delivery models, and four deployment models.

The key characteristics are:

  • On-Demand Self-Service Graphic representation of Cloud Computing showing a cloud in the center labeled with various services. Services include Servers, Networks, and Storage; Email and Calendaring; Web Two-point-oh services such as You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Wikis; and Software Applications. Surrounding the cloud are individual user desktop stations all connecting to the cloud.
  • Universal Network Access
  • Pooled Cloud Provider Resources
  • Rapid Flexibility
  • Pay Per Use

The delivery models are:

  • Infrastructure-As-A-Service
  • Platform-As-A-Service
  • Software-As-A-Service

The deployment models are:

  • Private Cloud
  • Community Cloud
  • Public Cloud
  • Hybrid Cloud

Several labs are exploring new collaborative social networking systems for communication with the public, for example Twitter (headlines with links), YouTube channel (video), and Flickr (photos) as distribution channels for news items.