US Air Force Seeks Cyber Security in a Cloud
The effects of the global economic downturn, including shrinking tax revenues and budget constraints, are causing governments everywhere to tighten their belts and look for ways to operate more efficiently
Among the possible technology solutions, cloud computing is capturing a lot of attention for its cost-savings potential especially in the U.S., where the Obama Administration has called for more extensive adoption of cloud computing in federal agencies to improve information technology efficiency, reduce costs, and provide a standard platform for delivering government services.
In a cloud computing model, IT resources are shared and delivered as services over the Internet. Similar to web shopping, organizations can go on-line to provision the applications, servers, storage devices, systems or entire infrastructures they need, and pay only for what they use. Because IT resources are pooled, cloud users have a virtually unlimited supply of computing power available for their use.
However, the big stumbling block to widespread cloud adoption in government is security. How do you protect sensitive, often classified government data from the ever-growing threats of cyber attack if the data resides in cloud somewhere? How can you control your network if you can't see and touch the physical infrastructure?
The U.S. Department of Defense's Air Force has decided to tackle this security issue head-on. During the next 10 months, military personnel will work alongside IBM researchers, software architects, cyber security experts and analytics specialists, as well as with representatives from other U.S. federal agencies, to figure out how to make a cloud computing environment – whether it is a private, public or hybrid 'community' cloud -- more secure so that it conforms to the government's very high security and network resiliency requirements.
This project will test the ability of advanced technologies such as analytics and stream computing to impart new intelligence into a cloud environment so that it can protect itself – by automatically shutting down a vulnerable system or moving an application from one system to another, for example – if there a cyber attack or system failure occurs.
There's no question that cloud computing, which has evolved from technologies like grid computing, utility computing, and Software as a Service, represents a new, efficient, and highly flexible supply chain for IT. But can a cloud also be made self-protective and "smart"? Can stream computing, which analyzes massive data flows in real time, be used to sense anomalies in the U.S. Air Force's huge network?
The truth is, this is uncharted territory. U.S. Air Force Chief Information Officer Lieutenant General William Lord noted that the goal is to demonstrate how cloud computing can be a tool that enables the Air Force to manage, monitor and secure the information flowing through its network. That network manages the operations of nine major commands, nearly 100 bases, and 700,000 active military personnel around the world.
I applaud the U.S. Air Force for recognizing that new thinking, new technologies, and new levels of collaboration between government and industry will be required to find viable solutions to the global security issue. There's no question that both the public and private sectors stand to benefit from the results.
John S. Fairfield, Director of Strategic Business Relationships for IBM's U.S. Federal Business and retired Lieutenant General in the US Air Force
