Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken heeft een raamcontract getekend met een tiental leveranciers. Het gaat om de afname van verschillende cloud diensten vanaf 2016 tot 2020. De totale waarde hiervan bedraagt zo’n $10 miljard en zal naar verwachting ongeveer $100 miljoen aan besparingen opleveren.
De eerste stap betreft de afname van SAP uit de cloud. Daarna volgen virtuele machines, storage, database hosting, beveiligde file transmissie, web hosting en test & ontwikkeling.
Het geheel valt onder de paraplu van het eerder gepubliceerde 25-punten plan om de IT van de Amerikaanse overheid te hervormen. Een onderdeel van dat plan is de “cloud first” policy. Deze richtlijn leunt onder meer op het argument van de schaalbaarheid, waarbij het volgende voorbeeld wordt aangehaald:
In the private sector, a web-based multimedia production company used the cloud to allow anyone with access to an Internet connection the ability to create their own fully customized, professional-quality, TV-like videos. Consumers can then share the resulting videos with friends and family across the world. The cloud allowed for a rapid response when demand jumped from 25,000 users to more than 250,000 users in three days, eventually reaching a peak rate of 20,000 new customers every hour. Because of the cloud, the company was able to scale from 50 to 4,000 virtual machines in three days to support increased demand on a real-time basis.
In contrast, the Federal Government’s Car Allowance and Rebate System (CARS, more commonly known as “Cash-For-Clunkers”) failed when faced with peak loads. To process the anticipated 250,000 transactions, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) deployed a customized commercial application hosted in a traditional data center environment on June 19, 2009. When dealer registrations began on July 24, 2009, demand far exceeded initial projections, and within three days, the system was overwhelmed, leading to numerous unplanned outages and service disruptions. Ultimately, approximately 690,000 CARS transactions were processed. However, lacking the ability to scale rapidly, system stability was not achieved until August 28, 2009, over a month after registrations started coming in.
Bron: U.S. Department of the Interior
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