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c o n t a c t @ g r a v i t a n t . c o m

Ilyas Iyoob, PhD

Sowmya Rao

While cloud computing offers many advantages, the path to

cloud adoption presents many challenges. In a single platform,

Gravitant's tools cut through the complexity to enable

government agencies to quantify demand, plan capacity,

procure IT services, provision on-demand, and manage and

optimize IT services. Already successfully implemented at

multiple Texas state agencies, Gravitant’s cloudMatrix tool

increases agency responsiveness and optimizes costs while

increasing capital and operational efficiencies. Even at the

federal level, cloudMatrix can help government agencies

improve the experience of leveraging cloud IT.

Cloud Solution for

Federal Government

The Gravitant Way

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Key Features of a Secure Cloud

Environment for the Federal

Government

1. Multi-provider provisioning &

compliance

2. Fed-certified cloud providers

3. Integration with existing data-

centers – private/hybrid clouds

4. Connectivity to existing security

frameworks

5. Complete cost transparency

6. Recalibration based on historical

data

Visit the Gravitant Blog for full article

Introduction

Currently the federal government’s IT is “…characterized by low asset utilization, fragmented

demand for resources, difficult to manage environments, low procurement times, and a

decreasing IT budget.” These issues have an adverse effect on agency ability to serve the public

in a timely and efficient manner. With the recent paradigm shift in IT from physical data centers

to virtualized data centers in the cloud, government agencies can take advantage of on-demand

provisioning of platforms, software, applications, data and other services while controlling

resources, cost and meeting ever changing demands. By allowing federal agencies to own less

and do more, cloud computing has the potential to address current inefficiencies and improve

government service delivery.

However, despite the many benefits of these IT

advances, government agencies face challenges in

their path to adopting cloud. For example, improper

or insufficient cloud planning may result in high

migration cost and vendor lock-in. Further challenges

may arise for users already running in the cloud such

as VM sprawl and unexpected licensing costs. Issues

surrounding governance such as provider non-

compliance and chargeback also require further

understanding and clarification.

As a comprehensive response to these challenges and

others, Gravitant has created cloudMatrixTM - the

industry’s first Cloud Operating Environment (COE),

which has been successfully implemented at multiple

Texas state agencies.

Using Gravitant tools, agencies can perform pre -

migration screening, capacity planning, cross provider

application deployment, auto provisioning,

consolidated billing, utilization and cost monitoring,

chargeback, and governance through command and

control dashboards.

As a result, the federal government can effectively meet demand while optimizing the IT supply

chain for agility, responsiveness, and cost while maintaining acceptable levels of service.

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Path to the Cloud Gravitant’s process of cloud migration and ongoing operations management involves screening,

planning, solution configuration, sourcing, monitoring and governance. Recalibration is another

important step to ensure continuous improvement and course correction.

Screening & Planning

From reducing costs to optimizing performance, the advantages of cloud technology are

plentiful. But not all applications are suitable for the cloud. Certain operating systems and

infrastructure combinations are more cloud friendly than others. Moreover, some applications

have many dependencies and can be migrated only if the dependent applications are migrated

as well. Thus, for federal agencies to get the most out of this solution, it is important they plan

ahead and first determine which applications are even cloud-compatible.

Gravitant’s cloudScreenTM tool specifically helps agencies assess an application portfolio for

cloud feasibility and value to ultimately determine the best candidates for cloud migration.

Taking factors of operating systems, infrastructure and application dependencies into

consideration, cloudScreenTM evaluates application feasibility in the cloud, identifies the target

infrastructure, estimates cloud readiness and value to finally select the best candidate

application for cloud migration within the given budget and time constraints.

Once a target application has been identified, federal agencies can build a business case for

migration beginning with capacity planning - a vital component of cloud computing adoption

that involves understanding necessary cloud resource requirements in order to meet the

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Using automation, cloudMatrix delivers efficient cloud planning, sourcing, monitoring,

application architecture deployment and governance processes for accelerated adoption and

value-based control of cloud business models.

Learn more in our “Intro to the Business of the Cloud” whitepaper found on CloudBook.net.

anticipated demand. Proper planning allows federal agencies to predict their reserved capacity

requirements and allocate IT budgets to cost-effectively meet agency goals while minimizing

risk. Using Gravitant’s cloudWizTM tool, federal agencies can predict the cost and revenue

impact of replacing physical servers with a cloud solution.

Agencies can also compare cloud service providers side-by-side with respect to cost and quality

of service. The optimization models are designed to automatically filter out providers that do

not satisfy constraints and propose a set of optimal providers based on user defined goals.

Finally, the expected ROI is estimated which provides the basis for a cloud migration business

case.

While cloudScreenTM and cloudWizTM are designed specifically to help with the screening and

planning stages of the cloud migration process, cloudMatrixTM serves as the Cloud Operating

Environment for the remainder of the migration and operations management process.

Solution Configuration & Sourcing

Gravitant’s cloudMatrixTM connects many cloud service providers into a standardized catalog

and then exposes it through a simple drag and drop design interface for agencies to create their

own unique cloud solution across multiple providers. The interface is essentially a one stop

shop for IT managers to design, order, provision and manage all their IT resources.

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The intuitive nature of the interface allows complex application architecture to be designed

across multiple providers in minutes. New environments and architectural layers can be

introduced into the custom architecture with compute, network, and storage resources

followed by the addition of ancillary services such as shared storage, VPN security, VLAN

network, and backup etc.

Furthermore, the simulation capability in cloudMatrixTM allows agency IT managers to model

the application architecture and view the estimated cost prior to placing the order. As a result,

multiple scenarios can be simulated to identify the most desirable application architecture.

Once an order is placed, an automated order workflow and approvals process kicks in requiring

technical, legal, and financial approvals. The approvers will be notified before the order is

submitted to the cloud service provider(s). At the end of each month, the agency will receive

one consolidated bill across all the providers for the application deployed on the cloud.

Monitoring & Governance

Monitoring and governance capabilities with real time visibility into virtual machine

performance are essential for agencies to identify problems in multiple clouds before these

issues impact SLAs and QoS. With cloudMatrix, agencies can assign resources upfront to track

actual resource utilization and cost across applications and providers. The inbuilt chargeback

mechanism allocates cost among the applications based on agency defined budget rules. As a

result, agencies can track provider performance through SLA compliance and quarantine

noncompliant providers.

In addition, cloudMatrixTM allows agencies to go back at any time through a feedback

mechanism whenever cloud capacity requirements change or when a selected provider fails to

meet expectations. Agencies can recalibrate their reserved capacity and provider selection

based on real-time monitored data values. This control is essential for federal agencies as it

eliminates vendor lock-in and ensures minimal cost through constant course correction.

Conclusion

With IT projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars, taking years to deploy and delivering

potentially outdated technologies and solutions by the time of deployment, the federal

government especially can benefit from the advantages of cloud computing. Gravitant’s cloud

planning and management tools currently in place at a number of Texas state agencies have

simplified and automated the cloud adoption process. We believe the federal government can

leverage this success and use Gravitant’s technology to navigate seamlessly into the cloud.