PaaS Provides Agencies the Best of Both Worlds
For NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Platform as a Service (PaaS) offers the best of both worlds.
Tom Soderstrom, JPL's chief technology officer for IT, says that Infrastructure as a Service allows a scalability that has helped the lab out of some tough spots. For example, when the Curiosity rover landed on Mars, web traffic spiked to extremely high levels. IaaS allowed the lab to rapidly rachet up the number of servers it was using in the cloud, then decrease when demand subsided.
Using Software as a Service, the lab doesn't have to worry about the details of its software licensing. Rather than having to purchase, install, update and support an application, all the lab's IT staff has to worry about is adding a new subscription.
In situations when it has implemented PaaS, the lab has found that it derives both these benefits. A cloud platform allows the lab to scale up the software and hardware it needs for high-demand development efforts, such as during the development and testing of its Be A Martian website. The lab also avoids the headache of having to deal with purchasing the hardware and software needed for such a project.
"The cloud is really about abstraction at higher and higher levels of detail, and that's what we see with PaaS," Soderstrom says. "We don't have to worry about the infrastructure."
For the Be A Martian website, JPL used Microsoft's Azure platform, which provided the hardware and software needed during development, as well as the infrastructure required to handle the huge influx of users who registered for the site after its launch.
"Cloud computing really helped," Soderstrom says. "Immediately, we got a lot of hits, and it easily scaled up and down on demand."
As JPL improves its use of cloud computing, Soderstrom expects a hybrid cloud model — in which the lab uses elements of its own private cloud as well as services from one or more public cloud providers — to be the most useful. The lab can use its private cloud on projects that demand the highest levels of security and can turn to the public clouds for projects that require availability and scalability.
Ultimately, the cloud allows scientists and engineers at JPL to focus on their mission instead of IT details. "Focusing on getting more science from Mars is a lot more important than focusing on the details of the infrastructure," Soderstrom says. "That's the true benefit of the cloud."
Voices
"The FCC has about 200 IT systems, about 40 percent of which are more than 10 years old. With modular migration of old systems to Platform as a Service, we will modernize the FCC's legacy infrastructure and enable greater data sharing services with the public and our partners."
—Dr. David A. Bray, CIO of the Federal Communications Commission
"Cloud services like Platform as a Service eliminate the hassle and expense of constantly upgrading hardware and software infrastructure. This not only strengthens DHS' stewardship of taxpayers' dollars, it focuses more energy, innovation and resources into our first priority — the safety of the American people."
—Keith Trippie, Executive Director of the Enterprise System Development Office within the Office of the CIO of the Homeland Security Department
"Government CIOs are faced with a choice between supporting their agency mission or merely being responsible for keeping the lights on. Platform as a Service, by outsourcing operational details, allows CIOs to more effectively focus on mission requirements."
—Dan Mintz, President and Executive Director, Advanced Mobility Academic Research Center
