In most cases, a standard SOA environment won't fail too badly if forklifted into a cloud. SOA’s weak decoupling works fairly well as a starting pattern in a cloud environment. There is another step to decoupling applications for cloud environments, something I'm going to call “Cloud Oriented Architecture.”

The latest Google asset we’ve made available: an infographic, “Next Generation Emergency Response from Google Enterprise.”

This week in Technically News: Federal Contractors Should Implement Cybersecurity in Operations & Products, Says DoD & GSA; 20 Cloud Computing Statistics Every CIO Should Know; One Way Lawmakers Are Trying to Prevent Government IT Disasters; Internet of Things Adds to Cybersecurity Challenge; FedRAMP Deadline Looms For Agencies, Cloud Providers

Last week, I attended the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) - National Capital Area (NCA) chapter meeting featured a panel of government experts describing the “elephants” of digital health strategies, communications, and engagements.

This week in Technically News: NIST Drops Privacy Appendix From Cybersecurity Framework; Integrate Cybersecurity with Federal Cloud Computing Adoption, Says Karen Evans; How FedRAMP Lifts All Cloud Ships.

Recently, DLT Solutions and Autodesk presented a three-part webinar series entitled “What Does Infrastructure Success Look Like?” The series explored how agencies are overcoming the challenges of infrastructure modernization projects and driving success in today’s landscape. Megan lists her highlights.

This week in Technically News: Top 10 Influencers in Government InfoSec; Why Cyber Security Is Not Enough: You Need Cyber Resilience; Dell Software Addresses Agency Needs in BYOD, Big Data and Security; Fixing Government Tech: Innovation Against IT Cartels and Complex Systems; Secret to BYOD: Make Security an Enabler.

You can now access hundreds of the AU 2013 classes online for free. In the meantime, here’s our recommendation of seven classes that you won’t want to miss!

Virtualization is the fancy, not-so-new-ish technology that everyone wants to deploy right now. But how do we protect such a technology?

This week in Technically News: Bureaucracy and Modern Technology: Can the Government Deliver on Big Projects?; Roundup of Cloud Computing and Enterprise Software Predictions for 2014; Google Platforms Will Invade the Enterprise This Year; “VA Open Data” Launched; Federal Government on Digital Data Diet.