Open Source Applications for Office

Open source applications are primarily catalogued in SourceForge, which is a web-based source code repository. It acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage free and open source software development. It hosts over 300,000 projects and has more than 2 million registered users and attracts at least thirty million visitors.
The principal supporter of open source computing in SourceForge is the Apache Software Foundation. It provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects, which are defined by collaborative consensus and a pragmatic software license and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field.
The Apache Foundation supports over 100 of major software projects. For instance the Apache open-source server supports all modern operating systems including UNIX, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS/X and Netware. It provides observing the current standards. Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet with 65% market share.

Apache OpenOffice is free software, which means you can download it, install it for free on as many devices as you like, free to pass copies to as many users as you like. OpenOffice can be used for any purpose without any restrictions.

A free software license means never need worry whether the software is legal, or whether it will expire some day. There is no need for software audits, for keeping invoices for years, no worry about ending up in court because you misread some small print in a license agreement.
Apache OpenOffice will read and write files, which can be used in other common office software. It supports the ISO standards for office file formats. If you want to use other software, it will interface with Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac to Linux.

 Designed from the start as a single and fully integrated piece of software, Apache OpenOffice is based on the open-source development model means there are no hidden codes, but requires the “javascript” language to achieve compatibility.

It is easier (and cheaper) to move to OpenOffice from Microsoft Office than it is to upgrade to Microsoft's latest Office 2007 or Office 2010. As Microsoft updates its operating system to Windows 8 and to a new browser (Internet Explorer 10) the ability to maintain the integrity of OpenOffice applications becomes increasingly costly.

Apache OpenOffice contains all the office software in one single package. The installation includes features, which some expensive rivals do not - for example, the ability to create .pdf files when you want to guarantee what the recipient sees on their computer. There is also a growing range of extensions: additional features that any developer can provide. Releases of software take place several times a year so you can take advantage of new features as quickly as possible. OpenOffice includes the “writer – Word replacement”, “calculator – excel replacement”, “impressions, for presentations”, “draw – for graphics” as well as the “base – data application”. In effect, it provides a complete replacement for the now dominant and most profitable Microsoft Office application.

 Anyone can look at the programs and suggest improvements, or fix bugs. Anyone can report problems or request enhancements, and anyone can see the response from other users or developers. The status of current and future releases is displayed whenever one wishes to upgrade to take advantage of new features.

SUMMARY
DISA currently operates Forge.mil, which provides capabilities where developers can collaborate on open source and DoD community source applications. Forge.mil provides tools to improve the communication between teams and individuals working to solve similar problems and/or discuss similar issues. These capabilities are available only for Government authorized use.

The extent to which Forge.mil has managed to provide off-the shelf software solutions to make existing “silos” less isolated and more interoperable is not known. Apache OpenOffice is not included on Forge.mil.

Cheap Desktop Computing for the Army

If you have close to a million desktops the temptation will be to cut costs by taking one major application at a time and then proceeding with incremental consolidations into cloud services. That is what the Army is doing. They are migrating eighteen separate e-mail enclaves into a singular cloud service provided by DISA. This approach will generate savings of close $80 million/year, with the Air Force to follow subsequent to success.

One could ask if such a gradual approach is that the best way generating multi-billion IT cost reductions expected in years to come?

The slow incremental approach still leaves the Army will reliance on costly desktops and smart-phones for access to hundreds of other applications that are located on servers that support the workforce.

The Army could save more by proceeding virtualization of all of its 800,000 desktops. By cutting the configuration of costly-to-maintain desktops it could reduce five-year costs of hardware by and additional $1.6 billion. The greatest benefit would come from the reduction of infrastructure and administrative costs by $2.4 billion. The Army could accomplish this by encapsulating existing software and moving it to central cloud services.  Virtualized servers would then perform all of the configuration management, software updating and security services for desktops as well as mobile computing. When operating from a pool of virtualized servers much larger cost reductions would become available immediately.

There are additional savings available from reductions of servers in the data centers. However, the major target should be the cuts in personnel costs for maintenance of the desktop and mobile computing devices that are located at hundreds of sites where local contractors support them. It is the wide dispersion of information technology maintenance that is nowadays the greatest drain on IT budgets.

SUMMARY
As of mid-2011, at least 40% of computing workloads have been virtualized in data centers. Time has now come to extend the benefits of virtualization to end-users. Commercial firms are now making plans to scale the virtualization of desktops to thousands of widely dispersed users.

The virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) adoption rates are growing as businesses are turning to such solutions to tackle complex desktop environments, security and compliance issues. An increasingly mobile workforce can meanwhile access their desktops even when disconnected from the network.

Time has come to reach out to the millions of user devices that operate in thousands of “silos”. They should be brought into a consolidated cloud environment where much lower costs and increased security can take place.

How Secure is G-mail?

As the General Services Administration (GSA) migrates to a Google cloud services agencies are aware that a comprehensive security strategy is essential for the adoption of cloud-based computing. GSA is in the forefront of the government’s “cloud first” strategy, which is designed to lower IT costs through the adoption of cloud-based applications. Following the identical path are: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Air Force Weather Agency, US Forest Service and Food and Drug Administration.

The new policy requires federal agencies to identify three "must-move" IT services that can be migrated into cloud computing applications and to complete the migration in 2012.
Here are some of the Google user security features as defined for GSA:

1. Unified directory service plus single sign-on software that covers all applications;
2. Two-factor authentication that meets regulatory mandates for information security. Passwords plus smart cards are used for authentication.
3. Qualifies for Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification for a multi-tenant cloud application.
4. Standard web single sign-on using SAML 2.0 is in place.

A key issue of trusting Google services involves the question of data ownership:
1. Google does not own user data. The data, which users put into a Google data center remains exclusively with the user. Data cannot be shared with others except as noted in the Privacy Policy statement (http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/).
2. Data retained by Google as long as specified.
3. Data can be used to work with external services or can be removed altogether.
4. Data is stored in Google's network of geographically distributed data centers that form redundant clusters. There is no single point of failure.
5. Access to data centers is limited to only a few security-certified Google personnel.
6. Google Apps received an unqualified SAS70 Type II certification, with the following controls in place:
• Logical security: Logical access to Google Apps production systems and data is restricted to authorized individuals
• Privacy: Policies are in place that Google has implemented procedures addressing the privacy of customer data.
• Data center physical security: Data centers that house Google Apps data are protected
• Incident management and availability: Incidents are properly reported, responded to, and recorded
• Change management: Testing and independent code review takes place prior to release into production

SUMMARY
The security of Google G-mail public cloud must be compared with the security of a private cloud based on a proprietary solution, such a Microsoft e-mail hosted at a DoD site, such as DISA’s DECs. Differences are found in costs (much higher costs for private clouds) and in execution (quality of personnel in the public cloud is greater).

The security requirements that were set for proceeding with the private cloud for the Army eliminated G-mail as an option altogether. Features were added that were satisfied only by modifications and custom features delivered by Microsoft at no cost. No efforts were made to negotiate modifications of services with other vendors.

No vendor choices other than Microsoft were used in the evaluation of prospective suppliers, including already established vendors such as Amazon, CISCO and HP.  It remains to be seen whether the DISA choice of proceeding with a Microsoft-based private cloud will justify the elimination of G-mail or any other cloud vendor.

Potential Reductions in Personnel

According to the projected net savings from Army e-mail migration to DISA e-mail will be $76.1 million in FY13 and $78.5 million in FY14, ultimately rising to $86.9 million in FY17.(1)  Assuming that at least 60% of these savings will be in manpower, this is equivalent to elimination of about 950 FTEs. Savings will accrue mostly from manpower because server virtualization will reduce the costs of hardware.

The current Army e-mail costs (e.g. status quo) are $186.3 million in FY13, or 0.5% of the total IT budget of $38 billion. Assuming that at least half of the total IT budget, excluding the costs of communications, is made of manpower costs, this suggests that the maximum total potential manpower reductions for DoD could be as high as 95,000. That number assumes that all components are at least as inefficient as the Army. That is unlikely, but plausible for scoping purposes. A concerted effort to reduce IT costs could have an impact on manpower employment, which is mostly made up of contractors.

The Army is replacing at least eighteen different network enclaves in existence with redundant Microsoft Exchange Email systems across the globe. The large number of disparate and redundant networks, along with the high number of servers and personnel required to maintain them over the life cycle of the systems, resulted in high costs and significant operational inefficiencies. Most Army installations host their own Microsoft Exchange servers and employ a large support staff.

Whether such inefficiencies are typical for other DoD components cannot be used for estimating what could be the cost reduction consequences. However, the Army’s planned cuts are an indicator that elimination of contractor personnel may come to influence how implementation will be allowed to proceed.

SUMMARY
DoD is facing the potential of large reductions in the number of support personnel deployed in IT operations. This personnel is made up mostly of contractors, with a share operating under in set-aside contracts for small businesses. The political pressures of small firms on local Congressional delegations to curtail manpower reductions could become an obstacle in implementing proposed cost reduction plans.

(1) ENTERPRISE EMAIL, ARMY SERVICE ACQUISITION, REPORT TO CONGRESS. Feb 01, 2012

Thrifty Does It

The May 21, 2012 issue of Forbes magazine describes how tech company start-ups acquire information technologies without spending for the acquisition of IT overhead. These firms use commercial cloud services instead of setting up their own data centers.

DoD operates over two thousand small applications with annual budgets of less than one million dollars. These applications deal with short-term IT requirements or consist of pilots to demonstrate the feasibility of a computerized solution.

The availability of low cost cloud computing solutions has recently become a flood of offerings. Thought should now given to switching to deployments through Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas) for small applications. Later, such approach can be scaled up to multi-billion enterprise programs.
New projects need not be encumbered with the burden of elaborate planning, cost justification, development and acquisition of computers as dictated by existing Directives. Instead, DoD should adopt the method for rapidly setting up new projects cheaply and instantly. An experimental system can be tried without much risk and for a small expense. Innovative applications can be tested and even discarded without committing to multi-year expenses. After a new project demonstrates its suitability, it can be always scaled up.

The Forbes illustrated “thrifty” computing in the following table:

 

The principal advantages of low-cost operations are:
1. There is no need to acquire dedicated servers. A low-cost pool of IaaS servers is readily available so that a customer is purchasing only as-needed machine cycles available from an already standard infrastructure. Purchasing servers can be justified later after the scope of the application justifies a much larger overhead.
2. The cost of data center operating personnel is already included in run-time charges.
3. E-mail and associated Office software will be available for no charges until the scale of operations rises well beyond the original scale.
4. One of the most expensive software licenses is the charge for Oracle databases. That can be rented on a per use basis.
5. Unless security issues are involved, a new application can depend on virtual Internet to establish connectivity to and from the cloud.
6. Setting up a stand-alone application involves many added security software features, usually purchased through licensing. When developing a new application reliance on a wide variety of open source applications should suffice.

Initially thrifty computing should be used primarily for applications that do not require stringent security measures. This includes human resource management (FY12 expense of $1.7 billion), administrative and financial management ($1.1 billion), health management ($1 billion) and supply management ($3 billion).

SUMMARY
Thrifty computing offers an attractive option for immediate cost reductions. Many small-scale applications, already in process of implementation, can be encapsulated for immediate virtual migration to IaaS services, which are readily available as mature and tested environment both as public as well as private offerings.

If an IaaS service already includes in its infrastructure elaborate security safeguards, adopting a thrifty approach will deliver not only immediate dollar savings but also significant gains in information assurance.

Why Migration to the Cloud will be Difficult

A review of current IT budgets shows that most major systems investments are already deeply entrenched in old technologies.(1)   An examination of 27 major DoD systems with current spending of $9.5 billion (or 25% of total FY12 spending) shows that program investments will have a life of 13 to 35 years. So far $38.3 billion has been spent on these programs, with total expected spending to be well of $100 billions.

Any migration to cloud computing, such as converting to a shared infrastructure would require a major overhaul of software while its installation is well on its way.

The problem is that each of these programs has been conceived at a time when infrastructure and data interoperability were not in place. The prospects of achieving that while the programs are well on their way are not good. The program budgets are individually locked into spending projections that leave no funds available for starting migration towards systems that would be compatible at the enterprise level.

SUMMARY
Confronted with the prospects of achieving major savings through cloud computing methods the DoD is now presented with what appears to be an overwhelming obstacle hot to migrate to cloud computing while keeping on schedule for its major programs. One of the possible options is to save money through curtailment of service-specific programs so that they can perform enterprise functions instead.

Acceleration of program completion dates through a gradual substitution of enterprise level cloud features would be one of the options how to speed up the extrication from legacy systems.

(1) file:///G%20Files/BLOGS/Blog%20041512%202013%20IT%20Budget/Federal%20IT%20Dashboard.html 

How Efficient are the DoD Enterprise Systems?

In March 2012 the GAO prepared for the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, a report on DOD Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems. It included ten systems with total estimated current life-cycle costs of $22.7 billion. Theses systems would be replacing systems currently costing $0.89 billion. The replacement would take anywhere from seven to fourteen years. When finally installed, these systems would cost from $350 per uses to $207,561 per use to support operating personnel as shown in the table below. Calculating the payback as the ratio of currently estimated life cycle costs divided by the current operating cost of legacy systems, the payback ranges between 8.3 to 168 years. The current technology life is shorter than seven years.

Neither the project time line that averages ten years nor the projected payback that exceeds technology life appear to make the current DoD ERP’s an economically sound investment.

The above table is not a complete enumeration of existing ERP systems. For instance the huge Navy NEXTGEN ERP and many others are not included. However, a great deal can be learned from an examination of what we know about the economics of DoD ERP investments.

1. The IT costs per user suggest that the systems are necessarily complex and require a considerable spending for training and education. The IT life-cycle costs do not include the payroll expenses for military and civilian personnel and therefore the ongoing operating costs will be understated.

2. The elongation of the project time line can be largely explained by the architectural design how ERP’s are planned, designed, programmed and implemented. Each ERP is contracted for as a separate project wherein the design of the software and operating practices are defined separately at the contract level. Therefore, commonality of architecture does not occur.

3. Each system is driven by the rapid obsolescence of legacy systems in place. Therefore project management must negotiate with stakeholders not only the capabilities of the replacement system but also changes that are made in the interfaces existing or related applications. Such negotiation is time consuming, requires continuous modification of requirements and upgrading of features and functions as the project progresses. User executive will remain in place only for a much shorter time than the duration of the project. Therefore during the project revisions in scope will slow progress and increase costs.

4. The costs of every ERP will be inflated by the local variations in programming codes, but application interfaces, by adaptations to data center operating environment and by continued revisions in systems a requirements as new interface interoperability is injected in to specifications.

 SUMMARY
The current approach to conceiving and implementing DoD ERPs is not sustainable even if ample funds would be available to support excessive design practices. The project time line can be shortened through adoption of a standard Plaform-as-a-Service process. The multitude of systems interfaces that will maintain interoperability during the transition from legacy to DoD ERP standards must comply with open source formats. Most importantly, the ability of multiple systems to maintain workable interfaces must be based on central control of data, because inconsistencies in data definitions and data formats imposes a large burden on program managers in trying to protect the utility of a stand-alone ERP.

In the future new efforts to start a DoD ERP will have to be guided by strong central direction that will dictate architecture and network organization. Without such guidance the current progress to complete largely obsolete stand-alone ERP will become a major impediment in delivering cyber operations readiness.