The journey to the cloud can be a long and complicated process for any company, regardless of size. Now imagine how monumental of a task it is for an agency like NASA. Seeing the potential benefits offered through cloud computing, NASA decided to move many of its operations to the cloud starting in March 2013. The process started small and grew gradually, making for an enormous project that is still ongoing. Deploying to the cloud is no small matter, and NASA has plenty of concerns that other organizations dont have. As the cloud transition continues, NASA is beginning to reap some of the same benefits other businesses experience once they move to the cloud. The challenges the space agency face can also be instructive to companies that are planning a similar change.
The true scope of NASAs migration to the cloud is impressive to say the least. NASA chose to deploy cloud solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the leading cloud provider in the world. AWS has unique features that NASA found appealing, mainly the presence of both public and private cloud options, which would help the agency in placing types of data where it needed to go to remain secure. During the first 22 weeks of the transition, more than 60 software applications were moved to Amazons cloud. One of those applications was NASAs actual public home website, which featured a wealth of content. As the transition continued, NASA would eventually place up to 150 applications and websites up on the cloud, but these moves are only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of websites, intranets, and extranets still remain, waiting for their own move.
NASA had many goals in mind when it decided to transition to the cloud. One of the biggest was to increase collaboration among people within the agency. The move to the cloud essentially created a repository for code sharing and reuse among agency members, giving them the added capability to share data among each other. This collaboration wouldnt just help on projects but on missions as well. Some of the results can be seen in the well documented Mars rover mission. By moving to the cloud, NASA enabled IT workers to become integrated into mission teams. Including their expertise allowed agency members to utilize big data cloud computing to be able to download, analyze, and transmit data during specified timetables — an especially important feature when communication with the rover involves long delays.
Its this information sharing that NASA hopes will be a huge boost to the scientific community at large. Collaboration isnt just intended for people within the organization. By adopting the cloud, NASA is looking to share their data and impressive computing resources with other experts, which would hopefully lead to major scientific breakthroughs. This can be seen in a contest NASA held last year which used the NASA Open Earth Exchange platform allowing data scientists and other experts to access valuable earth sciences data, which opens the door to new perspectives and ideas.
Some of the other benefits of adopting cloud computing are similar to those seen by normal private sector businesses. NASA wanted the cloud to bring down costs, and thats exactly what has happened. No final tally has been released since the full transition isnt complete yet, but NASA officials are already stating that the move to the cloud has saved millions of dollars, with some estimating it has cut up to 25 percent in operations and maintenance costs for the agencys data infrastructure. Transitioning to the cloud has also increased the agencys operational efficiency, making it easier to manage applications and software. For example, updating the organizations websites went from a lengthy twenty minutes to only a couple of minutes.
NASAs move to use cloud computing wasnt without its challenges. Security was of course a major concern, and confidential information still hasnt made the transition. Many applications were running on outdated systems as well, which meant updating them before they could be moved. Even with these challenges, cloud computing was deemed worth the effort, and the strategy has already paid big dividends. For companies still asking, What is cloud computing?, they can look to NASA as an example of how beneficial such a move can be. Embracing the cloud is no small matter, but the growth it provides for the future makes it a good investment.
