Dogwood in Manassas, Virginia, and Cactus in Phoenix are configured identically: operating three times faster than their predecessors at 12.1 petaflops and boasting double the storage at 26 petabytes each.

NOAA awarded General Dynamics IT the first, $150 million task order on the $505.2 million Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS) contract in February 2020 with the goal of improving models guiding forecasts.

“As forecasts become more accurate, and weather and climate events become more extreme, the public needs more detailed forecast information further in advance,” Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service, said on a press call Tuesday. “And this takes more advanced computing.”

The twin Hewlett Packard Enterprise Cray supercomputers, ranked 49th and 50th fastest in the world by the TOP500 project, will provide NOAA’s NWS with:

• high-resolution models that better capture small-scale features like severe thunderstorms,
• more realistic model physics that better represent the formation of clouds and precipitation,
• a larger number of individual model simulations to better quantify confidence in results, and
• improved use of billions of weather observations to better forecast.

Dogwood and Cactus will further pave the way for fall upgrades to the Global Forecast System (GFS), air quality models, and ocean-going and Great Lakes wave prediction systems.

NOAA is moving from deterministic models to ensemble-based systems that couple atmosphere and oceans, giving forecasters the ability to assess the probability something might happen.

“Being able to provide probabilistic information to the public, through the use of ensemble-based modeling systems, is going to be a very exciting change coming up,” said Brian Gross, director of NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center.

NOAA further plans to launch a new hurricane forecast model, the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS), ahead of the 2023 hurricane season — pending tests and evaluations. HAFS replaces two legacy systems, and will predict the track and intensity of tropical cyclones.

NWS will be able to extend hurricane forecasts to seven days, Graham said. 

Dogwood and Cactus’ predecessors were located in Reston, Virginia, and Orlando, Florida — a problem if a catastrophic weather event hit the East Coast downing both. That’s why the new supercomputers are hosted on opposite sides of the country.

WCOSS is an eight-year base contract with a two-year renewal. While its predecessor included performance enhancements on the front end — requiring IBM to guarantee price performance 10 years out — NOAA only required GDIT to propose the first task order award for this contract.

“I’m actually really excited about that because it leaves us open to be able to look at what are experiences on the existing system, where we need to make improvements in balance in the computing system, or as different technologies evolve we can take advantage of those and not be strapped to that initial price performance guess,” said Dave Michaud, director of NWS’s Office of Central Processing.

NOAA anticipates the second phase task order, covering the last five years of the contract, will be awarded in the 2024-25 timeframe.

The agency will work with GDIT to identify industry trends and incorporate those, along with any new computing requirements, into the next phase of WCOSS.

“We’ve actually left that wide open,” Michaud said.

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In a recent video interview series, produced by Scoop News Group, we invited agency and industry leaders to share how they are taking steps to embrace this hybrid cloud operating approach.

The series, Hybrid Cloud Transformation in Government, sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprises, was filmed between September and October, 2021.

The merits of bringing cloud capabilities to data and applications hosted on-prem

Sheena Burrell, deputy CIO for the National Archives and Records Administration says that while “allowing a cloud-based resources to work on data that stored on prem, without the need to move the data back and forth…decreases cost,” security concerns also need to be considered in deciding how to build the cloud interface.

The Small Business Administration is also weighing the benefits of hybrid cloud for their cybersecurity initiatives, CTO Sanjay Gupta says that cloud is enabling the agency to modernize their cybersecurity tools and meet requirements from the recent cybersecurity executive order.

And according to Brian Falvey, vice president for GreenLake Cloud Services at Hewlett Packard Enterprises, organizations across the public sector are all facing their own challenges around refactoring certain applications into the cloud, especially when it comes to costs, meeting regulatory mandates and security. That’s partly why HPE developed GreenLake — so that agencies can “take advantage of the benefits, the elasticity, and so forth that come with the experience of being in public cloud” for data stored on premise or in a private cloud.

How adopting cloud capabilities is making a difference for mission services

Burrell shares that NARA began to move to its data to the cloud to address performance and scaling issues with large data sets. They adopted a pay-as-you-go model to take advantage of cloud resources and lower costs.

Now, she says, NARA is working with the Veterans Administration to digitizing those records. 

“When they’re digitizing those records, they’re putting it in the cloud, but we have another one premise application that we use to provide those records back to military veterans. So this means that we have a totally on prem solution for the application. But our data is in the cloud,” says Burrell

States like New Jersey are also leaning into a hybrid cloud approach, says CTO Christopher Rein.

“New Jersey, just within the past three to four months [has] embarked on a journey of taking a large mainframe that supports our executive branch and we move that to a mainframe-as-a-service, cloud operating environment. That’s going to allow us to take some of the folks that have been doing base level operating system, hardware and software support and shift some of their skill sets to more operating a direct citizen focused service,” he shares.

John Evans, chief technology adviser at World Wide Technology adds that the evidence points to be advantages of cloud-as-a-service vs traditional cloud computing, especially when it comes to making real-time decisions. 

For example, “getting access to medical records as quickly as possible could make a difference in many scenarios. And this fast access to data or systems is definitely not limited to healthcare. There are a lot of examples that I think we could cite across law enforcement, defense, etc. where data is needed as quickly as possible to make real-time decisions.” 

In the end, it all comes down to strategic planning says Kimberly Bailey, CIO for the City of Memphis. She shares how her office coordinated a capacity and redundancy study to look at all applications being used across the city to determine what belongs in the cloud.

“Knowing all of what’s in our environment is very important. And as we decide what makes most sense, that will work. So we will be doing this over the next year to making sure that things are on point.”

Hear more from the executives:

• Brian Falvey, VP, GreenLake Cloud Services, Hewlett Packard Enterprises
• Christopher Rein, CTO, State of New Jersey
• John Evans, Chief Technology Adviser, World Wide Technology
• Kimberly Bailey, CIO, City of Memphis
• Sanjay Gupta, CTO, Small Business Administration
• Sheena Burrell, Deputy CIO, National Archives and Records Administration

This video series was produced by Scoop News Group and sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

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According to respondents in the survey, 75% agree that establishing a hybrid IT environment — both on-prem and in the cloud — offers the best ROI over the next three to five years. 

Read the full report.

The survey, “The Hybrid Cloud Debate,” produced by FedScoop and underwritten by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, asked 212 IT decision makers from federal civilian, defense and intelligence agencies — plus system integrators — about their post-pandemic IT strategies and priorities. 

Among the findings, 76% of respondents agree that modernizing or upgrading their existing data center operations offers the best ROI over the next three to five years. But nearly as many also agree that moving existing data center operations to a federally-authorized cloud (68%), or to a dedicated private cloud platform (64%) — also offer strong returns on IT investments over that time frame as well.

While agencies differ on what mix of cloud and on-prem structure works best, respondents indicate their agencies are committed to a hybrid model. Looking ahead two years from now, fully 41% of respondents — a reduction from 50% currently — expect their agencies will devote 70% or more of IT spending to on-prem infrastructure, applications and IT services. 

“When considering aspects of on-prem versus cloud, how the data is secure in transit and at rest always needs to be the leading decision factor,” shared Scott Cassady, sales director for U.S. public sector PointNext Services at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, after an initial review of the report’s findings. 

The study examines the biggest motivators and challenges that small, medium and large agencies face in pursuing pay-on-demand, or IT-as-a-service solutions in managing their IT operations. IT gauges current perceptions about the costs of moving data in and out of cloud platforms and whether agencies believe they have the requisite skills to develop and maintain a hybrid cloud environment.

Fortunately for federal agencies, a shortage of in-house IT skills agencies familiar with how to build and operate a hybrid cloud environment appears not to be as dire a concern as it once was.

“Today, agencies can leverage cloud — either on- or off-premises — where refactoring and recoding is never a requirement to be operational,” said Cassady.

The study concludes with suggestions on what agencies should consider as they continue to build out their hybrid IT environments.

Download the report, “The Hybrid Cloud Debate” to read more about what agency leaders are considering as they create their hybrid IT strategies.

This article was produced by FedScoop and sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

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Under the contract 10-year contract, HPE will provide fully managed, on-premise, secure cloud services through its GreenLake platform.

GreenLake is a pay-per-use cloud platform that provides cloud services for servers, storage and networking, as well as a range of applications, including container management and machine learning. It was first launched by HPE in 2017.

According to HPE, the contract will help support the NSA’s growing use of artificial intelligence and data and offer it new forecasting and analysis tools.

“Implementing artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics capabilities on massive sets of data increasingly requires High Performance Computing (HPC) systems,” said Justin Hotard, HPE senior vice president and general manager.

“By using the HPE GreenLake platform, which delivers secure on-premises solutions as a service, the NSA is gaining industry-leading HPC solutions to tackle a range of complex data needs, but with a flexible, as a service experience.”

Government agencies are increasingly turning to pay-per-use cloud computing contracts as they seek greater storage flexibility amid an exponential increase in the volume of data being processed.

Take NASA as an example — the agency’s move to the cloud was in large part driven by the need to accommodate the vast volume of data it receives from space, Joe Foster, cloud computing program manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said recently.

“It’s saved us money, in terms of investing in infrastructure, and it’s allowed us to refocus those dollars into things like upgrading the actual satellite antennae themselves,” he said at the time.

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Thursday, NASA and Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced that they will test the limits of the term “edge computing” with a new computer designed to deliver artificial intelligence in space. Later this month, the new Spaceborne Computer-2 will become the first high-performance commercial computer to operate in space on the International Space Station.

HPE says Spaceborne Computer-2 will allow astronauts to process data that used to take months in mere minutes. Once launched and assembled in space, NASA will use it for at least the next two years, giving astronauts the power to use AI and other advanced computing capabilities that were once out of reach in space.

Bringing this type of computing capability to space “is just the first step in NASA’s goals for supporting human space travel to the Moon, Mars and beyond where reliable communications is a mission critical need,” HPE said in its release.

“The most important benefit to delivering reliable in-space computing with Spaceborne Computer-2 is making real-time insights a reality. Space explorers can now transform how they conduct research based on readily available data and improve decision-making,” said Dr. Mark Fernandez, HPE’s principal investigator for Spaceborne Computer-2.

Getting and using computers in space is no easy task. First, just putting the hardware into orbit involves shooting it on a rocket — rattling, shaking and jolting through the atmosphere for minutes on end. Once in space, if the computer’s complex circuits still work, the zero-gravity environment and constant exposure to the sun’s radiation present further challenges. However, Spaceborne Computer-2 was built off a prototype launched into orbit in 2017. And HPE specially designed it to sustain operations in space, along with software coded for space-based work.

Astronauts will use the computer to process data from the space station, satellites, cameras and other sensors. Loaded with the necessary graphics processing units (GPUs), Spaceborne Computer-2 will be ready to process everything from photos of polar ice caps to medical images of the astronauts’ health, according to the news release. The GPUs’ processing power will be enough to fuel AI and machine learning capabilities, eliminating the need to send data back to earth for ground-based processing.

“Edge computing provides core capabilities for unique sites that have limited or no connectivity, giving them the power to process and analyze data locally and make critical decisions quickly,” said Shelly Anello, general manager of converged edge systems at HPE.

HPE partnered with Microsoft Azure to provide additional compute resources through its Azure Space cloud capability recently launched to support NASA, Space Force and other partners.

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Perspecta — a technology company formed from the merger of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s public sector business with Vencore Holding Corp. and KeyPoint Government Solutions in March 2018 — filed a protest through its subsidiary Enterprise Services LLC on Feb. 19 over the agency’s award of its new NASA End-user Services & Technologies (NEST) to Leidos this month.

The NEST deal is set to take the place of NASA’s previous IT services contract, the Agency Consolidated End-user Services (ACES), which HPE, now a part of Perspecta, won in 2011.

The agency said in its performance work statement that the NEST contract — which is set to run through 2029 — will provide it with more flexibility to deliver end-user services, including mobile-friendly functionality, cloud-based resources and built-in security.

But the protest halts the contract until GAO rules on whether to sustain it. The office has until May 30 to render a decision, barring any potential settlement being reached.

The contract has not been without controversy. NASA officials moved in October to extend the ACES award until 2021, but that never panned out.

NASA CIO Renee Wynn also denied the contract an authority to operate in 2016, saying she had not received enough reporting data to inform the agency’s cyber risk-determination, namely centered on endpoint device numbers and software patch updates. Wynn testified in November 2016 that HPE had “stepped up” to quickly provide her with the requested data and that she signed the ATO in a matter of days.

The protest comes as other large government IT contracts have been delayed amid industry protests, namely the Department of Defense’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract.

The potential $10 billion deal has been the subject of a protest by Oracle in the Court of Federal Claims, but the case was recently stayed due to a conflict of interest investigation being conducted by the DOD.

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VA’s inspector general found in a recent audit that the department obligated $431 million to HP Enterprise Services — which since merged with CSC to become DXC Technology in April — since 2013 for development of the Real Time Location System “without a Government acceptance of a functional RTLS solution.” The system is supposed digitally track medical equipment and devices so that “medical staff have optimal equipment and supplies to treat Veterans” in a safe manner, according to the VA.

The report substantiates the depiction of the project in reports earlier this year, which revealed private communications among VA officials who expressed fear of a “catastrophic failure of the program as a whole.”

Per the original contract, which has a $543 million ceiling, the entire system was supposed to be functional sometime this year. But the IG found that VA and HPE weren’t even able to launch a pilot to one of the department’s Veterans Integrated Service Networks — the first, $7.5 million task order under the contract. That was scheduled to be completed by December 2013, but after hundreds of functionality defects and renegotiations to that specific task order, the parties terminated it.

Late last year, VA renegotiated the total contract “due to the vendor’s inability to implement a functional RTLS solution,” the IG’s report explains.

“Specifically, VA executed a Global Settlement Agreement that resulted in extensive changes to the vendor’s contract requirements, to include expiration of task orders for [two service networks], reduction in scope of RTLS applications deployed, extension of the contract period of performance through June 2018, and commitment of $431 million in total costs to the vendor as of December 2016,” it says. “According to the agreement, VA also released the contractor from any liability claims related to prior performance on the contract.”

Still, the IG concluded, “given the uncertainty of the project, future RTLS cost estimates are unknown. Moving forward, VA must exercise cost control, sound financial stewardship, and discipline in RTLS development.”

The IG pointed at VA’s lack of program management and oversight as the lead cause for the project’s lack of progress.

“VA deployed RTLS assets without appropriate project oversight because management failed to provide effective oversight of the RTLS project from acquisition through development and implementation,” the report says. Particularly, VA’s Office of Planning and Policy Enterprise Program Management Office dropped the ball, the IG says, by not following “project implementation policy, including adherence to VA’s [Project Management and Accountability System] process.”

“PMAS is VA’s principal means of holding IT project managers accountable for meeting cost, schedule, and scope milestones,” the report reads. “PMAS was designed to reduce project implementation risks, institute monitoring and controls, establish accountability, and create a reporting discipline. A VA directive mandated PMAS for all IT development projects.”

And on top of that, the RTLS team launched the system without first ensuring that it adhered to VA information security requirements and “without the appropriate system authorizations needed to connect such devices to VA’s network,” putting the internal network at unnecessary risk.

This type of perilous management of major IT contracts is nothing new to the VA. The department has long been criticized for its struggle to implement a modernized electronic health records system that is interoperable with Defense Department systems. VA is currently in the process of issuing a 10-year, $10 billion contract to Cerner through which it hopes to achieve such functionality, but overseers in Congress maintain their doubts based on past failures.

But Rep. Phil Roe, the Tennessee Republican chairman of the the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, has hope that VA Secretary David Shulkin can get the RTLS project back on track.

“[You] are disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised and I think that Dr. Shulkin will get it online,” Rep. Roe told a Tennessee local news station of the contract. “I don’t think it’s a matter of deliberately not doing it, I think it’s just having someone in charge to be sure that’s implemented and then it’s our responsibility in Congress to oversee these.”

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Hybrid IT gives federal agencies “the best of both worlds,” allowing for the efficiencies of public cloud and the security of traditional on-premise IT.

Hybrid IT enables “us to operate as we’re comfortable and often as mission or security requires, and then [also] be able to share that data in a public form,” Jeff Lush, CTO of HPE federal, says in an interview with FedScoop TV.

And moving to such a model isn’t such a huge lift as one might expect.

“The nice thing about hybrid IT is it allows you to operate as you are today,” Lush says. “This notion of being able to rip and replace everything that you have — it just doesn’t work. There’s nothing about it that’s good. It’s costly, it interrupts the flow of business”

Rather, hybrid IT allows agencies to “truly embrace emerging technology but not have to wait around forever” to completely replace legacy systems.

In the end, hybrid allows agencies to avoid the costly interruption and security risks of completely replacing their critical systems while having the flexibility and savings found in modern cloud services, Lush explains.

Learn more about how HPE can help agencies’ modernization with its hybrid IT solutions.

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The new governmentwide enterprise software agreement — part of a modification of software reseller Carahsoft’s GSA IT Schedule 70 contract, through which agencies can buy HPE software licenses — could save the federal government $50 million over five years with a “moderate adoption” by agencies, according to GSA. The products will be up to 39 percent cheaper than commercial prices in some cases, the agency said.

Not only does the agreement drive savings by leveraging the greater buying power of the federal government and reducing duplication through a centralized contract, but the specific categories of offerings also will help agencies comply with digital government policy requirements and best practices, like data center consolidation, software and portfolio management, and agile software development.

“This new offering … will help agencies realize the savings that can be achieved through proper management of an agency’s software estate from software development, to management, and even consolidation where appropriate,” Mary Davie, assistant commissioner for GSA’s Office of Information Technology Category, said in a release.

The agreement is divided into four sets of products, GSA explains:

• Software License Management – a collection of HPE products that help an agency manage their commercial software licenses using software asset management tools and best practices.
• Software Incremental Development – a collection of HPE products that help agencies design and develop software applications using modern agile and iterative development processes.
• Data Center Automation – a collection of HPE products that support efforts to consolidate and automate the management of data centers.
• IT Portfolio Savings – a collection of HPE products that help agencies rationalize and manage their existing inventory of applications revealing resource allocations and potential cost savings through better portfolio management.

The central contract on GSA’s IT Schedule 70 is open to all federal, state, local and tribal government agencies.

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