Gravitant provides tools to help government agencies adopt cloud computing in a secure and cost-effective manner. Their cloudMatrix platform allows agencies to assess applications for cloud suitability, plan cloud capacity needs, design custom cloud architectures across multiple providers, provision and deploy applications, monitor performance and costs, and make ongoing adjustments based on usage data. This comprehensive approach aims to simplify cloud adoption while optimizing resources, costs, and responsiveness for government IT.

1. Cloud Solution for
Federal Government
The Gravitant Way
Ilyas Iyoob, PhD
Sowmya Rao
While cloud computing offers many advantages, the path to
cloud adoption presents many challenges. In a single platform,
Gravitant's tools cut through the complexity to enable
government agencies to quantify demand, plan capacity,
procure IT services, provision on-demand, and manage and
optimize IT services. Already successfully implemented at
11940 Jollyville Road multiple Texas state agencies, Gravitant’s cloudMatrix tool
Austin, TX 78727 increases agency responsiveness and optimizes costs while
increasing capital and operational efficiencies. Even at the
(512) 535 7399
federal level, cloudMatrix can help government agencies
contact@gravitant.com improve the experience of leveraging cloud IT.

2. Introduction
Currently the federal government’s IT is “…characterized by low asset utilization, fragmented
demand for resources, difficult to manage environments, low procurement times, and a
decreasing IT budget.” These issues have an adverse effect on agency ability to serve the public
in a timely and efficient manner. With the recent paradigm shift in IT from physical data centers
to virtualized data centers in the cloud, government agencies can take advantage of on-demand
provisioning of platforms, software, applications, data and other services while controlling
resources, cost and meeting ever changing demands. By allowing federal agencies to own less
and do more, cloud computing has the potential to address current inefficiencies and improve
government service delivery.
However, despite the many benefits of these IT
advances, government agencies face challenges in
their path to adopting cloud. For example, improper
or insufficient cloud planning may result in high
migration cost and vendor lock-in. Further challenges
may arise for users already running in the cloud such
Key Features of a Secure Cloud as VM sprawl and unexpected licensing costs. Issues
Environment for the Federal surrounding governance such as provider non-
Government compliance and chargeback also require further
understanding and clarification.
1. Multi-provider provisioning &
compliance As a comprehensive response to these challenges and
2. Fed-certified cloud providers others, Gravitant has created cloudMatrixTM - the
3. Integration with existing data- industry’s first Cloud Operating Environment (COE),
centers – private/hybrid clouds which has been successfully implemented at multiple
4. Connectivity to existing security Texas state agencies.
frameworks
5. Complete cost transparency Using Gravitant tools, agencies can perform pre -
6. Recalibration based on historical migration screening, capacity planning, cross provider
data application deployment, auto provisioning,
consolidated billing, utilization and cost monitoring,
Visit the Gravitant Blog for full article chargeback, and governance through command and
control dashboards.
As a result, the federal government can effectively meet demand while optimizing the IT supply
chain for agility, responsiveness, and cost while maintaining acceptable levels of service.
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3. Path to the Cloud
Gravitant’s process of cloud migration and ongoing operations management involves screening,
planning, solution configuration, sourcing, monitoring and governance. Recalibration is another
important step to ensure continuous improvement and course correction.
Screening & Planning
From reducing costs to optimizing performance, the advantages of cloud technology are
plentiful. But not all applications are suitable for the cloud. Certain operating systems and
infrastructure combinations are more cloud friendly than others. Moreover, some applications
have many dependencies and can be migrated only if the dependent applications are migrated
as well. Thus, for federal agencies to get the most out of this solution, it is important they plan
ahead and first determine which applications are even cloud-compatible.
Gravitant’s cloudScreenTM tool specifically helps agencies assess an application portfolio for
cloud feasibility and value to ultimately determine the best candidates for cloud migration.
Taking factors of operating systems, infrastructure and application dependencies into
consideration, cloudScreenTM evaluates application feasibility in the cloud, identifies the target
infrastructure, estimates cloud readiness and value to finally select the best candidate
application for cloud migration within the given budget and time constraints.
Once a target application has been identified, federal agencies can build a business case for
migration beginning with capacity planning - a vital component of cloud computing adoption
that involves understanding necessary cloud resource requirements in order to meet the
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4. anticipated demand. Proper planning allows federal agencies to predict their reserved capacity
requirements and allocate IT budgets to cost-effectively meet agency goals while minimizing
risk. Using Gravitant’s cloudWizTM tool, federal agencies can predict the cost and revenue
impact of replacing physical servers with a cloud solution.
Agencies can also compare cloud service providers side-by-side with respect to cost and quality
of service. The optimization models are designed to automatically filter out providers that do
not satisfy constraints and propose a set of optimal providers based on user defined goals.
Finally, the expected ROI is estimated which provides the basis for a cloud migration business
case.
While cloudScreenTM and cloudWizTM are designed specifically to help with the screening and
planning stages of the cloud migration process, cloudMatrixTM serves as the Cloud Operating
Environment for the remainder of the migration and operations management process.
Using automation, cloudMatrix delivers efficient cloud planning, sourcing, monitoring,
application architecture deployment and governance processes for accelerated adoption and
value-based control of cloud business models.
Learn more in our “Intro to the Business of the Cloud” whitepaper found on CloudBook.net.
Solution Configuration & Sourcing
Gravitant’s cloudMatrixTM connects many cloud service providers into a standardized catalog
and then exposes it through a simple drag and drop design interface for agencies to create their
own unique cloud solution across multiple providers. The interface is essentially a one stop
shop for IT managers to design, order, provision and manage all their IT resources.
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5. The intuitive nature of the interface allows complex application architecture to be designed
across multiple providers in minutes. New environments and architectural layers can be
introduced into the custom architecture with compute, network, and storage resources
followed by the addition of ancillary services such as shared storage, VPN security, VLAN
network, and backup etc.
Furthermore, the simulation capability in cloudMatrixTM allows agency IT managers to model
the application architecture and view the estimated cost prior to placing the order. As a result,
multiple scenarios can be simulated to identify the most desirable application architecture.
Once an order is placed, an automated order workflow and approvals process kicks in requiring
technical, legal, and financial approvals. The approvers will be notified before the order is
submitted to the cloud service provider(s). At the end of each month, the agency will receive
one consolidated bill across all the providers for the application deployed on the cloud.
Monitoring & Governance
Monitoring and governance capabilities with real time visibility into virtual machine
performance are essential for agencies to identify problems in multiple clouds before these
issues impact SLAs and QoS. With cloudMatrix, agencies can assign resources upfront to track
actual resource utilization and cost across applications and providers. The inbuilt chargeback
mechanism allocates cost among the applications based on agency defined budget rules. As a
result, agencies can track provider performance through SLA compliance and quarantine
noncompliant providers.
In addition, cloudMatrixTM allows agencies to go back at any time through a feedback
mechanism whenever cloud capacity requirements change or when a selected provider fails to
meet expectations. Agencies can recalibrate their reserved capacity and provider selection
based on real-time monitored data values. This control is essential for federal agencies as it
eliminates vendor lock-in and ensures minimal cost through constant course correction.
Conclusion
With IT projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars, taking years to deploy and delivering
potentially outdated technologies and solutions by the time of deployment, the federal
government especially can benefit from the advantages of cloud computing. Gravitant’s cloud
planning and management tools currently in place at a number of Texas state agencies have
simplified and automated the cloud adoption process. We believe the federal government can
leverage this success and use Gravitant’s technology to navigate seamlessly into the cloud.
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