Cloud computing solutions for the Marine Corps: an architecture to support expeditionary logistics

Abstract

The Department of Defense (DoD) is planning an aggressive move toward cloud computing technologies. This concept has been floating around the private information technology sector for a number of years and has benefited organizations with cost savings, increased efficiencies, and flexibility by sharing computer resources through networked connections. The push for cloud computing has been driven by the 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management that highlighted the shift to a cloud first policy. The cloud first policy has driven the DoD, specifically the Marine Corps, toward cloud computing technologies making this relatively new paradigm inevitable. The Marine Corps has provided its cloud computing guidance through its Private Cloud Computing Environment Strategy. However, the urgency for the Marine Corps to implement a cloud computing architecture that will support enhanced logistical systems in an expeditionary environment needs to be tempered by a comprehensive evaluation of current cloud computing technologies, virtualization technologies, and local versus remote logistical data types and sub-sets. This thesis seeks as its goal to explore and analyze current cloud computing architectures and virtualization technologies to determine and develop a cloud computing architecture that best supports expeditionary logistics for the Marine Corps.