NASA’s CIO Linda Cureton at Gov 2.0 talked about how the space organization has become Web savvy, namely by adopting social networking and cloud computing. Cureton acknowledged that people are fearful of these technologies but shrugged those fears off as the same that arose with the adoption of the telephone.  We managed to make it work and it has helped out lives greatly because of it.

Cureton talked a lot about how NASA has implemented cloud computing. The organization utilizes “Nebula,” an open-source cloud computing pilot under development at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

“It drives us to look for opportunities to take advantage of disruptive technology and start to develop solutions that are amenable to cloud architectures,” she said.

While Cureton acknowledged that “not everything is suited for the cloud,” she didn’t speak much about security issues that NASA is facing with cloud computing.  Nasa knows this is a huge problem and is doing everything to keep the cloud secure.  Cureton’s message was to invest in clouds regardless of the problems that we are facing with security stating  “This disruptive technology should not be ignored. If you ignore it, it’s going to run you over. Your customers will do this with or without you. Don’t be afraid of security or the hype. Identify risks, manage them accordingly, and jump right in.”