INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: Google Federal
Mike Bradshaw
Director
Google Federal
Q: Google’s search technology is well-known in the civilian world. What unique benefits does your company offer to military and intelligence users?
A: That’s a great question. We are consistently working to adapt our Google.com technology for military and intelligence users. The major unique benefit we offer is our ability to deliver high-quality results in a firewalled environment that is attuned to the special security needs for the military and intelligence technology communities. It’s the ease of use, reliability and relevance that matters, plus the extra security integration. Information that you can’t find is useless, so we work hard to fix that issue for military users.
Q: What are some of the ways in which DoD and the intelligence community are using the Google search appliance?
A: I think the best way to answer this is through a customer example. One Google Search Appliance [GSA] government customer requires instantaneous access to data from 2,500 different data sources to evaluate the location and level of security threats and resources. It’s very important to get as much of the information linked together so that employees can work more efficiently and accurately. It’s a matter of security and safety for people who are using the information. The GSA searches multiple data sources quickly, and end-users now get data that is much more relevant to their searches on threats they were facing. In addition, they were able to start integrating the information with Google Maps and Google Earth, so they not only get back more relevant information, but also can start looking at it in a geospatial context, which makes it much easier to determine where a particular security threat or helpful resource may be.
Q: The company recently released a new version of the search appliance. What enhancements will it offer?
A: We launched the GSA 6.0 on June 2, highlighting the capability to scale to searching more than a billion documents. We’re thrilled with the new version largely because it really helps our users in government with large document counts.
The new 6.0 architecture also allows for really rich linking options within and across government and military organizations. The GSA can work within individual clusters, or it can link different organizations together. We can do it dynamically, unifying data stores then breaking those links if necessary, or leave them together at all times. Let’s say a military group needs to search across a variety of data stores, but individual employees have different levels of access to info. With the granular controls, the GSA can serve up the results that are most relevant to each employee, while staying true to individual security access levels. It’s just a really dynamic setup that gives great control to the admin. This kind of flexibility and control is critical in the military and intelligence world. So it’s a very exciting new architecture for us, because of the scaling potential and dynamic results.
Q: What do you see as the future for cloud computing in the military/intel sphere?
A: I think there is a serious future for cloud computing within DoD, particularly with utility applications that have become mainstream and critical for office productivity, such as e-mail or word processing. It makes no sense for DoD to have in-house experts on word processing or spam filters when Google can leverage existing expertise on those tools. Part of the reason cloud computing is such a smart move for government also is its impact on budget—agencies and large organizations save significantly by adopting cloud tools like Google Apps due to economies of scale, and they get consistent innovation at the same time. Because Google Apps are hosted on the Internet [hence, cloud], Google can add updates, security fixes and applications immediately. There is no need to wait for patches/software to be downloaded and deployed, which can take time and makes an organization vulnerable in the interim. Cloud computing solves that issue.
Also, when the customer (like DoD) doesn’t have to worry about spam in employee e-mail, the customer can better focus on its core mission—bringing on IT people to do more innovative work. Essentially, cloud computing can save DoD [and anyone else] time and money, as well as opening up a channel for increased technological innovation. So I think the future is bright.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: I’d just add that Google is very much committed to working with the government— that’s why we opened a second Washington, D.C.-area office in Reston. There are many more Google tools we could talk about, but I guess they will have to wait for the next interview! ♦