Ten years ago, while employed by Oracle, I worked on a project where we tried to convince the large North American telcos to act as Application Service Providers (ASP) and host Oracle applications for their customers.  We proposed that the combination of existing telco data centers, network connectivity, business customer base and billing infrastructure provided an ideal foundation for such services.  At that time, we didn’t get much traction with the telcos, but Oracle went ahead and launched their own ASP service, now known as "Oracle On Demand.”

Now, as Sun awaits acquisition by Oracle, it is interesting to see telco participation in what we now term “Cloud Computing.”  On Monday, AT&T announced “Synaptic Compute as a Service(SM), its latest innovative global cloud-based service, designed to give companies of all sizes simple on-demand access to scalable computing capacity.”  Ironically, the press release was entitled, “AT&T Unveils Network-Based ‘On Demand’ Computing for Companies of All Sizes.”  I’m not sure what Oracle might think of AT&T’s use of the “On Demand” term.

AT&T is working closely with Sun to use the Sun Cloud Open Cloud Platform, Sun Cloud APIs, cloud reference architecture and design expertise to create an environment to make it easy for developers to build and deploy value-added services.

"Sun is committed to helping our customers and partners deliver public and private clouds that are cost effective, open and interoperable," said Dave Douglas, senior vice president, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems. "AT&T’s network and operational excellence coupled with Sun’s Open Cloud Platform and Sun Cloud APIs delivers a revolutionary cloud offering. We’re excited to be working with AT&T to bring an enterprise-class, highly scalable offering that delivers choice and flexibility to market."

The trend towards cloud computing marches on.  I think we will see more telco participation in this market. We have long accepted utility telephony services from telecom operators.  Offering computing utility services is a logical next step.

The white paper I mentioned several days ago, Identity and Access Management – Enabling HIPAA/HITECH Compliance, is now hot off the press and ready for download.  Thanks to all the great people at Sun Microsystems that contributed to this project and made it a reality.  Hopefully, the paper will be beneficial to those who are facing the challenges of how to comply with the increasing regulations surrounding management of healthcare data and information systems.

The paper’s abstract reads:

As healthcare organizations and vendors become more reliant on digital information technology, complying with increasing regulatory requirements presents a range of challenges. This paper explores the requirements that these organizations face, best practices for implementing identity management systems that help ensure compliance, and how Sun’s pragmatic approach to identity management simplifies the technology environment.

The table of contents:

1. Executive Summary
2. Healthcare Information Technology Challenges
3. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
4. Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)
5. Impact of HIPAA, HITECH and Related Regulations
6. The Role of IAM in HIPAA/HITECH Compliance
7. Sun IAM Product Introduction
8. Best Practices for the IAM/Compliance Journey
9. How to Get Started with HIPAA/HITECH and IAM
10. The Sun IAM Workshop
11. References

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to discuss the content in more detail.

Whenever you are feeling deprived,  consider the technological advantages we enjoy today and count your many blessings!

Thanks to the Lighter Side of Technology page on ITWorldCanada.com for this gem.

It was nice to see a short piece covering the CIO Frankly Speaking Breakfast event in Toronto yesterday, where Michelle Dennedy and I fielded questions about Identity Management and Cloud Computing from John Pickett of IT World Canada.  I particularly liked the statement made by Michelle, “Identities are now being realized as the true assets for the organization.”