IBM has been tapped by NATO to build a new cloud-based computing system designed to help the 28 member nations better use and share data.
Selected for the project by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Big Blue will be called upon to design and demonstrate a cloud-computing environment that would help the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan and implement critical tasks, such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
The goal is to see if NATO members can use a collaborative cloud to access data faster and make decisions more quickly…
The system will also need to be more secure, more scalable, and more cost-effective than the hodgepodge of systems used in the past…
That’s the bit that makes me chuckle over pundits who are heartsick and offended to death over cloud computing – because it may break down or be insecure. You mean like every other system already in use?
IBM will design and manage the system at NATO’s ACT command headquarters in Norfolk, Va. The project is part of NATO’s goal to modernize its technologies for the 21st century…
Eideard 
I realize that every system is hackable, but isn’t there a danger when you make things easier by just making one place to hack?
In reality, there are any number of systems that aren’t hackable, haven’t been hacked. Plus a number of systems called “hacked” by TV talking heads that simply involved insiders providing access information.
Banking systems use many – typically involving hardware keys and/or dongles – for interbank transfers, nationally and worldwide. The same holds true for the last generation of smart cards used for activating satellite receivers for DirecTV and others.
IBM’s new systems for the US Air Forces have been in place for a spell with no problems – and what requires oversight remains the same: There is no patch for stupidity. Human beings are the weak link.
In the world of bank IT that usually requires a 2nd person to check the 1st before another stage higher in security can be reached. And the next, and the next. Not the same 2 people.