So What About the Cloud?

During the last fund raising drive we had many WP-ORG members mention that they felt WP-ORG could save significant money by moving its presence to the cloud.

Cloud computing is a relatively new phenomenon whereby a company/organization’s presence is essentially contracted out to a cloud computing environment. Essentially cloud computing represents online network presence as a commodity. This commodity can be readily migrated between different cloud providers as simply as we now change cell phone providers. I am dramatically over simplifying, but the essence of it is that network computing no longer needs to be a core inside business function of an organization. It can be bought and sold like any other service or product.

Amazon.com, Google.com, and Apple iCloud are three of the largest and best known cloud computing providers. All three provide reasonably priced offerings for cloud computing. It makes good business sense to evaluate the cost of outsourcing this capability.

What we discovered is that the lion’s share of our expenses (as is the case for most other organizations) is devoted to personnel costs. WP-ORG’s employees (Dian Welle, Megan Klein, and Jack Price) represent the lion’s share of our annual expense. Although Jack is a part time employee, he serves a critical role as WP-ORG’s Chief Financial Officer. Dian is the public face for WP-ORG and she will be the one who answers WP-ORG’s phone and principal email address at feedback@west-point.org. Lastly, Megan is the one who maintains WP-ORG’s servers and will continue that role, even if WP-ORG migrated to the cloud. We will still need to have somebody set up our websites, perform network administration tasks, add user accounts, etc. So how will we save money?

Basically, we can save money by eliminating our monthly expenses for Internet connectivity. We will also eliminate our long term capital expenses for equipment replacement of our servers. Of course, these savings are offset by the cost of renting cloud computing space. If monetary savings were the sole criteria, we might be moving in that direction right now. Alas, monetary savings are not the only criteria in making the decision to move to the cloud.

One of the greater concerns in today’s computing environment is security. Security is a factor in nearly all computing environments, but in the cloud, you cede control of security over to the cloud provider. This is no small decision and should not be taken lightly. There have been several recent notable security and privacy breaches in cloud computing. Some of those breaches and other concerns are found in some of the links below:

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/76019.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/08/05/how-secure-is-your-cloud-take-the-mud-puddle-test/

http://www.cio.com/article/703064/How_Secure_Is_the_Cloud_IT_Pros_Speak_Up

At WP-ORG, we are dedicated to doing our level best to protect your private email, files, and online accounts. We know and understand what Duty, Honor, and Country means. We want to protect your online presence as well as you expect from us. This is not to say that we cannot fail and make mistakes. We will do everything humanly possible to limit our failures and not repeat our mistakes. When all is said and done, know that your fellow members of the extended West Point Community are the very folks who strive to keep WP-ORG vibrant and safe. For the foreseeable future, we will not be migrating to the cloud.

Please let us know what you think.

Helping our Wounded Warriors…

As the CEO of WP-ORG I get involved in many discussions related to the online activities of WP-ORG and its members.  WP-ORG members devote a significant amount of time to volunteer activities that ultimately benefit the extended West Point community.

Recently I came across a web page that showed additional volunteer efforts that went beyond the scope of what is offered through WP-ORG.  Several WP-ORG members and advisors have been donating valuable time to a very worthy cause.  If you follow these links you will see what I mean:

http://www.west-point.org/family/mem2009/2012ANprint/anprint_projectteam.html

http://www.west-point.org/family/mem2009/2012ANprint/print12.html

Megan Klein got intimately involved in building the website and the ordering page for the beautiful lithographic prints that were created for the Army-Navy march on for the 2012 Army-Navy game. It was also through the direct efforts of Megan and Dutch Hostler that the prime locations were secured to shoot these beautiful pictures.  Jack Price was the money guy that made sure all donations were properly recorded and a proper audit trail was made to account for all expenses. An extra shout out goes to two of our Navy moms: Kim Duffey, and Amy Martin, who were instrumental in reaching all the Navy parents to make them aware of the project. They post on the Navy parent forum and the Parents Facebook pages to help spread the word. Additional thanks have to go out to the lithographic services provided by Drew Bacot, Don Bean, and Paul Fetter.  There were also countless volunteers from North Carolina State University who helped to pack all the prints.

So at this point you might be asking, what was the point of this entire effort and who were these gracious volunteers able to help?  I’m glad you asked and here is your answer:

http://www.helpourmilitaryheroes.org/

Please read about how this great charity got started:

http://www.helpourmilitaryheroes.org/who-we-are

It is seeing all of this, which makes me proud to have been affiliated with WP-ORG since 1996.  Everyday I am humbled by the great work of all of our volunteers.  Please take the time to look at the prints that are available and consider how it might look appropriately framed in your home.

Class of 2013 Commemorative Pistols

Although this might seem an odd topic given the debate raging in this country today, in fact it is one that brings home memories.  Let me explain.

When my father passed away when I was at West Point in 1980, it was a very dark time in my life.  I do vaguely recall the reports of the rifles as the honors were rendered and the playing of taps at Arlington, but the rest was seemingly a blur – not his funeral, but my remaining time at West Point.  We each have our own ways of dealing with death and grief.  Mine was to keep it all inside.  Life went on.

As time went on, my mother asked each of her sons what weapon we wanted from our father’s collection of 50 guns.  Where could I start?  Should I ask for the 1917 artillery luger he captured from the German officer he killed in WWII?  Perhaps maybe the Sauer Drilling, which was a work of art as shotguns went?  Ever the pragmatist, I opted for the .357 magnum.  It had sentimental value and my father taught me to shoot it and it was a practical pistol to have starting out in life.  I made my choice and ultimately my mother sold off my father’s entire collection.  I really hated to see the collection go, but I understood – my mother needed the money.

Fast forward 30 years later.  My cousin down in Florida asked me to come visit.  He had 17 various guns he wanted me to pick up from him and keep in the family.  I agreed and my son and I traveled down to Ocala to visit.  It was then that I reconnected with my father and my past.  My cousin showed me all of the various guns he wanted me to have.  He saved two pistols for last.  The first he presented I immediately recognized – it was the luger.  Truth be told, I never really liked firing the luger.  It always had a bad tendency to jam and the action was always difficult to engage.  Nevertheless, it was a connection back to my father and his time as a combat medic in WWII.

http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1983/40768/images/bronze.jpg

What happened next totally floored me.

My cousin Bill then proceeded to pull out an M1911 Colt semiautomatic pistol.  Bill said, “do you recognize this?”  I said, sure, it’s a 1911.  It was in fact the first weapon I qualified with when I shot at West Point.  He then replied, “yes, but do you know where this came from?”  I was perplexed – had never seen it before.  I noted that the weapon was highly modified from the typical 1911.  It had adjustable sights on the rear and a modified dovetail sight on the front.  The front part of the grip frame had some form of shot peening and the trigger had a wide pad on it.  It was also clear that the trigger pull was nowhere near the standard 7-9 pounds normally found for that gun.  It was closer to 3-4 pounds pull.  As I continued to notice all of the modifications, it was clear that this was not just an M1911, but all of the parts had been stamped, “NM.”  That is short for National Match, which is generally used for competition shooting for high accuracy.  I was stumped.  Bill said matter-of-factly, “this was your father’s 1911 and it was what he used to shoot competitively when he was on the Army Marksmanship Unit.”  It was then that it hit me like a ton of bricks -  so that is what all of those shooting medals were for…

I was really excited about being able to reconnect with my father through his competition pistol.  I couldn’t wait to take it home, get it out on the range and fire it.  Bill had never fired the weapon in all the years he had kept it.  He salvaged both of those guns from the collection of 50 that were sold and felt one day I would probably want to have them again.  He was right. My father was the last person to ever fire that Colt.  I brought it out to the range not knowing what to expect.  I knew I would absolutely need to make a lot of adjustments.  My father was right handed and right eye dominant.  I am left handed and left eye dominant.  Not to worry, I brought 250 rounds and an entire afternoon, along with an adjustment screwdriver, so I had plenty of time to make sure I got it right.  Then it happened.

I placed a seven round magazine in the well and racked the slide and took careful aim and squeezed off a round. It just felt natural – like I had been firing it all my life. I then proceeded to squeeze off the six remaining rounds.  I placed the weapon down and looked through my spotting scope.  I was flabbergasted.  All seven rounds were inside of a three inch circle.  That was physically just not possible.  I reloaded another magazine and aimed for a different spot on the target.  I had the same results.  I cannot explain it other than to say that my father lives through me and that gun truly represents a part of him that I never knew.  It truly was a keepsake and for me, priceless.

Consider that the commemorative pistols that the Class of 2013 have designed could end up repeating the same or similar history for generations to come. If you want to have a part of history,or make your own, take a peek at the Class of 2013′s commemorative pistols.  Truth be told, I only wish we had these when I graduated.

https://secure.west-point.org/usma-pistol/

Content is King…

I felt it was a good opportunity to cover a topic area that has garnered a little bit of interest lately – the WP-ORG home page and the articles that are posted there.

Approximately a year ago I discovered that the content on the WP-ORG home page was a little dated.  I decided to take it upon myself to post articles for the home page.  With a little bit of assistance from Dian Welle, I was able to use the Joomla Content Management System.  Joomla is what we use to keep our website manageable and current.

The next step was to get appropriate content and to have that content pushed to me each day.  I used various search engines to do this and they have yielded pretty good results.  Once I have the content sent to me, the harder part begins.  I have to read through most of the articles to see the connection to West Point/USMA, the graduate community, etc.  There has to be a direct connection and more importantly, that connection has to be evident within the paragraph that is posted on the homepage.  By and large most of the article summaries are one paragraph long.  Rarely, they will be two paragraphs, but those represent the exception and not the rule.

Some folks have asked, how often is the content updated?  The answer is – it depends.  I have had instances where the entire content (ten separate articles) has lasted only one day, to be replaced by ten completely new articles less than 24 hours later.  Thus far, 1190 articles have been posted over a 282 day time frame.  That roughly translates into completely new content about every two days.

Another controversial topic is the nature of the content.  As you might expect, the overwhelming majority of the content reflects favorably upon both West Point and its graduates.  West Point graduates have served honorably in the military, government, business and many other walks of life.  As a rule, they have served with honor and distinction.  Occasionally, as all humans and institutions do, they will fall short or engage in some sort of controversy.  My intent is not to hide or promote any such controversy, rather to make it readily available to the reader and let the reader decide if reading the entire article is worthwhile.

One of the recent articles on the WP-ORG home page that fit into the controversial category was the wedding of a 1980 West Point graduate, Sue Fulton, and Penelope Gnesin.  This was the first wedding of its kind in the Cadet Chapel and it was controversial.  Neither myself, nor WP-ORG, takes a position with respect to this event.  What was important was that it involved both West Point and one of its graduates and was newsworthy.  As such, it was appropriate to place the article on the home page.  Recently, one of our members asked about this very topic.  Here is what was sent by Dian to the WP-ORG member:

“Our CEO posts articles from all over the Web regarding West Point.   None of the articles represent an opinion of WP-ORG.  We simply present the articles that can be found on the Web, and the readers are free to accept or deny the contents of the article.

We are here simply to serve the greater West Point community. This may include lists that have members belonging to a political base, gender or lifestyle others would not appreciate; however, we serve the entire West Point community, which is quite diverse.  We neither approve nor disapprove of those diversities as an organization.  We simply provide a service to each member of the greater West Point community as requested. “

So what does all of this mean?  My sincerest hope is that on any given day you will find the WP-ORG home page the go to place for all information you might need to stay current with West Point and its graduate community.

Let me know what is on your mind.

Assumption of Command (or the CEO equivalent)…

This is my first opportunity to say a few words as the new CEO for WP-ORG. First, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Dempsey Darrow for being a friend all these years and helping me make a smooth transition. Dempsey superbly led WP-ORG for these past six years and been an advisor since 1996. He has accomplished much to lead and grow WP-ORG to where it is today. My hat is off to you.

I would also like to thank all of the advisors for extending a vote of confidence in my abilities to pick up where Dempsey left off and continue in the same traditions that have led us to where we have come from and where we hope to go.

I extend special thanks to both LTG David Huntoon and his Strategic Communications Director, Ms. Maureen Fitzgerald, for supporting and strengthening the relationship between West Point and WP-ORG. Together we can accomplish great things and I look forward to improving the already superb relationship that was established by Dempsey’s efforts.

I particularly want to thank all 30,000 members of our organization. Many of you are moderators and volunteers who help to make WP-ORG the vibrant online communications medium it has become. Without the hundreds of volunteers, WP-ORG would not be nearly as successful as it has become.

So what is it that we do? Our basic mission is found on our home page and states that we provide an online communications infrastructure that enables graduates, parents, and friends of the military academy to maintain and strengthen the associations that bind us together. In the past, we have greatly relied on email and email list services to provide the communications medium. Although email is very ubiquitous, many of our newer community members want to communicate with web based technologies, particularly those that are smart phone enabled. It is our desire and goal to eventually deliver those capabilities. We are nearing the final phases of some critical system upgrades and once those are accomplished, new technologies can be explored.

In the coming months I hope to cover topics of interest and more importantly open a communications channel to solicit feedback from our membership. There are also some very important changes in the coming months that we hope to develop and promote that will make things easier on our members – more to follow…

Lastly, I would like to thank my extremely patient wife of 27 years, Mila. She knows I spend a lot of time on all things WP-ORG and she rarely makes any mention of it. With her continued patience in the months and years to come, I expect that I will be able to continue to support WP-ORG in the same manner as I have everything else in life. She is my rock, and source of strength.

That’s it for now. Let me know what is on your mind.