An Ignoble Experiment

2. The game is afoot for 'Sherlock' in the cloud

The work of networking professionals helping to get the Affordable Care Act healthcare exchanges launched tomorrow will take on a greater sense of urgency in some states today, as a number of glitches have been reported in various systems. In addition, the final security testing of the federal data hub isn't scheduled to happen until today, the day before the exchanges officially open for business.

According to a report in Network World, lawmakers have also raised concerns about the ability of the Affordable Care Act healthcare plan system to protect personal health records and other private information.

Meanwhile, some individual health exchanges are reporting that they are still working on certain aspects of the technical systems behind the scenes. An example is the DC Health Link in the nation's capital.

"While many core features will be available on October 1, DC Health Link is not deploying one function. We have developed procedures to ensure affected residents will not experience a delay in coverage, while we continuously enhance functionality with new tools and features," the exchange is reporting on its website.

What will not be ready yet on the DC Health Link site will be the function that calculates Medicaid eligibility and calculates tax credits for the purchase of private insurance.

The healthcare exchanges have been set up in each state to provide access to alternative healthcare plans for the estimated 27 million Americans who are newly qualified to receive insurance under the Affordable Care Act, the so-called Obamacare.

The exchanges provide information on the various plans available and are also tied to call centers in each state that handle consumer questions about the law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2014. Tomorrow's date is significant as the first opportunity for these newly qualified individuals to begin the process of selecting their actual health plan.

"We are making trained experts--DC Health Link Assisters and DC Health Link Certified Insurance Experts (licensed brokers)--available from day one to help all users navigate the process of applying, shopping, comparing, and choosing coverage. In October, hundreds of trained experts will provide 'concierge' services to consumers and businesses," the DC Health exchange noted.

Getting ready for tomorrow's launch has been a long-term effort, Sanjay Singh, CEO and cofounder of hCentive, one of the companies providing IT professionals for the behind-the-scenes systems work on the healthcare exchanges, told FierceEnterpriseCommunications.

Headquartered in Reston, Va., hCentive has been involved with networking, applications development and systems architecture efforts with several state exchanges, including New York, Colorado and Kentucky.

Singh said the Affordable Care Act was the perfect opportunity for his firm to grow its business, hiring both in the United States and India.

"Today we have approximately 475 people--100 hired locally, and 350 to 375 engineers in India," Singh said.

Obamacare has been especially good for the hiring of call center staff, but Singh says the technology companies involved are looking for deep level IT pros. In the case of hCentive, that means tech support professionals to handle the impact of the Oct. 1 launch; project managers who handle the teams working on the exchange systems; and business analysts to ensure the systems are meeting the needs of the consumers in selecting and signing up for individual plans. A large number of systems from various agencies and organizations are tied together to make this all work.

Hiring for the exchange IT work was challenging, Singh confirms, since the company has had stringent screening for candidates. That is driven largely by the personal and private nature of the data involved. But he is confident the various firms contracted to help implement Obamacare are up to the task and that any glitches that do occur will be short-lived.

In the meantime, Network World is reporting that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is prepared to issue workarounds in the event of any snags tomorrow.

Read more:
- check out the DC Health Link announcement
- read the Network World article

Read more about the Affordable Care Act
Obamacare spurs hiring of call center workers
Obamacare spurs growth in data analytics

Read more about: networks, Obamacare
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By David Weldon

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3. European commissioner calls for single data privacy law

Though he never lived, a century and a quarter after his first appearance, Sherlock Holmes is still known as the greatest consulting detective of all time. Which is why it is so fitting that a new cloud- and analytics-based initiative looking to solve some of today's most complex information challenges has been named Sherlock.

The Sherlock cloud computing effort is based at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and looks to duplicate the great problem-solving skills of the fictional detective.

According to a recent report at HPC Wire, Sherlock is being aided by SD Technologies and Chickasaw Nation Industries, as well as a number of academic, industry and government stakeholders.

Sherlock currently has four case books, HPC Wire reports: Sherlock Analytics, Sherlock Case Management, Sherlock Cloud and Sherlock Data Lab. Much of the work involves sensitive data, so all four comply with HIPAA and FISMA regulations. Sherlock Cloud also complies with federal Cloud First requirements and is preparing for FedRAMP certification.

Sherlock resides in the SDSC data center, with redundancy provided at a secure location in Northern California. The data center is 19,000 square feet in size, is climate-controlled and features 10-gigabit network connectivity.

One of the first cases Sherlock has been given to crack involves uncovering sources of healthcare fraud. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are working with all four Sherlock services to utilize expertise from the areas of cloud computing, cyber security, data management and mining, applications development, high-performance computing, big data and virtualization.

The staff of the supercomputer center is working closely with employees from various federal and state agencies as well as faculty from the University of California system and other universities.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is also a major stakeholder in the Sherlock effort, which is partially devoted to developing new technologies in the emerging field of biomedical research known as metabolomics.

Read more:
- check out the HPC Wire article

Read more about: cloud computing
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By David Weldon

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4. New studies confirm cloud popularity for storage, business intelligence

Despite recent revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency's surveillance practices, interest in cloud computing remains very high in Europe. Because of that, Europe needs a single data privacy law to cover the entire European Union, according to Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission and the EU's commissioner for justice.

Reding delivered a speech before the European Commission last week in which she outlined the need for stronger privacy protection regulations throughout the European Union. The speech was titled "Data protection reform: restoring trust and building the digital single market."

According to Reding, "the headlines over the past months have been dominated by stories about surveillance. Claims and counter-claims have been made at a dizzying speed. In my dialogues with citizens across the Union, the sense of shock is palpable and the reaction is clear. The revelations over the past months have acted as a wake-up call. People have been reminded of why data protection is important; of why a strong framework for the protection of personal data is a necessity, not a luxury."

Reding continued, "trust in the data-driven economy, already in need of a boost, has been damaged. This is a source of concern because of the potential impact on growth. Collected, analysed and moved, personal data has acquired enormous economic significance. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the value of EU citizens' data was €315 billion in 2011. It has the potential to grow to nearly €1 trillion annually in 2020."

If European businesses are to embrace cloud computing to the level they desire, European governments need to fix Europe's current regulatory framework from a business perspective, Reding said. "It is no longer fit for purpose. It is fragmented and it is complicated," she added.

To illustrate the point, Reding noted, "a business operating in all 28 Member States has to comply with a different set of rules in each country. It has to deal with a different Data Protection authority in each country. The reality is 28 different laws and 28 different interlocutors."

Concluding her remarks, Reding said, "the data protection reform proposals have been on the table for nearly two years. The anti-Data Protection regulation lobbyists have run out of arguments. Experts have dissected the texts this way and that. Discussions in the European Parliament and in the Council are mature. It is time to drive the institutions towards an agreement. It's time for political leaders to show determination. Europe's citizens deserve nothing less."

For more:
- read Commissioner Reding's speech report

Read more about cloud computing and security
Cloud heart is green, Irish computing expert says
DSI releases surveillance documents that show NSA overreaching

Read more about: cloud computing
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By David Weldon

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