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Mike Nelson

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Director of Info Assurance, Logyx, LLC

90 points

Information Security Professional for Logyx working at NASA. FISMA/NIST expert.

Oct. 4, 2011

Mike Nelson recommends this answer by Steven Romero

Is IT governance related to innovation or only project control?

Wow, what a question. I would love to simply answer, "Yes" - with a simple follow-up sentence like, "IT governance ensures all information technology decisions are aligned to the business, deliver value, and manage risk, resources and performance. Given this characterization, if one of the ... more

Information Technology

Operations

Governance

Innovation

June 29, 2011

Mike Nelson recommends this answer by Michael Krigsman

How does one go about becoming an 'analyst'?

I think the starting point is passion and interest in a particular market segment. The best analysts typically have three traits:
1. They know a market well
2. They can develop frameworks or models for understanding and explaining that market
3. They have excellent communication skills
Within this, some ... more

Information Technology

Analyst

Forrester

Gartner

June 23, 2011

Mike Nelson is speaking at this roundtable

FISMA Clouds in 2011: Fact or Fiction?

Information Technology

June 19, 2011

Mike Nelson recommends this answer by Stephen O'Donnell

POLL: Have all of the recent hackings caused you to lose confidence in Internet security?

My Father, a simple but very wise man, told me at an early age that the best principle of keeping a secret is not to share it with anyone else. I adopt this same principle in life that if I put my life on the ... more

General Management

Information Technology

Operations

Hackers

2 more topics

June 18, 2011

Mike Nelson is now following pradeep Raj and 6 other people

June 18, 2011

Mike Nelson and 4 other people answered this question at this roundtable

FISMA Clouds in 2011: Fact or Fiction? [6/30 @ 1 pm]

What will Vivek Kundra's resignation mean for federal government cloud computing adoption?

I think Vivek has been the focal point for a good deal of the government's movement to a cloud computing model, but the opportunities for economies of scale may have been a sufficient catalyst to garner this institutional momentum even without his vocal support. I ... more

Information Technology

June 18, 2011

Mike Nelson and 2 other people answered this question at this roundtable

FISMA Clouds in 2011: Fact or Fiction? [6/30 @ 1 pm]

Should the federal government create a central cloud agency that serves various government agencies?

If you think of the Federal Government as "just" one big enterprise, then centralization of some common services would tend to make economic and operational sense. Based on my experience however, I just haven't seen any evidence that the government can do much of anything ... more

Information Technology

June 10, 2011

Mike Nelson answered this question at this roundtable

FISMA Clouds in 2011: Fact or Fiction? [6/30 @ 1 pm]

Which government agencies currently act as cloud providers?

I know that NASA is evolving a cloud service. See http://nebula.nasa.gov/. Not sure if there are other agencies doing the same. more

Information Technology

June 2, 2011

Mike Nelson and 1 other person answered this question

What is big data?

Not exactly a simple numeric threshold, but I found this to be an interesting read:
If You Have Too Much Data, then “Good Enough” Is Good Enough
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1988603 more

Information Technology

Big Data

Data

June 2, 2011

Mike Nelson and 3 other people answered this question at this roundtable

FISMA Clouds in 2011: Fact or Fiction? [6/30 @ 1 pm]

What should be included in a cloud exit strategy? Do all organizations need one?

I think all organizations need a “cloud exit strategy” in the same sense that they need (needed) a mainframe exit strategy, or a client-server exit strategy. That is to say, as a function of a mature IT Governance capability, organizations should continuously be evaluating the ... more

Information Technology

May 26, 2011

Mike Nelson recommends this answer by Daniel Philpott

Can NIST recommendations alone achieve a sufficient level of cloud security?

NIST offers excellent guidance on a variety of security topics and is quickly developing a collection of good security guidance for dealing with cloud computing. NIST guidance, both FISMA and cloud computing focused, will be key for federal organization's adoption of cloud computing and the ... more

Information Technology

May 24, 2011

Mike Nelson recommends this answer by Daniel Philpott

Is FISMA workable in the cloud, or is it time for a restart?

Short answer: Yes, the NIST FISMA guidance works fine in the cloud.
Longer answer: Cloud computing offers many benefits and as many risks to agencies adopting it. Authorizing a cloud computing system under current NIST Risk Management Framework guidance is entirely feasible but the practicality of ... more

Information Technology

May 24, 2011

Mike Nelson recommends this answer by JP Morgenthal

Can vendors help enterprises with cloud adoption? Or is adoption contingent on time and maturity?

Here comes the official consultant answer ... wait for it ... it depends!
It depends upon what that vendor is selling. With everything being re-marketed as "cloud" these days, there's certain vendors' products that really don't have anything to offer enterprises in the way of adoption ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Cloud Week

Enterprise

May 6, 2011

Mike Nelson and 4 other people answered this question

Is FISMA-compliance required for any cloud computing company doing business with the government?

The issues associated with FISMA compliance for private sector entities are well summarized above. As Matthew pointed out, it’s not so much a question of a compliance requirement for “doing business” with a Federal agency, but rather with the functions of storing, processing or transmitting ... more

Information Technology

April 27, 2011

Mike Nelson and 14 other people answered this question

Focus Expert Meetup: Monday, May 2nd, San Francisco, CA

Looking forward to it.

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