GSA Releases RFI for Privatization of 3PAO Accreditation Process: This week, as announced at SIIA CloudGOV conference last week, GSA released an RFI seeking industry input on how to privatize the accreditation process for the FedRAMP 3rd Party Assessment Organizations. The idea behind this is to take some of the burden off GSA while adding bandwidth to the FedRAMP 3PAO stable, with the hope of moving more cloud service providers through the process more quickly. To date there have been 16 3PAOs certified and two companies who have received their provisional authorization through the FedRAMP program. Questions on the RFI are due February 26th and responses due by 5:00pm on March 8th. See the RFI on FedBizOpps.

Congress to Hold Hearing on IT Acquisition Reform: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled a full committee hearing for next week to dig deeper into Chairman Issa’s draft IT acquisition reform bill known as FITARA. The hearing is currently scheduled for 9:30am on February 27th. Witnesses have not been publicly announced but the notice of the hearing can be accessed here

Cloud Computing Driving New Generation of Startups: According to a recent survey of 1300 executives in the US and UK conducted by Rackspace, cloud computing is driving more than cost reduction and innovation. The report highlights that 62 percent of survey respondents believe that cloud computing is responsible for the recent boom in entrepreneurs and startups with 25 percent strongly agreeing with that idea. Forbes has the full report.

Sequestration Looms Large with DC Area to Take Big Hit: According to figures released earlier this week, the looming sequester may have a big financial impact on the Defense Department and other federal agencies, as they will likely be forced to shorten the work week, reduce services or temporarily lay off employees. DC, Maryland and Virginia with a large population of federal employees and contractors, along with California are expected to take the biggest hit. DC/MD/VA may face an estimated DOD payroll cut impact of $1.2B. Federal News Radio has a story with a link to the Pentagon’s payroll numbers

Texas Moves to the Cloud: States continue to make progress moving applications into the cloud, with Texas being the latest to make headlines by announcing this week that they will move more than 100,000 state employees to Microsoft’s Office 365 Cloud. The contract will provide the state compliance with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) and Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security standards, and is estimated to save the state some 75% over prior years. Government Technology has a full report.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

CloudGov Features Lively Discussion on Emerging Federal IT Issues: This year’s Cloud/GOV conference, held on Tuesday at the Westin City Center played to a packed house of federal IT employees and contractors. Event attendees were treated to keynote addresses from Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel, DOD DCIO Dave DeVries, and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). They also heard a variety of perspectives on topics ranging from how the convergence of cloud and data analytics can make government more effective, to the latest on FedRAMP, and how to choose the right cloud solution. Making news was the announcement by GSA’s Kathy Conrad that there is an RFI in the works to look at privatizing the management of the FedRAMP 3PAOs. GCN has a good roundup on the FedRAMP discussion.

FedRAMP Grants Second Provisional ATO: Speaking of FedRAMP, the program granted its second provisional authority to operate earlier this month, to CGI Federal. CGI joins Autonomic Resources as the only two companies who have made it through the program to date. Recent reports from the Federal CIO and others note that there are some 75 or 80 companies in the pipeline to receive FedRAMP approval while GSA’s Kathy Conrad told the Cloud/GOV audience that as many as half of those who have applied might not be able to meet the program’s rigorous security baseline. We will continue to track this issue as progress is made and Federal Times has a short blog on the CGI approval.

SOTU highlights Cybersecurity: President Obama called-out cybersecurity as a priority in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, announcing the release of the much anticipated Executive Order (EO) on cybersecurity. The EO is focused specifically on critical infrastructure protection, calling for a NIST-led multistakeholder process to identify existing consensus standards, practices and procedures that can become the basis of a voluntary “Cybersecurity Framework.” Despite the focus on critical infrastructure protection, Administration officials have clearly expressed their desire for the Framework to be adopted broadly after its completion in approximately one year, with hopes that it will be embraced beyond critical infrastructure sectors.

Cloud Adoption on the Rise: According to a recent study conducted by CDW-G of more than 1,200 IT personnel across six sectors, cloud adoption is on the rise. The report seems to track the increase in cloud use personally to an increase in cloud adoption in the workplace, essentially concluding that as people get more comfortable with cloud at home, they want that to carry-over to their place of business. Government Technology has a story with a link to the CDW-G survey.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.

Rep. Issa kicks off 113th Congress talking about federal IT: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee kicked off the 113th Congress with a hearing focused on wasteful information technology spending. The hearing, which included testimony from former Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, as well as Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel and GAO’s Dave Powner and a panel of industry thought leaders, focused on creating efficiencies by leveraging cloud technologies, the need to optimize and consolidate data centers and how open data leads to innovation in government. The hearing was billed as a high level look at federal IT and it held true to form. Future hearings will be held to drill deeper into some of the key issues impacting federal IT acquisition, using Rep. Issa’s draft legislation to reform federal IT acquisition as a baseline. There was a good deal of news coverage on this hearing, such as this article from FedNewsRadio.

Technology replacing humans? The advance of technology, specifically related to cloud computing and the collection of data is again bringing up the age old argument of people vs. machines. As technology advances, we are seeing more and more tasks that were once done by people being done by machines, everything from reading your electric meter to potentially driving your car. As government’s look to do more with less, technology is a driving force behind creating efficiency. But how do we achieve the right balance? Omaha.com has a look at how data, cloud and smarter machines are reshaping the economy.

States looking at enterprise IT, cloud and other innovative solutions: According to recent report from our friends at NASCIO, state CIOs are worried about interoperability, IT funding and public safety broadband as they enter into 2013. They are calling on the federal government to modernize the regulations and funding streams for IT and asking agencies to modernize how they work with states to deliver key services such as Medicaid, Medicare and Homeland Security. States, like the federal government, are also turning to innovative solutions like cloud, virtualization and shared services to help solve budget and IT problems. Read the full story at Government Health IT.

DHS is 10 Years Old: It seems like yesterday but DHS is 10 years old this week. The original legislation creating the Department was passed by Congress in November of 2002 and the Department was officially stood up in January of 2003. The 22 component agencies came aboard on March 1, 2003. Former Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen shares his thoughts on how far DHS has come and how much more there is to do.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG.