Digital Discourse / Archives for Mike Hettinger

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

December 21, 2012 By

OMB Delays Passback Creating Uncertainty for CIOs:The ongoing debate on Capitol Hill over how to resolve the looming fiscal cliff has delayed OMB’s budget guidance, also known as passback, making it difficult for agencies to plan expenditures for the remainder of FY2013 and budgets for FY2014.  Particularly in limbo, according to this Federal News Radio article are agency CIOs who have been tasked with modernizing IT systems, enhancing network security and moving commodity IT to shared service centers but feel they haven’t been provided enough information to effectively plan.  Further complicating this is that once the situation is resolved, the timeframe for requests, negotiations and appeals related to the FY2014 budget cycle will be compressed.

DHS Releases Continuous Monitoring RFQ:  In cybersecurity news, DHS, working through GSA, released a final RFQ this week seeking bids to meet requirements  of the new Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation program and for continuous monitoring as-a-service.  The BPA includes 15 tools and 11 task areas aimed at improving DHS’s IT security.  The BPA has an estimated value of $6 billion and responses are due January 28, 2013. Federal News Radio has the details.

PSIG Members Featured in 10th Anniversary of the E-Gov Act Event:  This week marked the 10th anniversary of the E-Gov Act and SIIA PSIG Members Doug Bourgeois of VMware, Mark Forman of Government Transaction Services and David Mihalchik of Google all were featured prominently in the event marking the anniversary.  Other SIIA members were included as well, including Dan Chenok of IBM and former Congressman Tom Davis, now of Deloitte.  C Span covered the event, which focused on the advances made in government technology since passage of the E-Gov Act.  See the video here.

 Appian Receives FISMA Moderate Certification from GSA:  Appian announced this week that it had received FISMA moderate certification from the General Services Administration for a major business process management application, built on Appian Cloud.  Appian Cloud is built on Amazon Web Services.  See the press release for more information.

Federal News Radio to host live chat with CBP CIO:  Our friends at Federal News Radio are hosting a live chat on January 3rd at 11am with DHS Customs and Border Protection CIO Charlie Armstrong and are encouraging interested parties to submit questions in advance.  See the link for more details.

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

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, Policy, Policy - Cloud Computing, PSIG, Software, Software Events, Uncategorized

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

December 13, 2012 By

GSA nearing first FedRAMP approvals: As announced earlier this year, GSA is striving to complete the first round of applications by CSPs under the FedRAMP program by year end. To date, we haven’t heard anything to lead us to believe that they will miss this self-imposed deadline. GSA is expected to grant provisional authority to three cloud service providers in the first round and the expectation is they’ll move expeditiously with other CSP approvals after the first of the year. SIIA will be watching this process closely and continues to encourage GSA to move as many CSPs through the process as quickly as possible so that government agencies looking to procure cloud services will have a wide array of options. See Fierce Government IT for more.

Mobile still a hot topic for government: The CIO Council released a report this week detailing federal agency use of mobile technologies and making recommendations that aim to reduce the cost of secure mobile technologies, as directed in the White House’s Digital Government Strategy. The report, which can be accessed here, is the result of a collaborative inter-agency effort that involved almost two dozen Federal departments and agencies and was led by the Information Security and Identity Management Committee (ISIMC) of the Federal CIO Council.

Government IT priorities are changing but legacy systems still pull the money: A recent report from GAO shows that despite the efforts of the Obama Administration to focus most of its information technology attention on promoting the adoption of innovative new technologies and reducing the overall cost of IT, legacy systems still account for the vast majority of the federal government’s IT spending. According to the GAO report, in FY2011, 26 federal agencies spent $79 billion on IT with $54 billion or nearly 70% going to maintain existing systems. This is the challenge to modernizing our IT infrastructure that will need to be addressed as agency budgets are further restrained in the coming months and years. FCW has more.

Carper officially named Chairman of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC): The Senate Democratic Steering Committee announced on Wednesday that Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) has officially been named Chairman of HSGAC, taking over for Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) who retired. Carper was Chairman of the panel’s Federal Financial Management Subcommittee and has been a strong advocate for government reform over his years in the Senate. The Hill reports.

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

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Filed Under: PSIG

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

December 7, 2012 By

OMB to push Strategic Sourcing: This week OMB issued a memorandum expanding the use of strategic sourcing to include commodity IT purchases. In addition the memo establishes Strategic Sourcing Accountable Officers within the CFO Act agencies to be appointed by January 15, 2013. It also establishes a Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council (SSLC), chaired by OFPP, with representatives from DoD, Energy, HHS, DHS, VA, GSA and NASA and requires the SSLC to submit to OMB a set of recommendations for management strategies for goods and services to insure the government receives the most favorable offer. Lastly it requires the SSLC to identify at least 5 products or services for which new government-wide acquisition vehicles or management approaches are needed and requires GSA to implement 5 new government-wide strategic sourcing solutions in each of FY13 and FY14 and increase transparency of prices paid for common goods. Read the memo here.

GSA pulls the plug on Apps.gov: The federal government pulled the plug on Apps.gov this week. The cloud application storefront, which was the brainchild of former Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, was intended to provide a one-stop-shop for cloud apps for the federal government and make it easier for federal IT personnel to acquire cloud services. The initiative never took off as intended. GSA didn’t give a reason for decommissioning the initiative, but noted that everything that was available through Apps.gov, would still be available through Schedule 70. Information Week has a story.

NextGov Prime highlights procurement reform, big data: NextGov held its first-ever Prime Conference at the Ronald Reagan Building this week. The event included a keynote panel featuring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Rep. Gerry Connelly (D-VA), ranking member of the panel’s Technology Subcommittee, two leaders pushing an update to the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act. The intent of the legislation, which SIIA has been tracking closely and which is expected to be introduced early in the next Congress, is to improve the speed and efficiency of federal IT purchasing. FCW has the wrap up. The event also had a heavy focus on big data and how data analytics can make the government more effective. FCW covers that angle as well.

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

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, Policy, Policy - Cloud Computing, Software, Software Events Tagged With: , ,

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

November 29, 2012 By

NARA to move email to Google Apps for Government: This week, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced that it had awarded a $7.2 million contract to Unisys to transition more than 4,500 users to Google Apps for Government for email and collaboration. NARA said the move to cloud will help the agency perform its record management duties of safeguarding and preserving government records while giving its employees secure and efficient access to email and data as well as cut operational costs and improve the system’s uptime and availability. NARA is the latest in a string of agencies to implement cloud based email solutions. Other agencies that recently made a similar move to cloud email include: DOE, EPA, NOAA, and GSA as cloud based email is quickly becoming the norm in the federal space. Federal News Radio has the full report.

House Small Business Committee Questions GSA Move on Schedules: House Small Business Committee Chairman, Sam Graves of Missouri sent a letter earlier this week to GSA expressing his concern that the recent move by the agency to restructure the multiple award schedule to a Demand Based Model (DBM) would have a negative impact on small business viability in the federal marketplace and would not help the agency operate more efficiently or effectively. According to GSA the DBM strategy would allow it to shift resources to the areas of highest customer demand or pull resources away from areas where demand has declined. A lot of questions remain. FCW has a story on the debate.

OMB Data Shows DOD Making Progress on Data Center Consolidation: A recent OMB report shows that the Department of Defense is making significant progress in shuttering underused data centers, keeping them in line with OMB guidance under the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI). To date, DOD has shut down 114 of its approximately 1500 data centers, with more closures expected over the next few years. Predictions on savings to be achieved from the overall FDCCI effort, which aims to close more than 1200 federal data centers, range from $2.4 billion to upwards of $5 billion. Data.gov has the latest numbers

House of Representatives Settles on New Committee Chairs: The House leadership appointed committee chairs for the 113th Congress this week and there are a number of changes affecting the technology industry. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) will lead the House Judiciary Committee next Congress, while current Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) will move over and Chair the Committee on Science, Space and Technology. On the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) will take over the gavel of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee, a key subcommittee for the tech industry. The Hill has the wrap up.

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

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Filed Under: PSIG

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

November 15, 2012 By

VA moves to the Cloud: In what is being reported as one of the largest federal cloud computing projects to date, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced this week that it will move more than 600,000 users to Microsoft Office 365 for Government. The agency will use Microsoft’s government community cloud for email, calendaring, instant messaging, web and video conferences, and collaboration. The deal is worth $36 million over five years and the transition will be phased in over the length of the contract, with 15,000 users expected to migrate in the first year. HP is part of the deal as the systems integrator. Read the full story from Information Week.

Elections have consequences, Part I: Despite the fact that President Obama was reelected and the House and Senate remained under the control of the same parties that were in control before the election, there will be a number of key changes affecting the technology industry. From a government IT standpoint, the President’s reelection means a continued focus on using technology to make government more efficient and effective, leveraging cloud computing, big data and consolidating data centers. See more from E-Commerce Times.

Elections have consequences, Part II: Expect big changes to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with current Chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) retiring and current Ranking Member Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) term limited in that position. Also expect some changes to the House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee structure as there are two vacant subcommittee chairmanships – Oversight and Investigations and Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade – and a number of members vying for those posts. No decisions on chairs expected until after the Thanksgiving holiday at the earliest. See SIIA’s election blog post for more.

Blackberry earns FIPS certification: Government’s affinity for Blackberry devices has been driven in large part by security. With other device makers stepping up their security in recent years, we have seen a shift to other devices in the government market. The announcement last week that the new Blackberry 10, scheduled for release in the 1st quarter of 2013, has received FIPS 140 certification is a good sign for Blackberry fans. GCN has a post.

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

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Filed Under: PSIG

How the Election Will Impact Federal IT

November 7, 2012 By

Now that the campaign is over it’s a good time to take a look at what the future holds for federal IT. Here are a couple basic things we know: There is continuing pressure on federal agencies to deliver better services to citizens, while reducing the overall cost of government. IT has and will continue to play a role in this effort. We also expect to see moderate overall cuts to federal IT spending, somewhere in the 5 percent range, so agencies will have to reprioritize some ongoing IT initiatives.

All of this bodes well for “innovation” and we expect to see a continuation of the effort to move agencies to cloud computing, consolidate the existing data center infrastructure and better leverage government data. We also expect to see a continued focus on performance and mission-oriented goals and increased attention paid to the need to reform federal IT procurement.

As for federal IT personnel, we know there will be changes at the agency CIO level and probably at other places like GSA and OMB where federal IT policy is driven – we just don’t know what they are yet. All indications are that Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel is planning to stick around for a while as should Federal CTO Todd Park (pure speculation on my part, but I haven’t heard anything to the contrary). We know that President Obama will have to appoint a permanent OMB Director sooner rather than later and that could trigger a reshuffling of some responsibilities and priorities at OMB.

On Capitol Hill, there will be a significant change to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee leadership, as current HSGAC Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) retires and current Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) has to step down as RM because of term limits. Tom Carper (D-DE) appears to be in line to be Chairman and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to be Ranking Member. Both Carper and Coburn have focused in the past on reducing government waste and maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of government, so we can anticipate some focus there. Sen. Carper’s ascension to the Chairmanship, along with Sen. Coburn’s new role leaves vacancies on the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee. Sen. Brown’s (R-MA) reelection loss and Sen. Akaka’s retirement leave a couple of other subcommittee spots to be filled. Other members of the Senate who can play a key role in government technology are Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and newly elected Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), both of whom represent the tech heavy Commonwealth of Virginia.

The House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee will be more stable than its Senate counterpart with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) remaining Chairman and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) remaining as Ranking Member of the full committee. The key Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement will continue to be led by Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), with Gerry Connelly (D-VA) likely to remain as Ranking Member.

The Government Reform Committees are going to play a significant role in the look and shape of federal IT over the next two years as Chairmen Issa and Lankford move forward with legislation to reform federal IT acquisition. The bill, known as the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) which has yet to be introduced seeks to empower federal CIOs and speed the acquisition process. This bill will likely draw a lot of the federal IT community’s attention next year and I expect Rep. Connelly to play a key role in this debate, with his newly drawn 11th Congressional District heavily populated by tech contractors.

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

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Cloud/Gov, Government, PSIG, Software

This Week in Public Sector Innovation

November 1, 2012 By

Cloud Computing Praised Following Hurricane Sandy: In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, federal efforts to transition existing data centers and other IT assets to the cloud are being lauded for their contribution to keeping government operations up and running. According to reports from Federal Computer Week the Federal government saw limited disruption in IT operations and agencies like GSA credited recent transitions to cloud computing for providing them with a more robust, geographically diverse and redundant infrastructure helping them weather the storm. The big question going forward is will natural disasters like this most recent event spur more agencies to adopt the cloud or update their aging IT infrastructure?

EPA Awards Contract for Email, Collaboration in the Cloud: On October 31st, EPA awarded Microsoft and Lockheed Martin a $9.8 million contract to migrate existing EPA email and related applications to Microsoft 365, their cloud-based email and communication platform. Under the terms of the contract award more than 25,000 users will be transitioned to Microsoft Office 365 for Government, a new multi-tenant service that stores U.S. government data in a segregated community cloud and includes e-mail, calendars, scheduling and collaboration tools for internal and external use. See the press release here.

Next 4 Years to Bring Continued Innovation to Government IT: Nextgov has a profile on what the next four years will look like for Federal IT, regardless of who wins next week’s election. Their point and it’s an accurate one, is that four years ago as President Obama came into office, there was little discussion about cloud computing, agile development, mobile apps for agencies, or bring your own device. Today, agencies have moved mission-critical applications to the cloud and we continue to debate a host of key IT issues such as BYOD, collaboration and how to better empower federal CIOs. Read the full take from Nextgov.

Cloudy Election? Did you know that some states, including battleground states Virginia and Florida allowed residents of their state living overseas to cast their primary votes using LiveBallot, an online balloting website based on Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform? No word on whether or not the general election will allow that same technology. Information Week has the story from earlier this year.

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

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Filed Under: Cloud/Gov, Government, PSIG, Software, Software Events
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