Obama Announces New Management Agenda: On July 8th President Obama announced plans to focus attention on a new management agenda aimed at leveraging innovation and technology to improve government services. The announcement was short on details, but it is expected the Sylvia Burwell, the new OMB Director who is heading this up will begin to formulate ideas in the near future. In the announcement Obama pointed to the effort to consolidate data centers and the open government initiative as examples of innovations from his first term. He also pointed to the development of Healthcare.gov, MyUSA and the new batch of Presidential Innovation Fellows as some of what we can expect to see going forward. More to come and FCW has a story.

DISA to Open Cloud Competition in August: DISA is currently soliciting industry feedback on a draft request for proposals published on June 24th for what is expected to be a $450 million cloud computing project. According to comments from DISA they released the draft RFP to spark a discussion with industry about how to make cloud services available throughout the Department of Defense. The agency will hold a pre-solicitation conference on July 12th and expects to issue the formal RFP on August 26th. Federal Times has more.

GSA’s FedRAMP Seeks to Update Baseline Controls: While we were away, FedRAMP announced a renewed effort to update the baseline security controls associated with the cloud security authorization program, to ensure that the controls are in line with the recently updated NIST Special Publication 800-53, Revision 4, Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations. As part of this process they are soliciting public comments via a survey which can be found here.

Interior Takes Records Management to the Cloud: The Department of Interior is the first cabinet level agency to officially take records management to the cloud through the Email, Enterprise Records and Document Management System (eERDMS). The effort is part of Interior’s IT Transformation Initiative which is expected to save $500 million by 2020. IQ Business Group manages the cloud that will store the agency’s records and documents. FCW covers it here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

Oracle and Salesforce to integrate clouds: Oracle and Salesforce announced on June 25 that they have signed a comprehensive nine-year partnership to integrate clouds. The deal encompasses all three tiers of cloud computing — Applications, Platform and Infrastructure. Under the agreement Salesforce will standardize on the Oracle Linux operating system, the Oracle Database, and Java Middleware Platform and Oracle plans to integrate Salesforce.com with Oracle’s Fusion HCM and Financial Cloud. The move is the latest in a series of big announcements by Oracle including their recent announcement that they would be moving from NASDAQ to the NYSE. Read more here.

Senate seeks changes to DOD OCIO: According to a report in Fierce Government IT, the Senate Armed Services Committee has proposed rolling the duties on the DOD CIO into the portfolio of the Department’s Chief Management Officer and then elevating the CMO to the level of Undersecretary of Defense. In the report accompanying S. 1197, the committee states that it believes this move will strengthen the office of CIO.

GAO out with report on GPRA Modernization Act: GAO released a report this week highlighting the progress made and challenges that remain for the federal government as it tries to integrate performance management into its culture. While GAO sees some progress in developing and implementing agency performance goals and cross-agency priority goals, they believe the executive branch needs to do more to fully implement and leverage the act’s provisions to address governance challenges. See the full report.

GSA grants federal agency FedRAMP approval: GSA announced this week that the National Information Technology Center (NITC) at USDA has received authority to operate from GSA for its Infrastructure as a Service ( IaaS) offering. This approval, the second agency CSP approval and the first for a federal agency CSP, will now be placed in the FedRAMP repository available for agencies to leverage. According to the release, USDA’s NITC worked with 3PAO COACT and internal USDA audit teams to complete the FedRAMP requirements to achieve an agency ATO. This authorization used the FedRAMP baseline controls, the FedRAMP templates, and was granted an ATO by the USDA Associate CIO. For more on FedRAMP, click here.

NASA taps Johnson Space Center CIO for headquarters job: NASA announced this week that Larry Sweet, who has been at Houston’s Johnson Space Center for 26 years will be replacing former NASA CIO, Linda Cureton who left the agency earlier this year. Federal News Radio has the story.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

House passes Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) in Defense Authorization: On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the FY 2014 Defense Authorization bill, adding Rep. Issa’s (R-CA) federal IT reform legislation to the bill. The revised version of the bill increases the authority of agency CIOs, promotes increased training of the IT acquisition workforce and expands efforts to optimize the data center infrastructure. The bill now moves to the Senate, where the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over federal IT but the issue will have to be address jointly by HSGAC and the Senate Armed Services Committee since the language is now part of the must-pass Defense bill. See SIIA’s full statement here.

Dell launches government cloud: Last week, IT and services company Dell launched Dell Cloud for the U.S. Government, a targeted effort offering federal agencies on premise, dedicated and private clouds as well as multi-tenant options. The cloud environment was designed specifically to comply with FedRAMP and NIST 800-53 and the company plans to submit its solution to the FedRAMP certification process in the near future. Read more from GCN.

GSA upholds IBM protest of Amazon, CIA cloud deal: Earlier this year, the CIA picked Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a private cloud for the CIA, NSA and the rest of the intelligence community to help them better analyze data and other information. The award, worth approximately $600 million over 5 years was protested by IBM and upheld in part by GSA on June 6th. In upholding the IBM protest, GSA pointed to comparability of the CIA’s evaluation of prices and that the CIA materially relaxed a solicitation term in post-award negotiations. IBM’s bid of about $94 million a year was $54 million less than AWS’s $148 million annually but the source selection authority felt the price difference was offset by AWS’s technical capability. It is unclear at this stage how this process will go forward. FCW has an inside look.

DHS to host webinar on the next generation IT: On June 26, 2013, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate will host a webinar designed to bring private industry up-to-date on the future IT needs of TSA, including what kinds of cutting-edge IT, intelligence, electronic explosives detection and other security equipment DHS is going to need to safeguard aircraft and airports in the future. Webinar attendees should register by June 19th. Interested parties can register and see the FedBizOpps notice here.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

FedRAMP approves two more cloud vendors: On June 6th, GSA announced that two more cloud service providers, HP and Lockheed Martin, had received their provision authorization through the FedRAMP program. These two approvals bring the total number of FedRAMP approved CSPs to five and marks the second time in just over two weeks that FedRAMP approvals were issued, with Amazon gaining approval via the agency (HHS) ATO process on May 21st. Learn more at GSA.gov.

Secret Service wants an app store: The Secret Service released an RFI on May 29th requesting information supporting the acquisition of services and supplies to provide Mobile Device Management (MDM) / Mobile Application Store (MAS) solutions. The mobile app store capability would securely support a range of mobile operating systems for the service. The RFI says the Secret Service has more than 12,000 mobile devices, running on a variety of operating systems including Blackberry OS, Android iOS, and Windows. In assessing the solutions the service is looking for options that have enterprise level controls to support mission requirements and assist in the overall development of the agency’s mobile strategy. Responses are due June 29th. See the RFI here

NRC getting ready to move to the cloud: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of developing a strategy to move some of its core IT operations to the cloud. NRC released a sources sought notice earlier this year and is currently reviewing those responses. It is expected that NRC will move forward with infrastructure as a service, hosting and other capabilities. With the sensitivity of much of NRC’s data, special attention is being paid to what can be effectively and securely hosted in the cloud. The move follows prior cloud implementations including moving NRC’s core financial system to the cloud. Expect to see more and potentially a solicitation later this summer. Federal News Radio has more.

GSA to pilot cloud brokerage: GSA announced plans late last month to launch a cloud broker pilot by fall 2013. DHS is one of two agencies committed to helping GSA test the model, with the second participating agency remaining unnamed. All in all 15 agencies are part of the cloud broker discussion according to GSA. GSA announced that it plans to award one contract for the pilot program and then reevaluate at the end of the year. SIIA and many other organizations have expressed some reservations about the cloud broker model, in large part because GSA has yet to define the services the cloud broker will provide in the federal market. No additional detail was provided when GSA made the announcement. See Federal Times FedBlog for additional information.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.

Amazon gets FedRAMP seal of approval: Earlier this week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) became the third cloud service provider and the second large company to receive its FedRAMP certification. AWS, unlike the previous two companies to receive FedRAMP certification did so by working through an existing ATO with the Department of Health and Human Services, whereas the others went via the GSA FedRAMP and JAB approval process. The certification is a step in the right direction for the program and shows there’s more than one way to get through the FedRAMP process. Read more here from FCW.

Rep. Issa introduces, committee passes DATA Act: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has introduced a revised version of his DATA Act. The bill, which stalled in the Senate in the last Congress in part because of the cost to implement, sets standards for the publication of federal spending data on www.USASpending.gov. The bill was released in draft form last week, introduced on May 21st and passed unanimously by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 22nd. FCW has the recap.

Changes at OMB to impact federal IT: The last few weeks have brought a lot of change to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with OMB Controller Danny Werfel being appointing Acting IRS Commissioner and Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel moving up to be Acting Deputy Director for Management while maintaining his CIO title. VanRoekel replaces Jeff Zients who resigned earlier this month. Read more from Federal News Radio.

SIIA Releases White Paper on Data Driven Analytics: On Monday, SIIA released a white paper that provides an in-depth look at the benefits and challenges of data-driven innovation along with a detailed public policy roadmap. SIIA crafted the white paper to provide guidance to help policymakers understand and enable the economic and social value of data-driven innovation. Recognizing that data collection and use is at crossroads, and decisions by policymakers could have an enormous impact on American innovation, jobs and economic growth, SIIA believes it is essential for policymakers to recognize that data-driven innovation presents an economic growth engine that is revolutionizing our lives and will create 1.9 million U.S. jobs by 2015. At the same time, we have to address the very legitimate questions about the storage and use of data without strict regulation that stifles economic opportunity. With this paper, SIIA has taken a comprehensive look at the issue – providing significant analysis of where the opportunities lie with data and what needs to be done to unlock its full potential. The full white paper is available here.

SIIA Responds to Cybersecurity RFI: Earlier this week SIIA submitted comments in response to Executive Order 13636 – Improving Critical Infrastructure Protection, issued on February 12, 2013. The RFI and SIIA’s comments specifically address proposed implementation of Section 8(e) of the Executive Order. While SIIA supports the overall effort to improve the cybersecurity posture of the federal government, we have concerns that this provision has the potential to negatively impact the federal acquisition landscape by requiring additional cybersecurity measures beyond what is currently required by FISMA and the FAR.

Michael Hettinger is VP for the Public Sector Innovation Group (PSIG) at SIIA. Follow his PSIG tweets at @SIIAPSIG. Sign up for the Public Sector Innovation Roundup email newsletter for weekly updates.