OMB adds Cloud Costs to Exhibit 53 Process:
In budget guidance sent to agencies in early August, OMB acknowledged the need for agencies to calculate and anticipate cloud computing costs. This simple change to the information required in Exhibit 53 requires federal agencies to report any spending directly attributable to cloud computing implementation, operations or services as part of agency budget preparations for FY 2014. The change also followed a recommendation made by SIIA earlier this year that asked OMB to review the Exhibit 53/300 process to ensure its relevancy in today’s world of on demand computing. See the E-Commerce Times article here.

Cloud Broker RFI:
GSA is continuing to push for industry responses to its Cloud Brokerage RFI. The due date remains extended to September 7th. This week, Mark Day from GSA’s Integrated Technology Services held an online Twitter chat to follow up on Industry Day. Twitter uses can see the full dialogue between GSA and the industry participants by following @GSA_ITS or searching the hashtag #ITSChat.

Citrix Cloud Survey:
A recent survey of more than 1000 adults conducted by Wakefield Research for Citrix found mixed reactions to cloud computing, with 54 percent of respondents saying they never use a “cloud” although when you dig a little deeper, 97 percent actually do via online shopping, banking and social networks. Among the key findings, 59 percent believe the workplace of the future will be entirely in the cloud and 68 percent recognize the economic benefits of cloud computing once they understand what it is. Other findings reveal a more comic side to the survey. 51 percent believe stormy weather can affect cloud services, 22 percent have pretended to know what the cloud is during a business conversation, and 56 percent of respondents said they think other people refer to cloud computing in conversation when they really don’t know what they are talking about. The lesson here is that although cloud computing is clearly becoming more mainstream, we have a lot of educating to do. Read the full survey here.

Intelligence Agencies to Build Private Cloud OS:
US intelligence agencies are leveraging the CIA’s investment arm, In-Q-Tel in partnership with Adaptive Computing to develop a private cloud operating systems for use by multiple US intelligence agencies, using an open source cloud platform. Under the arrangement Adaptive Computing will provide service provisioning, service catalogs and policy management in the cloud. Among the main drivers of this move, according to comments from James Clapper, head of the ODNI, at an industry conference last year, is meeting budget restrictions. See the Information Week article here.

The Department of Treasury announced earlier this week that it is now formally soliciting feedback from industry on a proposed set of financial management system requirements for agencies to use when acquiring and implementing financial management solutions, including systems and services. They have scheduled an Industry Day to discussed proposed changes to federal financial management systems requirements in OMB Circular A-127 on August 22nd from 9:00am to 12:00pm in the Main Treasury Building. Responses are due September 12th. Register for the Industry Day. As of the writing of this newsletter the supporting materials for this effort were not available online but can be obtained by contacting Adam Goldberg at the Treasury Department.

In other contract-related news, GSA is preparing to move ahead with a $12 billion acquisition vehicle known as One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services, or OASIS. The contract will be primarily focused on what are being termed complex services like program management, consulting and professional engineering. It will also have an information technology component. Read more.

Information Week released its third annual federal government IT priorities survey results earlier this week. Topping the list of concerns for federal IT executives was cybersecurity, followed by continuity and data records management. The survey collected responses from more than 140 federal IT personnel. Read more here: http://www.informationweek.com/government/leadership/cybersecurity-tops-federal-it-priorities/240005251 Lastly, the Department of Education, like so many other government agencies these days, is soliciting public feedback on what services sites and applications you think are the most important to make more mobile friendly. The feedback gathered will help the Education Department meet the requirements of the Digital Government Strategy. More from the Education Department website.

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

GSA Cloud Brokerage RFI: GSA announced earlier this week through FedBizOpps that the deadline for responding to the Cloud Brokerage RFI has officially been extended to September 7th. Those seeking more information on this opportunity can access information from the FBO website.

Federal Cloud Credential Exchange (FCCX): GSA and FCCX announced earlier this week at the Industry Day on Federal Identity Solutions that they are extending the deadline for vendors to submit ideas on implementing third-party, cloud-based identity management on federal websites until August 20th– a week later than originally planned. The FCCX effort aims to develop a concept for managing identities in the cloud and facilitate a process by which agency websites could accept externally-issued credentials that meet Federal Identity, Credential and Access Management (FICAM) standards, in line with the President’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). For more see the FCCX Blog.

Deltek Federal IT Spending Report: A new report from Deltek GovWin IQ predicts Federal IT spending will decrease approximately 1.4% from $121 billion in 2012 to $113 billion by 2017, citing budget pressures and IT mandates from the Obama administration as forcing agencies to drive cost savings and consolidation in their IT infrastructures. The report also highlights potential growth areas such as budget and policy reforms, established as the first steps in forcing agency IT transformation, that are driving investments in key areas of IT that represent growth opportunities for government contractors. Some of the most prominent investment areas are focused around cost-saving initiatives, including analytics to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in government programs, the adoption of cloud computing and the consolidation of redundant data centers and systems. See the Deltek press release.

IDC Cloud Adoption Report: On August 6th, IDC Government Insights released the results of an online survey of 401 federal, state and local IT professionals on cloud adoption, which shows measured progress in moving public sector entities to the cloud. Read the press release on the survey.

SIIA Op-Ed on Federal IT Reform: Lastly, the Federal Times ran an Op-Ed on Monday by Mike Hettinger, Director of SIIA’s Public Sector Innovation Group calling for a comprehensive federal IT roadmap and changes to federal IT procurement regulations to speed cloud adoption by the federal government. Read the op-ed here.

GSA’s Cloud Brokerage Industry Day: For the third straight week, GSA’s ongoing discussion about implementing a cloud brokerage concept leads our innovation roundup. As reported in previous editions, GSA has issued an RFI seeking information from contractors who might have an interest in serving in a broker role. This week, GSA held its first industry day to discuss the RFI and gather feedback. The event garnered a standing room only crowd in Crystal City on Thursday morning. Among the most important information to come out of the industry day was the fact that GSA plans to extend the August 17th deadline for responses to a date later this month or possibly as late as September.

The industry day discussion was led by a panel of senior government officials involved in federal cloud computing, including Keith Trippie from DHS, Stan Kaczmarczak from GSA, Katie Lewin from GSA, and Marcelo Olascoaga, also from GSA who is the Technical POC for the RFI. Among the highlights was a discussion of the changing federal IT business model away from buying IT assets to acquiring services. According to GSA, the goal of the brokerage model to harness evolving and innovative technology and deliver it to agencies quickly, with the broker serving to ensure competition in the acquisition process. As highlighted in the discussion and Q&A, the contract would likely have multiple awardees, providing services such as PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, as well as whatever else is needed to get the government to the cloud.

Other points highlighted included whether or not the cloud broker role would be filled by GSA or outsourced to the private sector or both, how brokers would be categorized or if they would be broken into categories at all, and how the effectiveness of cloud brokers would be measured. All issues were left somewhat unresolved. GSA wants to hear from industry on this RFI so all those with an interest in helping shape this effort, should review and respond to the RFI.

Innovation Networking Project Announced: In other news, Federal Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park, announced the Innovation Networking Project at the end of last week. The program is still in its formative stages but seeks to connect IT innovators around government by supplementing traditional, face-to-face networking with new methods of bringing federal employees of like minds and ideas together to brainstorm. The goal is not only to connect existing government innovators, but help recruit more creative minds to government. We expect more to come on this in the next few weeks.

Contracting: In contracting news, the Department of Labor released a pre-solicitation notice this week letting potential vendors know they will be releasing a formal RFP for Email as a Service on August 15th. According to the notice posted on FedBizOpps, the DOL CIO is pursuing the acquisition of e-mail, collaboration, office automation, eDiscovery, and records management services as Software as a Service (SaaS) from a commercial provider of Cloud Computing services. View the FBO notice.

Last week we reported on GSA’s request for information (RFI) for companies interested in serving as cloud brokers. Responses are due August 17th. This week we learned that GSA has scheduled an industry day to discuss the RFI in more detail. In addition to addressing questions about the Cloud Brokerage RFI, speakers from GSA and other federal agencies will provide brief presentations about their perspective on next generation cloud computing improvements and how industry can help the government achieve the vision. Industry Day is scheduled for August 2nd at 9:30am at GSA Crystal Plaza 4 in Arlington. Each company is allowed two (2) attendees. Register here.

FDA released an RFI this week, seeking information on the availability of data mining tools that would help gather information on adverse reactions to vaccines and other drugs, and to collect better information about potential problems with drugs that FDA already has approved or that it may approve in the future. The move by FDA is yet another step toward leveraging data analytics and “Big Data” tools to make government more efficient and effective. View the RFI here.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet, held a hearing on cloud computing with private sector witnesses from IBM and Rackspace. Among the key issues discussed were foreign governments leveraging to Patriot Act to keep US companies out of their cloud markets, and the need to balance security and privacy with consumer demands for openness. Witnesses also highlighted the superior benefits of cloud computing from a security standpoint, the importance of promoting innovation in the cloud and the need to enforce existing laws and regulations around IP theft. Read the hearing testimony.

In industry news, Dimension Data, a global services and solutions provider, this week unveiled Dimension Data OneCloud Partner Program, a global cloud partnership initiative that enables service providers, education institutions, government agencies and trading communities to rapidly bring new cloud services to market. According to information released by the company, the program expedites time to market by leveraging Dimension Data’s global Managed Cloud Platform™ (MCP), sales and marketing enablement services, as well as its Cloud Exchange, allowing an ecosystem of cloud service providers that are able to exchange cloud traffic. For more read here.