Earlier this week, the Department of Defense released its cloud computing strategy, aimed at accelerating the adoption of cloud technologies department-wide, breaking down barriers and providing a more agile computing environment. As part of this effort, DOD named DISA as its enterprise cloud service broker to maintain mission assurance and information interoperability within this new strategy. According to DOD CIO, Teri Takai, the new strategy will align all department-wide IT efforts, including data center consolidation, shared services and cloud under a unified umbrella and improve mission effectiveness, IT efficiency and cyber security. Read more.

GSA released an RFI this week, asking vendors to submit ideas for additional, future cloud acquisition models, specifically referencing the idea of creating a cloud service brokerage, such as the role being provided to DOD by DISA. GSA currently offers cloud services to federal, state, local and tribal governments through the infrastructure-as-a-service blanket purchase agreement and the email-as-a-service BPA. A cloud brokerage would provide an alternative to these offerings. There’s been a lot of discussion in industry about this topic in recent months and it looks like GSA is moving to formalize a process. Responses are due August 17th. Review the RFP

In other contract news, the US Department of Interior released an RFP earlier this week for cloud computing services. The Department’s IT Transformation efforts are designed to align with the 25-point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT, the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, and the Cloud-First Policy outlined by the Federal CIO. This requirement is for Foundation Cloud Hosting Services, and associated support services. View the RFP.

In industry news, Microsoft announced this week a “cloud first strategy” for its Office products, tailored for tablets and other touch screen devices. The newly revamped Office was touted by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, as its most ambitious version yet and it will leverage cloud computing by storing documents and settings on the Internet by default, and is compatible with touch screens widely used in tablets. It also incorporates Skype, the video-calling service Microsoft bought for $8.5 billion in 2011. Read more.

This update is an excerpt of the new SIIA Public Sector Innovation weekly email newsletter.  Sign up for the updates.

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

Earlier this week, SIIA member Deltek hosted a Federal Executive Briefing on The Ins and Outs of FedRAMP. The event, attended by nearly 100 people featured Kathy Conrad from GSA’s Office of Citizen Services, David DeVries, the Deputy CIO at DOD, and Paul Nguyen, VP of Cyber Solutions at Knowledge Consulting Group, one of the first FedRAMP approved 3PAOs. The event was moderated by Kevin Plexico of Deltek. I believe the event marked the first time since the 3PAOs were announced that anyone has actually heard from any one of them publically. Overall, I think the interaction was helpful to business and the government. According to the discussion, GSA has received 20 applications to date from cloud service providers (CSPs) via FedRAMP, all seeking to go through formal JAB approval process. They also now have 10 accredited 3PAOs, with Coalfire having been added to the list after the first round. Clearly FedRAMP is moving forward and progress is being made but based on the questions that were being asked at this event, and those that were raised the week prior in the SIIA PSIG Roundtable, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered.

Also this week, SIIA member IBM hosted an event on Capitol Hill for policymakers on how they can leverage big data to save money and address societal challenges. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) both participated along with speakers from IBM. For more see the related blog post from June 27th.

In related news, the Washington Post had a good story this week about the savings and security benefits that can be achieved with a shift to cloud based email, such as that provided by Google Apps for Government.

Lastly, this week, we heard reports from EPA that it hopes to be 80% cloud based by 2015, leveraging a 3 year, $15m IaaS contract recently awarded to CGI. EPA is building a hybrid cloud environment in its National Computing Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C.and CGI will provide server hosting, virtualization, and other services and help move the EPA’s applications to the cloud.

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

As part of GSA’s FedRAMP launch, which occurred on June 6^th, the SIIA Public Sector Innovation Group held an Executive Roundtable session with two of GSA’s key cloud computing executives, Matt Goodrich and Katie Lewin.  The meeting, held at SIIA’s offices on Tuesday, was attended by more than 20 leading industry executives, who were pleased to have the opportunity for an open and off-the-record discussion with two of the people driving the government’s cloud computing and security certification policy.  The FedRAMP program expects to approve three cloud service providers by December, 2012.

Elsewhere in government, we continue to see a move toward cloud email as a service (EaaS).   In addition to recent cloud email migrations at GSA and NOAA which implemented Google Apps for Government, we had the awarding of the FAA cloud email and collaboration at the FAA to CSC, using Microsoft Office 365.  The email and collaboration migration will affect 80,000 users.  Additionally the Department of Labor put out an RFI earlier this week, seeking information from EaaS providers to implement cloud-based email services.

OMB is touting the success of its Digital Government Strategy, highlighting this week that the Digital Services Innovation Center, located within the General Services Administration and headed by OCSIT’s Dave McClure has started operations.  Initially the office will have a small core team, focused on researching and implementing customer satisfaction measurement tools and developing a best practices guide for federal employee’s use of mobile devices.

Lastly, there continues to be increasing focus on big data analytics and its use in government.  As the government continues to collect more and more information, agencies need to figure out not only how to store it effectively (this puts a strain on existing data centers), but how to leverage it for research, what to analyze and how to publish.  The White House announced it was putting $200m into big data earlier this year and NIST held its first big data workshop last week.  Expect more on big data and government in the coming months.  Who knows, maybe there will a “Big Data First” strategy in our future.

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

It was an extremely busy and important week for measuring progress related to implementation of cloud computing in the federal government.  This week, NIST held its 5^th cloud computing workshop, attended by over 150 interested cloud computing companies, academics and standards organizations.  SIIA was pleased to have been part of the agenda, with our Senior Director for Public Policy, David LeDuc, participating on a panel about the future of the cloud computing model and NIST’s reference architecture.

On Tuesday, SIIA released it most recent white paper on federal cloud computing, entitled Beyond the 25 Point Plan:  A Roadmap to Implementing Cloud Computing and Reforming Federal IT.  As evidenced by the significant attention that the white paper received at the NIST conference and in the press it appears that our recommendations caught the attention of federal decision makers.  The report’s release was designed to coincide with the NIST conference and the reaching of the 18-month deliverables timeline from the original 25 point plan on June 9^th.  The key recommendations of the white paper are:

• Continue to promote the Cloud Frist Policy
• Promote changes to the acquisition and capital planning processes that will allow the federal government to keep pace with technology
• Lower the barrier of market entry for small businesses
• Review, revise and consolidate the implementing guidance associated with Cloud First, Shared Services, and Data Center Consolidation into a comprehensive federal IT strategy.

Lastly this week, GSA officially launched its FedRAMP initial operational capabilities (IOC) and is now accepting applications from cloud services providers desiring to receive their provisional authorization under the program and leverage its  “do once, use many times” mantra to sell cloud services across the government.  It is expected that we will see the approval of 3 CSPs under FedRAMP by December, 2012, according to GSA.  For more information on FedRAMP or to download the application, visit www.fedramp.gov.

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

Since I didn’t have a chance to blog about the new Federal Digital Strategy last week, I will add it in to this week’s update. Obviously it’s of significant importance to what is going on in Federal IT these days as the US Government tries to address issues such as mobile security, open data and bring your own device. The Digital Strategy, originally billed as a mobile strategy, has evolved into something more complex.

Released on May 23rd, the Digital Government Strategy sets out three main objectives:

• Enable the American people and an increasingly mobile workforce to access high-quality digital government information and services anywhere, anytime, on any device.
• Ensure that as the government adjusts to this new digital world, by seizing the opportunity to procure and manage devices, applications, and data in smart, secure and affordable ways
• Unlock the power of government data to spur innovation across the Nation and improve the quality of services for the American people.

Among the key action items in the Digital Strategy is the establishment of the Digital Services Innovation Center at the General Services Administration, under the direction of Gwynne Kostin, Director of Mobile in GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. The Digital Services Innovation Center will work with agencies to establish shared solutions and training, as well as a FedRAMP-like certification program for mobile devices.

This week, in advance of NIST’s Cloud Workshop V which begins Tuesday, June 5th, we saw the publication of the NIST Special Publication 800-146: Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations. This document attempts to describe cloud computing in plain language, repeats the NIST-established definition of cloud computing, describes cloud’s benefits and identifies 23 open issues to be addressed – some of which I am sure will be hot topics at next week’s workshop. It also provides insight into various cloud technologies, while providing guidance as to how information technology decision makers should manage cloud-based systems.

See the NIST Publication here.

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