VanRoekel joins a roster of other influential policymakers and government IT executives presenting at Cloud/GOV, including:

• Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, U.S. House of Representatives
• David DeVries, Deputy CIO, Information Enterprise, U.S. Department of Defense
• Dawn Leaf, Deputy Chief Information Officer, United States Department of Labor
• Peter Tseronis, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Energy

Cloud/GOV will offer a comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities federal agencies face in their transition to the cloud. Government CIOs who have already made the switch to cloud computing will discuss the lessons they learned and provide advice for other federal executives. Presentations will also address emerging FedRAMP-related issues, including the convergence of the cloud and “big data” analytics. In addition, the conference will include a comprehensive look at federal policy changes that could impact cloud computing in 2013.

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

Panelists:
Susie Adams
Federal Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft

Kevin Plexico
Vice President Information Solutions, Deltek

Mike Binko
President and CEO, kloudtrack

USPS moves ahead with cloud ID management program: The US Postal Service continues to solicit proposals for a cloud-based ID credentialing hub pilot project. The program seeks a software-as-a-service solution that would provide access to non-government providers of ID credentials who have been approved under the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management (FICAM) initiative. Responses are due February 11th. GCN has more.

OFPP to push contractor past performance reviews: The Office of Federal Procurement Policy announced an aggressive effort to ensure that all contractor past performance information is entered into the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), aiming for 100 percent compliance by 2015. The effort comes on the heels of a recent report from DOD that showed only 67.5 percent of required contractor reviews at DOD were added to the system. By making this push OFPP hopes to achieve better outcomes for taxpayers by ensuring that contracting officers better understand specific contractor performance. Read more.

Dell announces Project Ophelia cloud key: This week Dell announced what they are calling a cloud key, which looks to me like an operating system in a flash drive. The idea is to allow you to carry your desktop functionality with you and plug into any device with an HDMI jack, allowing you access to what is now only available on your desktop or laptop. GCN asks whether this is the future of remote computing.

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

This year’s event will feature discussions from a diverse group of influential government IT advisors, leading software executives and policymakers, including:

• Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, U.S. House of Representatives
• David DeVries, Deputy CIO, Information Enterprise, U.S. Department of Defense
• Dawn Leaf, Deputy Chief Information Officer, United States Department of Labor
• Peter Tseronis, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Energy

The conference will also gather a panel of government CIOs to discuss their move to the cloud and provide advice for other federal executives with organizational concerns. Other presentations will address emerging FedRAMP-related issues, the convergence of the cloud and “big data” analytics as well as a comprehensive look at federal policy changes that could impact cloud computing in 2013. Additionally, vendors representing all segments of the public sector will highlight the latest innovations in cloud-based government IT.

For a complete schedule of events, visit http://www.siia.net/cloudgov/2013/

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

We’ll also have a great panel on FedRAMP which includes Katie Lewin from GSA and Tom McAndrew from Coalfire, a GSA certified 3PAO. The idea behind this panel is the go inside the program to understand how it works and what businesses need to be prepared for when they get into the process. We’ve also got a great session on the collision of cloud computing and big data, featuring Shawn Kingsberry from the RAT Board and Ashit Talukder from NIST, two of the government leaders in these areas. New content and speakers are being added every day so I expect a great event. We will have a couple of high profile keynote speakers to announce in the coming weeks.Check it out here.

FedRAMP Rollout Continues: Speaking of FedRAMP, we learned a little more about what GSA expects from the FedRAMP program in 2013. According to this article in FCW GSA expects 10 to 15 cloud service providers to be accredited through the program in 2013 and twice that number in 2014 when FedRAMP becomes mandatory. Some readers of this blog may recall that back in March 2012 when GSA initially spoke of FedRAMP they said they hoped they could get as many as 6 to 20 CSPs through the program in 2012. At the rate technology moves these days, having fewer than 50 approved CSPs by the end of 2014 may not do much to speed the government’s migration to cloud computing as agencies will have to look to other contract vehicles to procure what they need. From our end of things, we will continue to push GSA to move companies quickly through the FedRAMP process so that all CSPs can compete on equal footing.

NIST Cloud and Big Data Workshop: This week NIST held its latest meeting in its workshop series on cloud computing and data analytics, this time bringing together two of the hottest topics in federal IT. The three day discussion at NIST’s Gaithersburg, Maryland headquarters featured a keynote by Federal CIO Steve Van Roekel and a host of panel discussions about how cloud and data work together to make government more effective. FedNewsRadio has a recap.

Cloud and Data Drive State and Local IT Modernization: We hear over and over again that data and cloud hold as much if not more promise for efficiency in state and local governments as they do in the federal government. No place is this more evident than in the state of Oregon, where the Oregon Records Management Solution will provide state, city and county government officials with acces to records in a timely, efficient and uniform manner, while saving money and reducing risk. FCW has the full story.

Postal Service Plans for Cloud Computing Credential Exchange Pilot: According to a posting on FedBizOps, the US Postal Service is moving ahead with a one-year cloud credential exchange program pilot. The USPS intends to award a one-year contract for a software-as-a-service solution that will meet the federal government’s need to provide a consistent approach to authentication for citizens seeking online access to individualized federal agency systems and applications. See the full opportunity at FBO.

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

A key theme unifying the work of SIIA on behalf of its members is an increased focus on advancing the effective collection and positive use of data. It is essential that public policy recognizes that innovation and business strategies are increasingly driven by data. Importantly, data-driven innovation not only holds the promise of advancing economic opportunity and jobs, but of providing tremendous consumer and societal benefits.

With so much at stake, SIIA is committed to actively promoting the economic and social value of data-driven innovation. Our efforts will involve direct outreach to legislators, along with a White Paper that includes recommendations for policymakers and governments. Our goal is to make certain that public policy helps enable the tremendous societal and economic benefits of data-driven innovation.

With members in both technology and information services, SIIA is uniquely positioned to highlight and address the public policy issues that arise from the increased salience of data-driven innovation. We began to focus more strongly on this issue in 2012, and it will be an even more important part of our work in 2013.

SIIA also announced its general tech policy priorities for 2013, along with policy priorities in the areas of: intellectual property; public sector IT, and; education technology.

Technology Policy Priorities

• Promote and enable the economic and social value of data-driven innovation, including through a White Paper with recommendations for policymakers and governments.
• Actively support voluntary, enforceable codes of conduct to provide enhanced data privacy protections, and oppose legislative and regulatory proposals that lack the flexibility to accommodate rapid technological innovation.
• Promote policies around the world that facilitate cross-border data flows, and develop interoperable legal frameworks that help to advance global implementation of cloud computing.
• Promote critical cybersecurity policies, in the U.S. and around the world, that will help the public and private sectors work together to more effectively mitigate this threat, without stifling innovation.

Intellectual Property Priorities

• Protect the economic interests and creative rights of software and content publishers by responding as appropriate to the Supreme Court opinion in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons Inc. and any other cases, policies or legislation relating to the copyright law’s first sale exception/exhaustion principle that may unduly limit their ability to license and control the distribution of their software and content products
• Encourage economic growth and innovation by working for further reform of the patent system to address the ongoing problem of patent trolls, including measures to restrict asymmetric discovery burdens.
• Monitor the ICANN’s domain name expansion process with the goal of enhancing and strengthening online transparency and accountability by working to ensure that domain name and IP address Whois databases remain publicly accessible, accurate, and reliable, as key tools to combat online infringement of copyrights and trademarks, and other fraudulent or criminal acts online.
• Actively monitor for, and act upon as necessary, hearings, legislative or regulatory copyright reform proposals in the United States and abroad, such as issues relating to orphan works, library exceptions and piracy, to ensure that they advance and do not adversely affect the copyright interests of SIIA members.
• Oppose changes to the CFAA that would unduly limit the ability of SIIA members to deter and prevent unauthorized access – and access that exceeds authorized access to databases, subscription services and cloud services.
• Ensure that any international treaty relating to copyright exceptions for the blind and visually impaired that may be adopted by WIPO includes adequate safeguards to protect the copyright interests of SIIA’s publishers.

Public Sector IT Priorities

• Encourage Administration IT initiatives for federal agencies to be more open, transparent and efficient, delivering better services to citizens, while reducing the overall cost of government. Information Technology has and will continue to play a role in the Federal government’s effort to deliver better services to citizens, while reducing the overall cost of government.
• Support a continuation of the effort to move agencies to cloud, consolidate the existing data center infrastructure and better leverage government data.
• Advocate for key administration initiatives that support the overall mission of the SIIA Public Sector Innovation Group including: Cloud First, Big Data, Data Center Consolidation, Digital Government/Mobile, and FedRAMP.
• Support reasonable reform of the Federal acquisition process, which needs to change to keep pace with the rapid pace of technology.
• Intervene to support member interest in the legislative consideration of the proposal by Chairman Daryl Issa to reform federal IT acquisition, which will serve as a basis for a broader discussion around the need to improve IT acquisition to keep pace with technology in 2013.

Ed Tech Priorities

• Seek increased investment in education technology and its integration into teaching and learning, including to personalize learning for each student.
• Reform outdated regulations in favor of 21st Century e-learning policies, especially the shift from seat-time to anytime, everywhere competency-based learning.
• Support education technology research and development through government-industry partnership, not government competition with the private sector.
• Support the value of the for-profit sector in providing education products and services to public schools, agencies and institutions.
• Encourage targeted STEM education, training and other workforce development policies to meet the economy’s needs for a skilled high-tech workforce.
• Actively translate public policies, programs and regulations into actionable market intelligence for SIIA members.

Ken Wasch is President of SIIA.

House Oversight and Government Reform Announces New Subcommittee Chairmen, Reorganization of Subcommittee Structure: In what appears to be a reprioritization of the committee’s agenda the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced a new structure this week, which included eliminating two subcommittees and combining the jurisdictions of the Government Organization and the Technology Subcommittees into a “super-subcommittee” to oversee “Government Operations”. The new subcommittee will be chaired by Rep. John Mica (R-FL), a longtime member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the immediate past Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), who had been the chairman of the Technology Subcommittee moves over to chair the Energy Policy Subcommittee, while Rep. Platts (R-PA) who chaired Government Organization retired from Congress. See the Committee’s press release here.

Fiscal Cliff Avoided, Uncertainty Looms for Feds and Contractors: For the first time in over 50 years, the Congress was in session on New Year’s Day and managed to get some work done. As I flipped back and forth between the Orange Bowl and C-Span’s coverage of the floor debate, the House passed the Senate version of legislation to avoid the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for most Americans, while delaying the “sequester” for another two months. This sets up a good deal of uncertainty for federal employees and government contractors, who are unsure about how to proceed given the looming sequester cuts, as well as the expiration of the continuing resolution and a potential fight over the debt ceiling. It could get interesting. Federal News Radio has a story.

GovWin Releases Big Data Spending Outlook: GovWin has a new (free) report out highlighting the growing demand for big data solutions in the federal government. According to the report, spending on big data and related solutions was just under $5 billion in the last fiscal year, but is expected to top $7 billion by 2017. Download the report here.

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

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 10^th Anniversary of the E-Gov Act Event:  This week marked the 10^th 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 3^rd 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.

  Name: Gunnar Hellekson
  Title: Chief Technology Strategist
Company: Red Hat

Gunnar Hellekson is the Chief Technology Strategist for Red Hat’s US Public Sector group, where he works with systems integrators and government agencies to encourage the use of open source software in government. He is co-chair of Open Source for America and one of Federal Computer Week’s Fed 100 for 2010. He is also an active member of the Military Open Source working group, the Freedom 2 Connect Technical Council, New America’s California Civic Innovation Project Advisory Council, and the CivicCommons Board of Advisors. He is especially interested in cross-domain security, edge innovation, and interagency collaboration through the open source model.

Home town: Honolulu, Hawaii

First job: Slaving away on an AS/400 for Louis Vuitton’s Honolulu operation when I was in high school.

What are you currently reading? “Industry and Empire”, by E.J. Hobsbawn

All-time favorite music: Reggae. I’m from Hawaii, so that’s mandatory.

What is the best meal you have had recently? The “Heather” from Taco Deli in Austin.

What is your next (dream) career? I’m doing it right now.

Hobbies: My wife, my dog, and fancy cocktails.

What do you think is the hot button issue for the software & services industry going into 2013? The elimination of customization and craftwork, and the introduction of standardization and automation.

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.