GSA Approves First CSP Under FedRAMP: While we were away, GSA met its self-imposed deadline to approve at least one cloud service provider under the FedRAMP program by the end of 2012. On December 27, 2012, GSA announced the first provisional authorization under the FedRAMP program was awarded to Autonomic Resources, a small, North Carolina-based government cloud provider, also on the Infrastructure as a Service and Email as a Service BPAs. The FedRAMP certification was conducted by Veris Group, one of 15 GSA-approved third party assessors (3PAOs). GSA reports more than 50 applications under the FedRAMP program so the expectation is that we will see more approvals throughout 2013. Nextgov has a story on the first certification and Federal News Radio one on the outlook for more approvals.

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.

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.

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.