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FedRAMP is key to “Cloud First” Federal policy; security controls pose a hurdle

January 18, 2011 By

Without question, the Federal Government has accurately identified cloud computing as a great opportunity for significant cost savings, flexibility, fast deployment and lower risk of project failure across all agencies.  In December 2010, U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled the 25 Point Implementation Plan To Reform Federal Information Technology Management, which lays out an 18-month execution strategy to improve Government efficiency, effectiveness, and service delivery.

One of the key components of the plan is the launch of a “Cloud First” policy, where each agency CIO will be required to begin migration of multiple services to the cloud in the next 12-18 months.  Central to the effort to provide a standard approach to Assessing and Authorizing (A&A) cloud computing services and products is FedRAMP (the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program), a program that proposes to provide joint authorizations and continuous monitoring for government and commercial cloud computing systems intended for multi-agency use.

While it’s a laudable goal to streamline and simplify cloud computing security risk assessment controls across agencies and to ease the certification process, the most recent draft FedRAMP still suffers from being an impractical high-bar approach to achieve the “approve once and use often” goal for cloud computing implementation across agencies.  With the clock ticking on the aggressive “Cloud First” implementation timeline, SIIA submitted comments highlighting the various challenges posed by the current proposal.  Fortunately, Vivek Kundra and key Federal IT leaders continue to demonstrate a dogged determination to make the cloud first policy a success, so hopefully there’s still time to fix FedRAMP and begin migrating to the cloud.

To that end, SIIA’s Cloud/gov conference couldn’t come at a better time this year, as agency CIOs assess the opportunities and challenges presented by this new policy.  On February  17th, the conference will provide a timely opportunity to hear from Federal IT leaders from GSA, NIST and NASA, and talk with colleagues from other agencies about the opportunities and challenges presented by the new Cloud First policy.

For more SIIA policy updates, subscribe to the Digital Policy Roundup, SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Digital Policy Roundup, Policy Tagged With: , , , ,

State of Public Sector Cloud Computing by Vivek Kundra

May 25, 2010 By

Executive Summary by Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer

The Obama Administration is changing the way business is done in Washington and bringing a new sense of responsibility to how we manage taxpayer dollars. We are working to bring the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations.

The United States Government is the world’s largest consumer of information technology, spending over $76 billion annually on more than 10,000 different systems. Fragmentation of systems, poor project execution, and the drag of legacy technology in the Federal Government have presented barriers to achieving the productivity and performance gains found when technology is deployed effectively in the private sectors.

In September 2009, we announced the Federal Government’s Cloud Computing Initiative. Cloud computing has the potential to greatly reduce waste, increase data center efficiency and utilization rates, and lower operating costs. This report presents an overview of cloud computing across the public sector. It provides the Federal Government’s definition of cloud computing, and includes details on deployment models, service models, and common characteristics of cloud computing.

As we move to the cloud, we must be vigilant in our efforts to ensure that the standards are in place for a cloud computing environment that provides for security of government information, protects the privacy of our citizens, and safeguards our national security interests. This report provides details regarding the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s efforts to facilitate and lead the development of standards for security, interoperability, and portability.

Furthermore, this report details Federal budget guidance issued to agencies to foster the adoption of cloud computing technologies, where relevant, and provides an overview of the Federal Government’s approach to data center consolidation.

This report concludes with 30 illustrative case studies at the Federal, state and local government levels. These case studies reflect the growing movement across the public sector to leverage cloud computing technologies.

Download the full report: [PDF] [DOCX (Word 2007 Format)]

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Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Cloud Computing, Cloud Computing: Education, Events, Government, Public Sector Innovation Summit, Software, Software Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

“The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

March 17, 2010 By

In the last few weeks, federal and state officials have introduced a plethora of plans and proposals with implications for education and the role of technology that is perhaps unprecedented in scale and scope.  The latest is the “National Broadband Plan: Connecting America” released today by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in response to a Congressional request in the Recovery Act a year ago.  The others: the National Education Technology Plan, titled “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology” released two weeks ago,  the Obama Administration’s ESEA “blueprint for reform” and the NGA-CCSSO Common Core standards, not to mention the final Investing in Innovation (i3) rules.  The timing is largely coincidental.  The question: What does it all mean?

A few observations specific to education technology and SIIA members:

-The Obama Administration (including the independent FCC) seems to view technology as an important means to educating our students to maintain our global competitiveness.

- The Obama Administration is proposing a new federal policy path to realizing that goal, proposing to increase the E-Rate, eliminate targeted DoED funding through the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program, infuse technology in other ESEA programs, and look to “supply-side solutions” such as investment in open educational resources (OER) and interoperability as well as potentially far-reaching regulation around copyright, technology standards, etc.

- It is unclear whether the Obama Administration’s vision for transforming education through technology is a priority or sufficiently backed by “demand-side” targeted federal policies and investments (i.e., those directly supporting educational agencies and teachers around technology) needed to help lead the nation’s education system in this new direction.

- It is less clear how the U.S. Congress, not to mention education leaders, will react in that their actions are largely need to legislate and enact these policies and recommendations.  For example, “Many of the FCC’s proposals are short on details, and lawmakers and the agency can accept or reject any number of the ideas.”  [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Policy, Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s the (Ed Tech) Plan?

March 5, 2010 By

The U.S. Department of Education today released a draft of the National Educational Technology Plan titled, “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology.”  U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan previewed the plan March 3rd during SIIA’s Ed Tech Government Forum in his first speech centered around technology-enabled teaching and learning.  SIIA staff and members were pleased to be invited to provide input into the draft plan, including an SIIA member focus group held in June 2009.

The Plan is not merely a technology plan; it is importantly a plan for the future of teaching and learning. The described model of 21st century learning, powered by technology, is very consistent with SIIA’s Vision K-20. It calls for “personalized learning instead of a one-size-fits-all curriculum, pace of teaching, and instructional practices,” “technology-based assessments,” and “using technology . . . [for] enabling a shift to a model of connected teaching.”  The plan also recognizes that technology can make our education system more productive, as it has done in most other sectors, as well as that “an essential component of the 21st century learning model is a comprehensive infrastructure.”

The Plan’s release comes on the heels of the Obama Administration’s FY2011 budget, which proposes, among other changes, to eliminate funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program and instead infuse technology into other programs.  SIIA is working to understand the details and implications of this policy shift and has shared some early thoughts (here and here).

SIIA has little doubt those few communities with the vision, capacity and resources will continue to pursue the model outlined in the Plan, but what will happen to those without absent this federal investment?  How credible and viable will the Plan and federal leadership be without matching targeted resources? Failing to adequately plan has slowed our nation’s progress toward a technology-enabled 21st century education system, but absent the enabling investments, this important initiative could amount to no more than planning to fail.

Upon initial review, SIIA supports the Plan’s vision, and many of the recommendations.  We are very pleased that the Obama Administration has put forward such a bold model for the transformation of our educational system.  And we look forward to working further with our members, education stakeholders and the Obama Administration to not only further refine the Plan to ensure it is appropriate and actionable, but more importantly to ensure the critical investments in technology are made and systems changed to realize the Plan’s successful implementation and the continued competitiveness of our education system.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Policy, Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Apps.gov – Overview and Resources for SIIA Member Participation

February 4, 2010 By

Written by David LeDuc, SIIA

About Apps.gov

In September 2009, the Federal Government launched Apps.gov to streamline application adoption at federal agencies, billed by U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra as the Federal Government’s one-stop source for cloud services.  The site is the federal agency storefront for approved cloud computing applications, including business applications, cloud services, productivity apps and social media software.

While the process is streamlined from the difficult procurement process that can slow down deployment of technology, many software companies that have not been doing business with the Government—particularly small and medium-sized companies—have still raised questions about participating in Apps.gov.

To facilitate participation by member companies, SIIA has compiled the following information and resources.  Also, if there is significant interest among members, SIIA will seek to setup a webcast to review these details and to take questions from members.  If you have additional questions or would like to discuss this, please contact David LeDuc at dleduc@siia.net .
[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Government, Public Sector Innovation Summit, Software Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Obama Budget Proposal: Half Empty or Half Full for Ed Tech?

February 1, 2010 By

The FY2011 (2011-12 school year) budget proposal released today by the Obama Administration would dramatically remake the federal education landscape in the name of flexibility and alignment around the four assurances.  Among the changes would be the “consolidation” of the Enhancing Education Through Technology program (and 38 others down to 11), perhaps ending some 15+ years of targeted USED investment in educational innovation and improvement through technology only recently touted by 30+ national education and high-tech organizations and supported in the stimulus.  While SIIA has been ensured of the goal to integrate technology throughout, those details to date are not available. 

Flexibility to use an array of federal program funds to meet educational needs through technology is an important principle, and in fact, advocacy by SIIA and others has ensured technology is already allowed in most core U.S. Department of Education programs (though much more work is needed).  The flexibility is most often taken advantage of by those with the vision, capacity and existing success.  The questions therefore are: What federal leadership teeth will be given to the integration policies to drive technology-based practices that would not otherwise happen.  And what will happen to those many communities and teachers without the vision, capacity and resources, if targeted investment is no longer provided?  EETT has been successful in targeting high-need schools especially in building local capacity and providing needed professional development.  Pending bipartisan legislation would build on those successes and revamp the program.

Among the other major proposals as part of a $3.5 billion overall increase: $1.35 B for RttT, $500 M for i3, $200 M more for literacy and STEM, $354 more for school improvement/turnaround, $800 M more for innovative teacher and leader reforms/recruitment/preparation, and slight increases for Title I and IDEA to about $25 B total.   Included is a shift in some cases from formula to competitive programs, while much of the proposal depends upon uncertain enabling legislation through the ESEA/NCLB reauthorization.  [Note that SIIA will be further analyzing the proposal for its members in the days ahead.] 

SIIA looks forward to learning more about the Administration’s proposals, and working with the USED and other stakeholders to ensure that any new federal policy paradigm pushes real transformation  and closes the gap of educational improvement enabled by educational technologies.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Policy, Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Race-to-the-Top, Prepare for the Marathon

January 26, 2010 By

Much recent attention has rightly been paid to the Race-to-the-Top (RttT), but there are a wide range of other policies and programs also driving educational investments and opportunities. 2009 lay some $100+ million in federal  education reform and improvement seeds, while Recovery Act implementation along with new legislation means 2010 is shaping up to be at least as critical  to the long-term growth of that investment and policy.  SIIA’s 2010 Ed Tech Government Forum  will help SIIA members understand the impact of Education Funding & Programs in a (Post) Stimulus World. 

SIIA members are encouraged to register by the February 1 early-bird deadline for the SIIA Forum, taking place March 3-4 in Washington, DC.  The Forum will provide SIIA members with insight on a wide range of K-20 policies and programs impacting the education sector, and do so with an eye toward the role of technology and the role of private partners. 

Speakers and Topics Include:

- CA Secretary of Ed Glen Thomas and US DoED Senior Advisor Hal Plotkin will share their inside perspectives on the their Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives

- State and local education leaders will discuss the impact and timeline of Common Core Standards on educational publishers and developers

- US DoED’s Jim Shelton will answer all your questions about Investing in Innovation (i3)

- President Obama’s Special Assistant for Education Roberto Rodriguez will outline the Administration’s education agenda and the role of technology and e-learning

- Title I leaders will examine the newest models and opportunities around the $billions being invested in School Improvement through Title I and RttT

- Renowned RtI expert Dr. Russell Gersten will share the best policies, research and practice driving the large investments nationwide in Response-to-Intervention

- Education policy leaders will provide insight into the 2010 education agenda, including the Recovery Act, RttT, ESEA Reauthorization, and the federal education budget

- Keynotes from U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen and WV State Superintendent Steven Paine will help you understand the vision and policy prescriptions of national education leaders

Of course, all this insight and analysis will take place against a backdrop of extensive networking opportunities with education leaders from inside the beltway, and from around the country, as well as advocacy opportunities.

With the Obama Administration fundamentally reshaping federal education programs and national education policy, this is a critical year to be in Washington, DC.  More Information.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Policy, Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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