The federal government’s chief information officer, Steven VanRoekel, said his office, the Federal CIO Council, the Federal Web Managers Council, and various agencies have “hit the ground running and are already hard at work” implementing the Obama Administration’s new Digital Government Strategy formally announced May 23.
Writing in a White House blog posted last night, VanRoekel said: Keep reading →
Federal CIOs say agencies and government contractors must become completely familiar with FedRAMP security controls and how they relate to each agency prior to the cloud computing service program’s launch this summer.
Richard Spires, CIO of the Department of Homeland Security, was one of several CIOs who spoke about FedRAMP at a trade group breakfast Friday. He told the packed breakfast meeting that contractors and agencies alike have to remember that FedRAMP is “not just an optional thing we can elect to do,” it’s mandatory. Keep reading →
The National Institute of Standards and Technology launched Phase 2 of its efforts to guide the adoption of cloud computing in the federal government with the release this week of the first two volumes of the U.S. Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, Release 1.0.
Release 1.0 of the roadmap, is “designed to support the secure and effective adoption of the cloud computing model by federal agencies to reduce costs and improve services,” according to authors of the NIST document. Keep reading →
In 2010, as part of his 25-point plan, former federal CIO Vivek Kundra called for the reduction of 800 of the federal government’s 2,100 data centers by 2015. But one key issue to consider with data center consolidation is data center innovation. When done correctly, data center innovation can reap operational and financial rewards.
And we’re not talking five year safe harbor plans either; we’re talking mere months. Data centers aren’t like cars. You don’t keep the same model until the engine drops out. This year’s model will be faster and more energy efficient than last year’s. That’s the basis of innovation. Keep reading →
The Homeland Defense Department will begin testing a new way of provisioning desktop and mobile computing services to employees, using DHS’s private cloud computing services, DHS Chief Information Officer Richard Spires said Tuesday.
The new service will enable employees to order “a virtual desktop capability, with a series of mobile devices–tablets, smartphones–bundled where you pay a fee per user for month,” he said. Keep reading →
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Federal CIO Council hosted a conference on the state of mobility in the federal government earlier this week that brought together top-tier industry mobility professionals across the U.S. federal mobile ecosystem to discuss the rapidly evolving adoption of mobile technologies.
For those of us who have been in this industry for many years like myself, the tone of remarks at the two-day conference, held Aug. 23-24, was a welcome return to reality and affirmation that security and data integrity should not be lost in all the recent hype over a new breed of powerful smartphones and tablet computing devices. Keep reading →