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U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra's Departure Raises Doubts About Nation's Top IT Role

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:09:47 -0400

The federal CIO has no authority outside the Office of Management and Budget. While he can evangelize the ideas he had about open-source and cloud-based computing, U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra had no means by which he could actually require such changes. - The news that U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra is leaving the federal government in mid-August to accept a fellowship at Harvard University leaves many unanswered questions. For starters, where does this leave his initiatives? Kundra, who was named the nation's first CIO by President Barack Obama in March 200...

DoD IT Budget: Nearly $40 Billion Requested

Wed, 18 May 2011 08:29:26 -0400

If your CFO revealed that youd have more than $38 billion to spend on your IT department or systems, youd think you just received the equivalent of a blank check, right? Well, that's the amount requested by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for fiscal-year 2012. Before you let your imagination take wing, however, this report from INPUT/Deltek Information Systems puts it all in perspective. Despite the hefty dollar amount, the report reveals that the DoD is firmly focused on increasing IT efficiencies and consolidation in a challenging funding environment. In other words: Military CIOs and IT departments face the same budget struggles as CIOs and IT leaders in private sector. In particular, DoD agencies are being directed to pursue efficiency and consolidation initiatives in the areas of service-oriented architecture, command-and-control network systems and �green� technology. In the end, given the pure scale of our military agencies, that $38 billion is hardly a windfall. �Tight budgets facilitate efficiency, in that [they force] prioritization,� says Deniece Peterson, senior manager of federal industry analysis within Delteks INPUT business unit. �However, some of the prerequisites for deploying solutions to drive efficiency -- such as cloud computing -- require significant work to standardize the DoDs IT environment, all with security still in mind.� Here are selected highlights from the report. - ...

New York City: The IT Infrastructure That Never Sleeps

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:37:24 -0500

A new 18,000-square-foot consolidated data center will enable the City to centralize the technology infrastructure of 40 agencies by the end of 2014. - New York City opened its new data center in downtown Brooklyn on Feb. 28, 2011. The 18,000-square-foot facility will enable the City to centralize the technology infrastructure of 40 agencies by the end of 2014. The consolidation will save the city roughly $100 million in that time frame, according ...

Federal Investment in Cyber Security to Reach $13.3 Billion by 2015

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:16:07 -0500

A recent INPUT report, �Federal Information Security Market, 2010-2015,� predicts that federal investment in information security will rise from $8.6 billion in 2010 to $13.3 billion by 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1 percent, nearly twice the rate of overall federal IT spending. �There is a general consensus that the government has a lot of work to do to address weaknesses in its cyber security,� says INPUT principal analyst John Slye. �Over the last year, federal agencies have seen a 78 percent growth in cyber incidents. This demand for increased information security is greater than any other current technology, leaving it more immune to the recent federal budget cuts.� Key drivers for the expected increase in investment in information security include a 445 percent increase in cyber security incidents since 2006, a shortage of qualified security professionals, and an increasingly complex and interconnected technology environment. �While agencies continue to make incremental progress toward secure infrastructures, a lack of leadership, ambiguous roles, technical challenge, and workforce shortages inhibit the federal government from developing and implementing a cohesive, well-formed national cyber security strategy,� says INPUT principal analyst Angie Petty. �This creates a large opportunity for vendors to bring their combined agency knowledge and operational security expertise to the market.� - �...

Presidential Initiative Would Double Broadband Spectrum

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

President Obama signed an initiative to nearly double the amount of available commercial and federal broadband spectrum for mobile devices, the White House reported. - A Presidential Memorandum signed by President Obama would nearly double the amount of wireless broadband spectrum, through an auction, for governmental and commercial use, the White House said. In a planned speech to the New America Foundation, a nonprofit, post-partisan think tank, White House e...

Federal Trade Commission and Intel in Talks to Settle Antitrust Lawsuit

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Intel and the Federal Trade Commission have suspended legal proceedings related to the lawsuit filed by the federal regulators against the chip maker while the two sides try to negotiate a settlement. - The FTC filed a lawsuit in December 2009 accusing Intel of anti-competitive business practices intended to stifle competition from AMD and Nvidia. Intel and the FTC have now filed a joint motion to suspend the legal proceedings while the two sides work to negotiate a settlement. In a statement rele...

IT Spending Priorities in Local Government

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:16:53 -0400

Even as state and local government spending continues to get squeezed by the Great Recession and its aftermath, demand for information technology is growing in the public sector. Among the top priorities for state and local IT decision-makers are justice, public safety, and education, according to INPUT, a top government-focused IT industry tracker. - ...

Virtualized Bureaucracy

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:14:23 -0400

So, just how efficient is a bureaucrat in the data center? No, that isnt the beginning to a great joke. It is a question posed by CDW Government in its most recent survey on virtualization within federal agencies, across the civilian and defense spectrum. The company questioned 377 government IT managers in April, compiling the results in its 2009 Federal Virtualization Report released in mid-June. - ...

Understanding Governance, Risk and Compliance

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:48:28 -0400

Aberdeen Group conducted a comprehensive study of 130 enterprises regarding their attitudes and practices surrounding governance, risk and compliance (GRC) initiatives. This slideshow highlights findings from Aberdeens wrap-up report, IT GRC: Managing Risk, Improving Visibility, and Reducing Operating Costs, by analyst Derek Brink.

One detail: the GRC acronym has things out of order; Aberdeen says enterprises emphasize compliance first, IT governance next and risk management last. - ...

Obama's Triad Takes on Government IT

Mon, 04 May 2009 10:41:07 -0400

How the Obama administrations CIO, CTO and CPO -- an all-star lineup facing prodigious challenges -- can transform government IT. - When I was asked to comment on the prospects for the federal governments new IT leaders� what Im calling the quot;Federal Triad quot; � a sports analogy immediately came to mind. Vivek Kundra, Aneesh Chopra and Jeffrey Zients � the new CIO, CTO and CPO respectively � are what I call �franchise pl...

Patent Reform Battle Shifts to Senate

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:41:00 -0400

Backed by the IT industry, the bill narrowly defines willful infringement and limits damages to the actual value of the technology. - Having failed to stop patent reform in the U.S. House of Representatives, opponents are now focusing on the Senate. In a letter sent Tuesday to Senate leaders, more than 400 organizations ranging from biotech to grocers urged lawmakers to make significant changes to legislation approved on Sept. ...

IT Problems Hinder Data Sites That Combat Terrorism

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:53:00 -0400

Fusion centers are rife with problems, House subcommittee is told& redundant information and poor integration cited. - While more terrorism data centers are coming online and the ones in operation are starting to produce valuable information, the officials who run these sites face a number of challenges regarding information sharing, personnel, and funding, according to the testimony of a government official. Fus...

Pressure Increases, but CIOs Still Struggle to Stop Identity Theft

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0400

Data theft laws are gaining traction on Capitol Hill. But will the upcoming legislation do any good? - It's been a bad year for privacy. Since February, when identity thieves conned data aggregator ChoicePoint Inc. out of 145,000 personal records that contained Social Security numbers, addresses and credit accounts, there have been upward of 60 incidents involving lost or stolen confidential data, ...

Recipe for Foolproof Encryption

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0400

To create a virtually foolproof encryption program, begin with desktop computers and the network to which they are connected. - To create a virtually foolproof encryption program, begin with desktop computers and the network to which they are connected. First, sensitive and confidential information on corporate servers and databases must be identified and marked for encoding; then, encryption software automatically encodes a...

Unifying Health IT Bill Filed in Senate

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:35:00 -0400

The Clinton-Frist bill would arrange for shared health information, increased interoperability of software and equipment, and the accreditation of regional health networks. - The long-anticipated Clinton-Frist health IT bill has been filed in the Senate. It is similar to a bill introduced last month in the House that would provide grants and loans to allow health information systems to be shared between clinical labs, hospitals and doctors' offices. The bill would...