The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated IT modernization and leveraged investments in cloud to keep agencies focused on the mission, which in turn is laying the groundwork for further modernization, said Maria Roat, Deputy Federal CIO, during a panel discussion today. […]
The White House’s Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence released a new report this week with recommendations on how to leverage cloud computing resources for Federally funded AI research and development projects. […]
The new draft budget bills released by the Senate Committee on Appropriations on November 10 include multiple provisions across departments that will have implications for Federal IT and other modernization projects. […]
The U.S. Army’s Enterprise Cloud Environment, or cARMY, managed by the CIO Enterprise Cloud Management Office (ECMO) is seeking an Enterprise Cloud Common Shared Services to reduce complexity, increase security, eliminate duplication of effort, and increase Army-wide adoption of cloud computing technologies. […]
The Department of Energy (DoE) is utilizing the cloud to quickly scale up its computing capacity in response to COVID-19, with the end goal of enabling DoE employees constantly in mind, said Rocky Campione, DoE CIO. […]
Accelerating the pace of change by bringing in motivated innovators and new ideas from startups and small businesses can be an effective way of driving real innovation across the Federal government, Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat said today at the ACT-IAC ReImagine ELC 2020 virtual event. […]
As the nature of the Federal government’s work environment has changed due to the coronavirus pandemic, building cyber resiliency in cloud infrastructures has been essential to maintaining mission operations, agency officials said. […]
After a decade-long initiative to expand telework, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the federal government’s workforce to cloud-based telework, practically overnight. While improving workforce flexibility seems like the obvious benefit, federal agencies can also take this opportunity to leverage the extensive ecosystem of open source partners and applications to boost their multicloud modernization efforts. Agencies that work […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) is looking to move its databases and entire operational system for biometric surveillance capabilities into an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment. […]
When agencies began full-scale telework earlier this year, many were not anticipating it would evolve into a long-term workplace strategy. However, in the wake of COVID-19, recent calculations estimate $11 billion in Federal cost-savings per year due to telework, as well as a 15 percent increase in productivity. Agencies are determining how they can continue to modernize – and therefore optimize – to support greater efficiency into the future. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program is aiming for big progress in Fiscal Year 2021 on upgrading agency and Federal-level dashboard infrastructure and improving the quality of data coming from agency network sensors, along with continuing to get a better handle on how agencies employ cloud infrastructure and cloud security. […]
The 2020 decennial census is breaking new ground in several ways – it is the first census to be conducted primarily online, and it has been supported by the cloud. Alongside those advancements, a Census Bureau official explained last week that the 2020 census will mark the first major implementation of a new privacy regime. […]
Federal agencies, such as the Small Business Administration and National Oceanic Atmospheric Association, are realizing the scalability and cost benefits of a multi-cloud environment as they navigate remote work and service delivery. But, for agencies both new to and well-versed in the cloud, Booz Allen Hamilton cloud leaders John Pisano and Jimmy Pham are advising that governance from the get-go is a key consideration for making a multi-cloud environment more effective. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) said today it has reaffirmed its decision to award the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract to Microsoft, following a “comprehensive re-evaluation” of proposals. […]
In a pivot to focus on IT modernization, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is embracing agile development with much success, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released August 31. The government watchdog agency said, however, that the agency would benefit from more clarity about the role of contracting officials in the new model. […]
A new publication by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) details how cloud computing is hurting forensic science investigation efforts, and calls for more research into standards and tech that could mitigate those challenges. […]
Reflecting on the last nearly six months of the coronavirus pandemic – and his two decades in Federal IT experience – Booz Allen Hamilton’s Vice President of Digital Transformation Dan Tucker is looking ahead to more government investments in open data architectures, cloud services, and human-centric digital products as Feds adapt to the shifting telework and service delivery landscape. […]
As the final weeks of the nation’s first census conducted primarily online conclude, a Census Bureau official said the website of the 2020 decennial survey has experienced no downtime during peak operations as a result of a move to the cloud. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) made three new recommendations to the agency on improving its cloud adoption, data center migration, and legacy IT oversight efforts in a new report released August 10. […]
While 82 percent of Federal IT managers surveyed by MeriTalk agree that the amount of streaming data their agency manages is on the rise, 59 percent also said that their agency is struggling to secure its data consistently between on-premises and cloud. […]
Reflecting on tech progress during the COVID-19 pandemic, Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat advocated for IT transformation culture changes and sustaining modernization projects in the long term to keep up the momentum for Federal IT improvements. […]
Cloud security provider Zscaler said it is making progress in efforts to obtain “High Impact” level classification under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) for its Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) service – a secure internet and web gateway solution that was the first product of its kind to receive to earn FedRAMP certification earlier this year. […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has made all levels of government radically change how they operate. From shifting their workforce to telework to delivering government services digitally, Federal, state, and local governments have had to pivot the way they work, while still delivering on their mission. […]
Department of Agriculture (USDA) CIO Gary Washington is crediting the cloud for keeping agency networks cyber-secure during the coronavirus pandemic, and lauding the technology’s cost-savings and efficiency benefits in a remote environment. […]
Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) milCloud® 2.0 – in combination with Oracle’s Exadata Database Machine platform – is paving quicker and easier pathways to advanced data analytics capabilities such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, subject matter experts from both companies said during a July 22 webinar, “milCloud 2.0: Leveraging the Latest Tech for the Mission,” hosted by MeriTalk and GDIT. […]
The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Board has awarded $15 million of funding to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) organization to transform its Collections platform into a modern, cloud-based system. […]
Cloud services are helping to pave the way for a zero trust security environment at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the organization’s deputy CIO said on July 22. […]
The Federal government collects and manages more data outside of traditional data centers than ever before from sources including mobile units, sensors, drones, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. Teams need to manage data efficiently and securely across the full continuum – edge to core to cloud. […]
Since the COVID-19 pandemic brought new attention to the need for a “faster path to maturing data sharing protocols,” government leaders must look ahead to how data can continue to inform decision making as capabilities mature and improve, Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat said today. […]
The Commonwealth of Virginia’s cloud-based data sharing platform is pulling double duty in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to its original purpose combating the opioid crisis, the state’s chief data office said July 9 during a webinar hosted by AWS and MeriTalk. […]