The General Services Administration (GSA) announced Tuesday that it struck a deal with Veritas to provide Federal agencies with software for data governance and cloud management. […]

Legislative direction moving Federal agencies toward incremental development in their software initiatives is beginning to take hold, and Agile development methodologies have been a key driver of that success, according to an agency CIO, a leader in government IT modernization, and an industry executive assisting agencies in Agile adoption. […]

DHS Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) is pivotal to improving government cybersecurity. While it’s critical, it has a lot of moving parts–and that can make it difficult to follow. MeriTalk sat down with Kevin Cox to get a handle on the state of CDM, as well as an understanding of where the program goes from here. And, it’s quite a story–so I hope you’re sitting comfortably, feel free to grab a cup of coffee. […]

Tony Scott was the Federal government’s third chief information officer, serving the nation in that role from 2015 through early 2017. During his time at the helm of government-wide IT, Scott led the development of 2016’s State of Federal IT Report, which left a lasting roadmap for modernization progress in the Federal government. […]

The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the agency needs to improve compliance three key pieces of Federal IT Legislation, according to OIG’s semiannual report, released May 25 and covering October 2017 through March 2018. […]

We sat down with Jeff Henry, president of ViON, in his office in Herndon, Va. The typical tech provider surroundings belied the epic changes at ViON, as it morphs from leading data center reseller to delivering government IT modernization as a service. […]

We are happy to present the inaugural edition of MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), passed by Congress in December 2014, represented the first major legislative overhaul of Federal IT in nearly 20 years. Beginning in November 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released two scorecards a year grading agencies’ performance under the law. Suffice to say, agencies haven’t always been making the GAO’s Honor Roll, with plenty of Cs and Ds to go around. However, many agencies have made significant improvements over the last 3 years. […]

A new White House report says three quarters of Federal agencies are not managing their cybersecurity risk correctly and are consequently at “risk or high risk” of data theft or network intrusion due to poor cybersecurity programs. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) IT subcommittee followed up last week’s release of the sixth FITARA Scorecard (Scorecard 6.0) by releasing a second, more detailed scorecard. It provides insight into each of the categories of FITARA scoring, with methodology, metrics, calculations, and detailed data points on just how well each of the 24 agencies fared.  […]

IT modernization in the Federal government will require collaboration, effective policies, and a focus on the true end-goal: improving the government experience for citizens, said agency CIOs and industry leaders at a May 23 FedInsider webinar on IT modernization. […]

Recent government alignment between Congress and President Trump to promote the authorities of agency chief information officers is necessary to respond to increasingly heavy demands on the CIO position, said Matt Lira, special assistant to the President for innovation, policy, and initiatives at the White House Office of American Innovation (OAI). […]

At Wednesday’s hearing on the FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) 6.0 Scorecard, both the agency designated as a guiding light in government-wide IT innovation and the agency singled out for its obfuscation and claimed exemptions on many of the reform act’s initiatives were met with stern questioning from a joint subcommittee hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee. […]

Two lawmakers and a government leader central to Federal agency IT modernization efforts said Wednesday that the means to improve substandard FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) scorecard grades are readily available and simple to achieve for many government agencies. […]

Following is a re-print of our Feb. 12 interview with Dave Powner, director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office, and leader of the team that produces the FITARA scorecard–the subject of his testimony on the Hill today. […]

Several industry experts told MeriTalk in the run-up to the release of the latest FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Federal agency scorecards that expected funding flows from the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT Act) may go a long way toward helping agencies boost their scores. […]

The first FITARA scorecard (Scorecard 6.0) of 2018 is out, adding a new category to track Federal agency progress on the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act. […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee’s new FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) scorecard that rates Federal agency performance under the law gave 11 agencies lower grades since they were last measured in November 2017. […]

Out with the old, in with the new–that was the message from Windsor this weekend as the Meghan-Harry union shattered outdated norms. […]

It’s only traditional for heroes to ride off into the sunset–and, appropriate that the sun sets in the West. Dr. Barry West, senior advisor and senior accountable official for risk management at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced plans to hang up his government IT spurs the end of this month. […]

The Federal government has a massive data center footprint: 6.76 million square feet, to be precise. Of its total portfolio, an astonishing 62 percent of all floor center space goes unused. To add insult to injury, it’s extremely expensive to maintain all that unused space. […]

Improving user experience on Federal websites so that they rival leading private sector sites requires a better allocation of government resources rather than significant new cash outlays, said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., during a press gathering at Adobe’s Digital Government Symposium in Washington on Tuesday. […]

The timing for the White House to release its new IT EO is–timely. […]

Federal government officials and a member of Congress influential in government IT spending debates said late last month that billions of additional savings look to be ripe for the picking through elimination of duplicative services, and that Congress is working on ways to beef up the pursuit of those savings. […]

A Federal CISO handbook is due out soon from the CISO Council, said Jeff Wagner, Acting Chief Information Security Officer at the Office of Personnel Management. The new guidance aims to cut down on technical language barriers and standardize compliance formatting across the Federal enterprise. […]

The Navy’s IT operations have a new sheriff, in the form of a chief management officer whose arrival makes the high-profile Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer a thing of the past. […]

Jay Huie, Cloud Portfolio Director for GSA’s Technology Transformation Service (TTS)–which includes FedRAMP–sat down with MeriTalk last week. He offered insights on his role at GSA, FedRAMP, and the perspective on the road ahead for cloud adoption, FITARA, and MGT. […]

It’s an old axiom: “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” And nowhere is that axiom truer these days than with Federal IT investments. Federal executives need to better understand, manage, and show value from money spent on IT resources. […]

When the first Federal IT Acquisitions Reform Act (FITARA) scorecards were dished out in November 2015, agencies and industry alike praised government’s glowing commitment to overhauling a moribund Federal IT landscape. Looking back over the scorecards, FITARA has clearly added new transparency and accountability–and the scorecard has evolved over time. But, the FITARA 5.0 reports in late 2017 showed agencies are regressing. With the passage of the MGT Act, now seems like a good time to further evolve the FITARA scorecard. […]

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been working in unison with the Office of Management and Budget to assess the risk management posture of the Federal government. They’ve been using a combination of agency self-reporting and independent verification to evaluate each agency’s mitigation techniques as well as the nation’s overall security standing. DHS’ latest […]