Just as quickly as “virtualization” became a buzzword amongst federal government IT users, the unanswered questions about the blossoming technology popped up just as fast. What is it? How can I implement it? Will the costs outweigh the benefits? And what’s up with this “cloud” I’ve been hearing so much about?
As the foundation for cloud computing and a means to significantly cut your data center and computing costs, our customers had a lot of questions about navigating the “ins and outs” of virtualization in a government environment. Our answer? Virtualization for Government for Dummies.
Virtualization for Government for Dummies allowed us to answer these very intimidating questions in a very non-intimidating way. The small guide (22 pages) informed our customers through a mix of some technical information, but also simple language when discussing common questions and adoption barriers. Virtualization for Government for Dummies was our first co-branded Dummies guide published with our vendor partner Red Hat, and featured the iconic For Dummies yellow cover.
Our initial Dummies book was such a breath of fresh air amongst our customers, we’ve published several more installations on other topics. Our most recent book brought to you by Google and DLT Solutions, Government Information Sharing for Dummies, explores how the government gathers and stores information collections, why finding that information can sometimes be a pain, and ways to end information management hassles.
Other Dummies books in our Library include the following:
- Government Information Sharing for Dummies
- MS4 for Dummies
- LiDAR for Dummies
- Cybersecurity for Dummies
- Storage Efficiency for Dummies
- Virtualization for Government for Dummies
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We’re still in the first quarter of the fiscal year and headed toward the holiday season. Historically, that predicates a slower pace across the federal sector, but not this year. This year, artificial intelligence (AI) is having a moment, and nearly everyone across the public sector, including the White House and The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has something to say about it.
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The latest Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) Scorecard, released in December 2021, highlights how federal agencies are faring across several areas related to IT modernization. The full breakdown from the scorecard is available here. These scorecards are useful to identify where government agencies are struggling and where they are doing well. Consequently, technology vendors and channel partners can use them as a guide for identifying what solutions their customers need.
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DLT's Josh Tehan has experienced every parent’s worst nightmare – being told your child has cancer. His son, Ethan, who is now cancer-free, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at the age of 3 and underwent three years of chemotherapy.
Now that Ethan is living the life of a typical, healthy 15-year-old, his dad wants to help other children and parents going through blood cancer treatment by raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).
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“Equality is not a women's issue, it's a business issue.
Gender equality is essential for economies and communities to thrive.”
Today, we at DLT are joining millions across the globe in observing International Women’s Day (IWD): a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, and is a notable call to action to accelerate gender equality.
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Uncategorized
Article originally posted on GovDesignHub here.
Autodesk University (AU) returns to Las Vegas from November 19-21 – and we have some good news. In addition to discounted conference passes now available on GSA Schedule, Autodesk Certification exams are back at AU 2019!
Caron Beesley
Uncategorized
By Mav Turner, VP, Product Management, SolarWinds
For federal IT pros, moving to a cloud environment is a “when” rather than an “if” proposition. From the government’s recently released Report on IT Modernization, calling for agencies to identify solutions to current barriers regarding agency cloud adoption, to the White House’s draft release of a new “Cloud Smart” policy, which updates the “Cloud First” policy introduced in 2010; cloud migration continues to be a priority.
DLT Solutions
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The old business adage runs, “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.” To which you might add this corollary: nothing good happens in the absence of strong requirements.
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The latest data on the progress of federal government agencies’ implementation of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) was released on June 26 by the House Oversight and Reform Committee as Scorecard 8.0.
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Key takeaways show how public sector customers are achieving more with cloud.
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Recap
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Uncategorized
Many states' fiscal years are quickly coming to an end, and at DLT we’re committed to making the job of the procurement officer as easy as possible as they scramble to make smart and responsible purchasing decisions with remaining taxpayer dollars. Part of this process is raising awareness of what’s new in our extensive portfolio of IT solutions including big data and analysis, cloud, cybersecurity, application lifecycle, digital design, IT consolidation and management, and more.
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Earlier this year DLT announced they were selected as the “Master Government Aggregator”
DLT Solutions
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Not all Ivy League schools have massive endowments and bank accounts. Some have to get more creative when looking to build new facilities on a budget – or simply embrace innovative new approaches to design and construction.
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It’s that time of year again! Spring is here and Autodesk has commenced its steady roll-out of 2020 software releases.
First off is AutoCAD 2020. Released in late March 2019, AutoCAD 2020 includes interesting and exciting new features. With a subscription to AutoCAD 2020, you’ll get industry-specific toolsets; improved workflows across all your devices – web, mobile, and desktop; and new integrations with cloud storage vendors.
Here’s a round-up of what’s new.
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When we launched GovDesignHub in the spring of 2018, we had one goal in mind – to address the lack of resources, discussion, and analysis available online for those who practice in government digital design ecosystem.
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In the words of one of our top contributors, Lynn Allen, of Autodesk fame:
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Congress first enacted federal appropriations law in 1809. It’s kept lawyers, contractors, and judges busy ever since. A question arising in many sellers’ minds at this time of year is, what money is available for contracts in more than one fiscal year?
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New York City Department of Design and Construction (NYC DDC) handles some of the most exciting and dynamic architectural and infrastructure challenges in the world.
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Shortly after the federal government suffered it’s largest and costliest data breach ever at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), a post-mortem analysis found that the breach was entirely preventable, and the exfiltration of security clearance files of government employees and contractors could have been prevented through the implementation of two-factor authentication for remote log-ons.
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The CAD and digital design sector is vast and growing at breakneck speed. It’s expected to reach $11.21 billion by 2023.
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DLT Solutions
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The CAD and digital design sector is vast and growing at breakneck speed. It’s expected to reach $11.21 billion by 2023.
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DLT Solutions
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Aside from developing one of the sought after building information modeling (BIM) software in the industry today, you’ve got to hand it to the Revit product managers over at Autodesk—they listen.
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Symantec’s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report is here. Based on data collected by Symantec’s massive security infrastructure (the largest civilian threat collection network in the world), the report has become the de facto standard for giving enterprises and public organizations essential information to help secure their systems effectively.
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Another day, another government ransomware victim. On March 22nd, 2018, the city of Atlanta found itself locked out of computers across government offices and facing a ransom demand of $51,000 or $6,800 per computer, GCN reported.
DLT Solutions
Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Data & Storage, IT Perspective, News, Technology, Uncategorized
Another day, another government ransomware victim. On March 22nd, 2018, the city of Atlanta found itself locked out of computers across government offices and facing a ransom demand of $51,000 or $6,800 per computer, GCN reported.
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If you’re fairly new to Autodesk Revit and looking for ways to quickly get up to speed, Autodesk put together a great webinar that offers tips and tricks to get the most out of your user experience. Topics included:
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Ransomware is quickly becoming the favored means for criminals to extract a profit from unsuspecting villains – most notably in the public sector. Throughout 2017 ransomware grabbed the headlines – WannaCry, Petya, etc. – both of which targeted government agencies. When they succeed the implications can be serious.
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Microsoft Active Directory is a critical tool that helps system administrators manage user privileges and secure their IT infrastructure, yet Active Directory presents several security challenges. Most problematic is that Active Directory’s attack surface is huge. Targets for attack include every domain name user account, admin and security group, domain controller, backup, admin workstation, and admin delegations and privileges. If any one of these targets is compromised, your entire Active Directory can be compromised too.
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Microsoft Active Directory is a critical tool that helps system administrators manage user privileges and secure their IT infrastructure, yet Active Directory presents several security challenges. Most problematic is that Active Directory’s attack surface is huge. Targets for attack include every domain name user account, admin and security group, domain controller, backup, admin workstation, and admin delegations and privileges. If any one of these targets is compromised, your entire Active Directory can be compromised too.
The Threats
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Are you thinking of moving your databases to the cloud? Perhaps, you’re thinking about transitioning to database-as-a-service (DBaaS)? But what’s involved? What hurdles must be overcome and how do you chart a path to cloud migration of your most sensitive workloads?
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US appoints First Exec Federal Cybersecurity Head
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MayaSmith
News, Uncategorized
Declining Spending Begins to Bounce Back with Rising Budgets
Over the past six years, we’ve seen a decline in government spending. But recently, there was been an increase in contract spending that is predicted to continue into fiscal year 2017. According to a study by Bloomberg Government, 60 percent of government spending is consistently on services; knowledge-based services, facility-related services, and technology services. The largest product spending is on technology equipment, with aircraft spending in second.
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News, Uncategorized
NSA Use of Software Flaws for Hacking Posed Risk to Cybersecurity
Recently, the Nation Security Agency’s (NSA) hacking tools were leaked to the public, exposing many vulnerabilities across the internet and putting companies at risk of data breaches. Many say that the NSA should have disclosed each vulnerability as soon as they discovered it so that they could be fixed. Software vendors like Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet are actively working with their customers to ensure that any flaws in their systems are fixed immediately.
MayaSmith
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NSA Use of Software Flaws for Hacking Posed Risk to Cybersecurity
Recently, the Nation Security Agency’s (NSA) hacking tools were leaked to the public, exposing many vulnerabilities across the internet and putting companies at risk of data breaches. Many say that the NSA should have disclosed each vulnerability as soon as they discovered it so that they could be fixed. Software vendors like Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet are actively working with their customers to ensure that any flaws in their systems are fixed immediately.
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DNC Creates Cybersecurity Advisory Board Following Hack
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News, Uncategorized
DNC Creates Cybersecurity Advisory Board Following Hack
Following the WikiLeak email dump right before the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Democratic National Committee is creating a cybersecurity advisory board consisting of four industry experts. The board will be responsible for preventing future attacks on the DNC and making sure its cybersecurity capabilities are up-to-par. The committee will also ensure that those whose data was stolen will be protected so that further information from their accounts does not get leaked.
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The Most Critical Skills Gap: Cybersecurity
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MayaSmith
News, Uncategorized
The Most Critical Skills Gap: Cybersecurity
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Technology Is Monitoring the Urban Landscape
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Posing as Ransomware, Windows Malware Just Deletes Victims’ Files
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Posing as Ransomware, Windows Malware Just Deletes Victims’ Files
MayaSmith
Uncategorized
It's finally here!
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EFS was originally announced over a year ago at AWS re:Invent in 2015. By AWS standards, the service has been in "preview" for quite some time. I'll admit to you, I was getting a little skeptical that it was going to make it out of preview, but hey, it's good to be wrong sometimes.
Chris Uttenweiler
Digital Design, Uncategorized
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Grace_Bergen
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Can Cybersecurity Insurance Improve Threat Management?
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News, Uncategorized
Can Cybersecurity Insurance Improve Threat Management?
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MayaSmith
Digital Design, Uncategorized
Reality capture technology as a means of capturing existing as-built conditions has been around for some time. Terrestrial laser scanning or LiDAR is just one example of reality capture (or recap) at work. But recap hasn’t always been easy. Scanning techniques are often expensive and the task of incorporating and manipulating large data sets (point clouds) during the design process is tricky.
AndreJones
News, Uncategorized
This All-Star Team Plans to Jumpstart 100 Cybersecurity Companies in 3 Years
MayaSmith
News, Uncategorized
This All-Star Team Plans to Jumpstart 100 Cybersecurity Companies in 3 Years
MayaSmith