Congress and the Trump administration may not agree on much, but everyone wants to keep pressing federal agencies to strive for modernization with their information technology systems. In hearings just this month, for example, members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee bore in on VA’s struggle to replace its electronic health record system and to modernize its legacy financial and other administrative systems.
Attentive vendors will see the emphasis on modernization in several places. One approach the administration has pushed is so-called centers of excellence, focused initiatives piloted at specific agencies. So far the COEs have located at the Agriculture Department. There, development projects aim to produce better digital services to farmers.
But sometime this month, several more COEs will be established. At one recent forum, Anil Cheriyan, the director of the Technology Transformation Service at the General Services Administration, said one of them will explore robotic process automation.
RPA has joined the lexicon as a hoped-for way to ease the burden on IT staffs dealing with constant movement of workloads to and from clouds, or for the many subroutines required by cybersecurity monitoring, patching, and mitigation.
Beyond the COEs specifically, the administration wants to see IT systems modernized generally. For 2020 it’s proposing a flat IT budget, although if enacted it would still be about $2.7 billion higher than in 2018. Looking more closely, you’ll see a cut in proposed DOD IT spending of about $1.2 billion, but an increase of $1 billion for civilian agencies.
The revised IT modernization cross-agency priority goal stresses digital services, reducing cybersecurity risks, and rebuilding the IT workforce. One way to do pay for such projects is the Technology Modernization Fund ⎯ which requires Congress to go along. The last round of funding amounted to $100 million, and not all of it was distributed by the TMF Board. It’s not clear how much the administration will ask for the TMF for 2020, but expect Congress to take up the issue.
Key to contracts awarded with TMF funds will be your ability to show how the resulting project will pay itself back. In theory, anyhow, agencies are supposed to pay back the TMF with future savings.
The modernization drive has produced a curious phenomenon. Some agencies are rebuilding their ranks of federal employee software coders. The Air Force is one example on the DOD side, the Veterans Affairs Department on the civilian. VA, like several agencies, is also using the U.S. Digital Service USDS) for certain coding projects.
This all means software development vendors will have to demonstrate how their methodologies and results will be faster and better than agencies’ own efforts. Commercial software vendors will have to show why a COTS solution is superior to what, say, USDS can put out. As an aside, a strong competition is brewing among purveyors so-called no-code software that extracts logic from legacy systems and automatically re-renders it in modern, more easily supported code.
Modernization won’t totally be a software effort. Cloud computing remains very much an imperative, endorsed by both the administration and Congress. Cloud reduces government hardware infrastructure ⎯ but all hardware exists for the purpose of running software. Thus the emphasis on perfecting a cloud version of the Trusted Internet Connection and on the refinement of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management (FedRAMP) program so that the government can realize the original idea of transplantable authorities to operate.
Related Blog Posts
Federal Government, IT Perspective, State & Local Government
As government agencies and organizations look to modernize their technology stacks to keep up with changes in the workforce, aging solutions, and closing contracts, they’ll all set out with a similar process: submit an RFP, review submissions, and choose a vendor. Seems simple enough.
But what government CIOs often don’t realize is that requiring proven, specific use cases may be limiting what their new (and likely expensive) technology investment can do for their organization. Here’s what I mean.
Vishal Hanjan
Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Federal Government, IT Perspective
Over the last few years, the federal government has begun to embrace a zero trust approach as the new cybersecurity standard for agencies. Utilizing the latest solutions and best practices, the hope is to bolster federal cybersecurity and create a robust and resilient IT infrastructure that can protect and secure networks from attacks and breaches.
Kevin Tierney
Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, IT Perspective, Technology
Last January, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released M-22-09, a memorandum that set forth the federal government strategy on zero trust adoption, in an effort to reinforce the security and protection of government agencies’ critical systems, networks, and IT infrastructures.
David Presgraves
Application Lifecycle, Federal Government, IT Infrastructure, IT Perspective
In the post-COVID world, the federal government spends about three-fourths of its technology budget maintaining aging computer systems including platforms more than 50 years old and even some that use floppy disks, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
Roland Alston
Cloud Computing, IT Perspective, Tips and How-Tos
What’s next for cloud in 2022 (and how can you prep for it?)
There were so many noteworthy AWS re:Invent 2021 announcements out of this year’s big Amazon Web Services (AWS) conference. But what will that news mean for the year in cloud ahead? And how can learners and businesses prepare for the opportunities these will create?
Pluralsight
Application Lifecycle, Cybersecurity, DevSecOps, Federal Government, IT Perspective, Technology
On the Tech Transforms podcast, sponsored by Dynatrace, we have talked to some of the most prominent influencers shaping critical government technology decisions. From supply chain to machine learning, this podcast explores the way technology advancement intersects with human needs.
In March 2022, we sat down with these government technology visionaries:
Carolyn Ford
IT Perspective
The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) recently received a much-needed influx of funds, bringing its total to $1 billion. This money is a small part of the funding for technology upgrades in the government, and a very small part of the overall COVID relief bill of which it was a component. The bill does not indicate how the money is to be spent but for most observers modernization is almost equivalent to cloud adoption, with cybersecurity a close second. While most observers accept that the U.S.
Don Maclean
Application Lifecycle, IT Perspective
Blog originally posted by Federal News Network here.
Savanna Evans
IT Perspective
2019 has ended with more uncertainty than normal—even than the federal government is used to. Last year at this time, of course, Christmas brought the advent of a record-long lapse in appropriations for about half the departments and agencies. The exceptions of Homeland Security, Defense and Veterans Affairs kept IT dollars flowing, but the partial shutdown left its mark nonetheless.
The ugly impeachment process working its way down the hall from the house to the Senate might be a psychic distraction but will have no effect on IT procurement.
Chris Wilkinson
IT Perspective
SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI), a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, today announced that the SolarWinds® Orion® Suite for Federal Government v4.0 is undergoing evaluation for Common Criteria to Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2+ under the Netherlands Scheme for Certification in the Area of IT Security (NSCIB).
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
The SolarWinds Team at DLT is excited to announce after rigorous testing, the SolarWinds Orion® Suite for Federal Government v3.0 has been placed on the Department of Defense Information Network (DoDIN) Approved Products List (APL). The Orion Suite also has Common Criteria certification.
The Orion Suite for Federal Government v3.0 includes:
AndreJones
Federal Fiscal Year End, IT Perspective
The month of September marks the busiest buying season for the federal government. In the final month of fiscal year 2018, an astonishing $97 billion was spent on 509, 828 contracts. On average, this equates to $3.2 billion per day.
September is also getting busier and busier. Between 2015 and 2018 spending increased by 39%.
Brian Strosser
IT Perspective
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…as the song goes and that is also true of the U.S. Federal IT market right now. The month of September marks the end of the fiscal year and the beginning of the federal government’s annual spending frenzy. Federal agencies scramble to spend what’s left in their budgets, in fear that leaving excess funds will prompt Congress to send less in the following year. We call it “use it or lose it” spending, and it happens every year.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
The days are getting shorter, and, as the end of September approaches, the window of opportunity for technology providers to capitalize on federal fiscal year-end sales opportunities is shrinking. September 30th marks the end of the federal government’s fiscal year which means the run-up to month-end is a busy one as contractors vie for federal “use it or lose it” dollars.
Brian Strosser
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective
Every Federal IT pro knows that security threats are a top agency priority. Yet, according to the SolarWinds 2019 Cybersecurity Survey, those threats are increasing—particularly the threat of accidental data exposure from people inside the agency.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective, Uncategorized
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.
Melissa Perez
IT Perspective
DLT Solutions recently sat down with Red Hat Chief Technologist, North America Public Sector, David Egts, to discuss the recent release of Red Hat OpenShift.
DLT: So David, tell us a little about what you do at Red Hat.
DLT Solutions
Infrastructure, IT Perspective
A vast majority of government networks are driven by Microsoft products, from Office 365 to the Azure cloud platform. It should come as no surprise, then, that more and more agencies are looking for tools to monitor Microsoft systems more effectively—all through a single pane of glass.
The good news is there are ways to make the most of existing Microsoft technology with complementary monitoring strategies that will meet the needs of the federal IT operations security teams, SysAdmins, DevOps pros, and managers.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
Bringing government-ready solutions that solve the unique needs of the government in addition to having superior public sector expertise is our bread and butter. But DLT is also a powerhouse government distributor and a vital part of the government marketing ecosystem.
But what does that mean for OEMs and IT companies seeking to break into or grow their public sector market footprint?
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
If you’re a technology solutions vendor, you’re about to enter a crazy busy time of year. It’s state and local government fiscal year-end season! The days are getting longer, and time is running out to close those year-end sales deals before June 30th.
Work is already a top source of stress for many Americans – you don’t need anymore. So, we’ve compiled some stress management techniques that will help you thrive and survive SLED fiscal year-end 2019!
Brian Strosser
IT Perspective
The state and local government IT market has always been something of a chimera to marketers. At $130 billion annually, it’s a third larger than federal. But it’s a fragmented market, given that it consists of 50 states and more than 3,000 counties. Throw in the large cities from Boston to Los Angeles and it becomes even harder to access.
Brian Strosser
IT Perspective
For nearly 30 years, DLT has grown to be one of the nation’s top providers of industry-leading IT solutions for the public sector. The strategic decision to focus solely on the public sector market has cultivated trust and assurance with our technology vendors that DLT is their go-to expert. With the evolution of technology and the emphasis on modernizing government, the public sector is changing how it procures new technologies by leveraging consumption-based and as-a-service delivery models.
Art Richer
IT Perspective
There is always something new to learn in the world of information technology, and organizations must act fast to keep pace with the fast pace of change. But where should your agency spend its training dollars to upskill its talent to match your evolving technology strategy?
DLT’s technology partner, Pluralsight, has the answer.
AndreJones
IT Perspective
DevOps became part of the fashionable lexicon for software development a few years ago. The government, at least here and there, has adopted the concept enthusiastically. More recently and with growing urgency, the syllable “Sec” – for security – has joined the DevOps concept. Many federal IT shops call it DevSecOps.
Brian Strosser
IT Perspective
The ongoing 2018-2019 government shutdown which directly impacts 800,000 federal workers is on its way towards being the longest in history with President Trump saying it could continue for months or years.
The longer the shutdown lasts the wider the impacts to government systems, programs, citizens and businesses.
Here are some expected and unexpected fallouts of the current government shutdown.
Muddying an Already Complicated Tax Season
Brian Strosser
IT Perspective
Last month, we sat down with DLT Chief Technology Officer David Blankenhorn to get his insight on DLT's evolution to a government solutions aggregator.
Tell me a little bit about DLT’s movement to an aggregator model. Why is that important?
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
With federal fiscal year-end (FFYE) right around the corner, 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.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
One thing we know about fiscal 2019: There will be plenty of money to go around. The hyper-partisanship that characterizes the government’s political class means that for the second year in a row, there’s more money for guns and butter.
Tom Temin
Federal Fiscal Year End, IT Perspective
If you’re a technology solutions provider, we hope you had a great summer and managed to squeeze in some time off, because the busy season is here, and September has already been a frenzy.
Work is already a top source of stress for many Americans, but right now government procurement teams face enormous pressure as they rush to negotiate and award contracts while ensuring regulatory compliance before the federal fiscal year ends on September 30th.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
This week we sat down with DLT Senior Director of Program Management, Steve Wells, to discuss how DLT's contract expertise can be beneficial to its technology company clients and public sector customers, particularly as we approach the end of the Federal Fiscal Year. We also discussed Steve's military career, of which he just celebrated a major milestone.
Interviewer: Hi Steve, thanks for sitting down with us today. To start, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do at DLT.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
An irony of late appropriations – as the federal government experienced for the umpteenth time in fiscal 2018 – is that rather than rush to spend, your federal customers are actually spending at rates below what they’re authorized to spend. That makes it harder to maximize the year-end spending blitz.
It takes some doing, but if you’ve got the fortitude to plow through reports from the Bureau of the Fiscal Services and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it’s possible to discern that agencies simply might not have the time and manpower to execute on every program.
Tom Temin
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective, News, Technology
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.
BradleyGernat
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective, Technology, Tips and How-Tos
Movies and TV would have us believe that data breaches are long, hard-fought battles between the good guy and the bad guy—and the bad guy wins. That could not be further from reality. Hackers are opportunistic. They want to spend as little time as possible getting into the system, getting what they need, getting out, and exploiting it as fast as possible.
Paul Parker
Digital Design, IT Perspective, News, Technology, Tips and How-Tos, Uncategorized
The CAD and digital design sector is vast and growing at breakneck speed. It’s expected to reach $11.21 billion by 2023.
Many end-use industries such as automotive, aerospace, entertainment, industrial machinery, civil and construction, electrical and electronics, pharmaceutical, and healthcare, consumer goods, and others, widely use CAD and 3D design-based tools in their development processes.
DLT Solutions
CAD General, Digital Design, IT Perspective, Technology, Uncategorized
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.
Grace_Bergen
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective, News, Technology
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.
By the nature of the topic, the report isn’t an easy read. Expect to be perturbed. However, the insights provided into today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape are invaluable.
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.
DLT Solutions
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective, News, Technology
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.
DLT Solutions
Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, IT Perspective, Technology, Uncategorized
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
BradleyGernat
IT Perspective, Technology
Automation, more specifically IT Automation. What is it, who's using it, why is it important?
Lets start with what it is. . . IT Automation is the use of software to create repeatable instructions and processes, also known as a playbook, with the intention of replacing or reducing the amount of human interaction required with IT systems.
But wait. . . Doesn't that mean they're coming for our jobs?!?! No, but it does mean that instead of running around your environment putting out fires, you can spend more time focusing on big picture items and other processes.
SBiesenbach
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective, Technology
When it comes to network modernization and security, federal IT may be experiencing a case of dueling personalities. On one side, network modernization is essential to a better security posture. This is because outdated legacy IT systems are more prone to vulnerabilities and were never designed to handle today’s threat landscape. However, the very act of modernizing networks may actually be making those networks less secure, at least in the short term.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
It’s ironic, but true: software-defined networking (SDN) is tough to define. SDN solutions are not things you can touch, like a hardware gateway. They are not made of plastic or metal. They do not physically plug into anything.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
Building an engaging workplace is a key mission of any government agency. Engagement matters. Not only are engaged employees more innovative, productive, committed, and satisfied, they are also less likely to leave. And we all know that the cost of employee turnover is high in terms of monetary and knowledge loss.
But what building blocks do you need to nurture an employee’s sense of purpose and committed role to the mission?
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
When you think about smart cities what springs to mind? Perhaps it’s a city app that lets you know the location of available parking spots or a transit company that can automatically re-route buses away from congested areas based on a network of fleet- or city-wide sensors. In reality, the definition of a smart city varies, depending on who you talk to.
DLT Solutions
Cybersecurity, IT Perspective
When it comes to enhancing their cybersecurity postures, federal agencies have to wade through an entire alphabet soup of regulatory compliance guidelines. From the RMF (Risk Management Framework) to FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act) and DISA STIGs (Defense Information Systems Agency Security Technical Implantation Guides), there are a number of requirements that agencies must implement to satisfy the government’s definition of a secure environment.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
Federal fiscal year-end (FFYE) is a harried time for the federal procurement system. As agencies hustle to spend their “use-it-or-lose-it” budgets, contracting officers are under peak pressure to obtain maximum value for the money they spend on property and services, ensure compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements in awarding contracts, and so on.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) is a relatively new concept. It was not that long ago when agencies measured digital service performance simply by how fast a web page loaded. Today, things are far more complex.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
Federal fiscal year-end (FFYE) is the busiest season for government IT spending and with ongoing squabbles about budgets and fiscal accountability, the pressure is on to spend prudently and procure efficiently.
DLT Solutions
IT Perspective
In the ever changing technology landscape, IT companies are constantly perfecting their products to keep up. We’re proud to be a partner of key IT providers to the government who continue to be relevant assets by consistently improving their offerings.
Catch up on a few of the recent product updates from our partners:
DLT Solutions
Cloud Computing, IT Perspective
Nearly every agency is working with a constant lack of IT resources—staff and budget alike. At the same time, many of these agencies have been performing IT tasks manually for years, heightening the pain of that already painful burden. Agencies, take heart. There is a way to ease that pain. In fact, there is a single solution that solves both of these issues: automation.
DLT Solutions