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IT Perspective
Federal fiscal year-end is the busiest season for government IT spending. With only a few weeks left to spend the $3.8 trillion apportioned in Uncle Sam’s 2016 budget, the pressure is on to spend prudently and procure efficiently. But with growing media and public concern that year-end spending is wasteful, how can your agency make smart IT investments of tax payer dollars come September 30?
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.
IT Perspective
There is a dramatic shift underway in the federal technology landscape on a scale rarely seen more than once every decade or so. Computing environments are evolving from traditional on-premises-only to a hybrid strategy that migrates some infrastructure to the cloud, while keeping some critical systems onsite. According to SolarWinds’ IT Trends Report 2016: The Hybrid IT Evolution, which includes a survey of government IT professionals, hybrid IT will continue to be the norm for the foreseeable future.
Cybersecurity
Last year, we reviewed threat reports from numerous companies and organizations.  At the time, a couple of simple themes emerged: too many systems were unpatched, and phishing was a predominant means of intrusion.  These themes are still present a year later, but some new trends have arisen to keep them company.
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.
IT Perspective
With continued unpredictability about the annual federal appropriations process, the 2016 federal fiscal year-end busy season is likely to be as crazy as usual for federal procurement teams.