Technically Speaking

Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin III, joined the President this past week in releasing the FY23 budget. With a total of $773B requested for defense priorities, which represents a nearly 4% increase from last fiscal year’s enacted amount, the Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking funding across multiple focal areas.

This past week, the president released the FY23 Budget Request. Civilian agencies are set to receive a boost across an array of initiatives including cybersecurity, workforce pay and development, climate science, mental health priorities, as well as infrastructure repair. The following will examine some of the prominent departments across the civilian landscape and the funding set to boost these top initiatives.

"Zero Trust is a cybersecurity strategy and framework that embeds IT security mechanisms throughout an architecture that generate metadata used to secure, manage, and monitor every device user, application, and network transaction at the perimeter and within every network enclave." From the Department of Defense (DoD) Zero Trust Reference Architecture v1.0

There has been an increased focus among U.S. government agencies on adapting to modern IT environments and enhancing cybersecurity solutions. This increased focus on security government networks, data, and critical infrastructure is a result of ongoing digital transformation initiatives that are resulting in more mission-critical connected systems and more data for agencies to secure. It’s also a result of the increased number of cyberattacks and more sophisticated cyber-criminals that are targeting our nation’s networks.

If you have been looking for the right time to sell your technology product or service to the state, local and education (SLED) market, now is the time to act. With thirty-six states beginning their fiscal year on July 1st, now is the time to position yourself to take advantage of a confluence of once-in-a-lifetime conditions that have left the SLED market booming with opportunity. Here are some of the factors driving that opportunity: New Leadership

Federal Pain Points and IT Requirements 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.