Agencies embracing cloud computing have found ways to develop bridges between their own private cloud and the public cloud. Anne Altman is the general manager for U.S. Federal Business for IBM and discusses the emergence of this “hybrid cloud” and other trends in cloud computing.

The Oct. 1 deadline is approaching fast and President Obama and Congress have yet to agree on many important issues. At the top of the list are the debt limit and the explosive issue of defunding Obamacare. Bob Cusack is the managing editor of The Hill Newspaper. He and his staff have been all over these issues.

The background investigations of Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis did not produce enough information to deny them security clearances. Subsequent background investigations turned up questionable and alarming facts. Would more honest answers from neighbors made a difference? If so, what can and can’t you say if interviewed about a friend or colleague’s security clearance application? Sterling DeRamus is an attorney at Tully Rinckey and specializes in federal employment law.

The Office of Management and Budget is giving agencies more leeway in how they manage the upgrades to their financial management systems. On the surface, Director Sylvia Burwell has rescinded one memorandum and rewritten another. But the real goal is much deeper then a bureaucratic memo shuffle. Joining us with what’s at stake is Federal News Radio’s Executive Editor Jason Miller.

NOAA satellites perform a critical function for the health and safety of the U.S. population and economy. So when NOAA announced old polar satellites would stop working before they could launch new ones, the Government Accountability Office got concerned and added the Joint Polar Satellite System, or JPSS, to the high risk list. NOAA says the gap in data would be as long as 18 months. David Powner is the director of Information Technology Management Issues at the GAO and says what steps NOAA needs to take to ensure constant and reliable polar satellite data.

In the 12 years following 9/11, multiple agencies have worked to create radio communications inter-operability. The goal was to let first responders better communicate with one another. That effort appears to have paid off during the Navy Yard shootings last Monday. The coordination between Metropolitan Police, Capitol Police, FBI and the other first responders made a difficult situation more manageable. Allan Tilles is the chairman of the telecommunications department at the law firm Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker. He talks about what went right and what more we can expect from inter-operability in the future.