IT Modernization

  • A closer look shows that public clouds are not always less expensive than on-premise solutions and are not a panacea for controlling IT costs. This is especially the case with transactional systems, where the application is on-premise and the data is in the public cloud.

    December 05, 2023
  • The Department of Veterans Affairs is outlining plans to conduct a full review of its website, after discovering technical problems that may have delayed disability claims for more than 100,000 veterans.

    December 04, 2023
  • Andre Mendes, the Commerce Department’s chief information officer, said through the use of Technology Business Management framework, the agency has well over 90% of their IT costs categorized properly and in the right towers, which is a huge change.

    December 01, 2023
  • The Social Security Administration is renaming the Office of Systems to the Office of the CIO as part of its effort to push for more innovation and modernization.

    December 01, 2023
  • “Our goal is to allow for our users, our business users, across TSA to be able to better access their data and have it readily available,” Deputy CIO Kristin Ruiz said.

    November 30, 2023
  • Starting sometime next year, companies that want to sell software to the government will need to sign new attestations – certifying that they have taken certain steps to make sure their software is secure. Earlier this month, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released its latest draft of the form companies will need to submit. One of the biggest changes is the attestations will have to be signed by a company’s CEO. But there are several other updates, too. For more about them and get an industry perspective, Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu talked with Leopold Wildenauer, the Senior Manager for Public Sector Policy at the Information Technology Industry Council.

    November 30, 2023
  • The federal government’s made huge progress in reducing security clearance processing times over the last several years. But there are some early signs of backsliding. As Federal News Network reported last week, the latest data shows top secret investigations took an average of 115 days in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 – up from 84 days during the same period last year.

    November 28, 2023
  • The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in HHS is providing seed funding for prototypes and pilots for hospitals and other healthcare providers to test approaches take advantage of technologies that serve all patients equally.

    November 27, 2023
  • Reliance on a paper-based system, insufficient staffing and incomplete applications remain the three top barriers to timely processing of federal employees’ retirement applications.

    November 21, 2023
  • It starts with federal agencies prioritizing observability strategies. Despite its growing popularity, observability is a fresh concept – one that can be difficult to define and see as a path to resilience without first understanding its foundation. The roots of observability can simply be traced down to a collection of logs, metrics and traces by which monitoring systems can more proactively mitigate potential threats.  

    November 17, 2023
  • More often than not, legacy contracts and programs with existing providers and solutions are routinely extended. That may save time, but it also prevents the innovation and collaboration needed to address modern threats.

    November 16, 2023
  • The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), is one of the main tools the agency relies on for environmental regulations, containing information on human health effects that may result from exposure to various chemicals in the environment. A new report from the EPA's inspector general, said the agency needs to do a better job of who has access to it. For more on the report, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin's Executive Producer Eric White talked with Jeremy Sigel, the IG office's Supervisory Audit Manager in the Information Resources Management Directorate. 

    November 16, 2023
  • We know that true modernization impacts effectiveness and efficiency for agencies, but to achieve real change it requires not just new technology but a balanced mix of culture, people and processes that elevate the technology, to drive enterprise-level transformation. Federal government resilience and innovation within the civil sector requires cloud-native thinking, paired with championing a new kind of role – the chief transformation and strategy officer (CTSO).

    November 15, 2023
  • Eric Hysen, the DHS chief information officer, and Dana Chisnell, the director of CX, are expanding their priorities areas to include more customer and employee experience goals as outlined in a new IT strategic plan.

    November 06, 2023

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