“Reporter’s Notebook” is a weekly dispatch of news tidbits, strongly-sourced buzz, and other items of interest happening in the federal IT and acquisition communities.
Submit ideas, suggestions and news tips to Jason via email.
Federal procurement spending is up. The number of mergers and acquisitions are skyrocketing. And overall, despite worries about the transition to a new administration, the continued inability of Congress to pass appropriations bills on time and what, many said, was an unfriendly environment for federal contractors, fiscal 2016 was a pretty darn good year for vendors.
Bloomberg Government found agencies spent $477.8 billion on acquisitions in 2016, up from $441.6 billion in 2015—a $36.2 billion increase (8 percent).
“Overall we saw a lot of positive areas for contractors in terms of growth in these markets,” said Daniel Snyder, deputy director of BGov’s Government Contracts Research, during a webinar on Aug. 29. “About one-third of overall categories were in the plus this year, and then in terms of companies, about 121 companies improved their rankings, they are followed by 64 who did a little worse than the year before and 14 remained just about the same and maintained their position.”
There is no challenge that cuts across the government like the never-ending thirst for more and better workers who know how to do cybersecurity.
No agency chief information officer would tell you they have enough well-trained cyber workers. And in the venerable words of Alan Paller, the SANS Institute director of research, the skill set most needed is the technical capabilities to actually secure the computer.
This statement may not be true in the next year or two. The Army may be the one part of the federal government that is getting cybersecurity training right.
The Army Cyber Center of Excellence became fully operational on Aug. 9 and published in April its first doctrine for how it fights in cyberspace to include electronic warfare.
Two important acquisition events happened this month that mark the transition of the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program.
First, the General Services Administration opened its Schedule 70 Special Item Number (SIN) on Aug. 3 to start accepting new tools under SIN 132-44 and grandfathered in some 70,000 existing cyber software, hardware and services under the CDM program.
The second significant item came Aug. 23, when GSA and DHS released the first task order, called DEFEND, under the Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC).
It’s always entertaining to follow the path of any new technology initiative through government and industry. When the Office of Management and Budget first kicked off the cloud-first initiative, some of the thinking was clear, picking up and moving existing technology to the cloud was a decent stop on the path toward modernization.
Then over the last few years, what became known as “lift-and-shift” became a dirty word. Vendors and federal chief information officers alike repeatedly said picking up existing infrastructure and putting in a commercial or private cloud wasn’t worthwhile.
Now, in 2017, “lift-and-shift” is back — sort of.
Several agency technology executives at different cloud events recently said the concept of “lift-and-shift,” if done within a long-term strategy, can lead to cost savings and better capabilities more quickly.
I got a question a few weeks ago from a friend in industry: “What are you hearing about the Alliant 2 awards?”
The fact is I hadn’t heard anything over the last year about the status of the $65 billion multiple award IT services governmentwide acquisition contract (GWAC) since the initial protests were decided.
When I got around to checking the General Services Administration’s Interact site — which, by the way, has been an unheralded success story in the often convoluted and complicated world of industry-government communication — and low-and-behold, there was some news.
GSA has asked the bidders to extend their offers through Dec. 31.
All the hubbub over concerns about Kaspersky Lab software and its alleged connection to the Russian government really is the tail of an effort that has been building over the last five-plus years.
It may seem concerns about the federal IT supply chain have reemerged after a five-year absence from the spotlight. But in fact, a dedicated group from the Defense and Homeland Security departments, the intelligence community and the General Services Administration has moved the government to the cusp of addressing this growing challenge.
The most recent and significant sign of this long-term effort is a new policy from the Committee on National Security Systems. CNSS released a new supply chain risk management policy in late July to establish “an integrated, organization-wide cybersecurity risk management program to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of cybersecurity risk for organizations that own, operate, or maintain national security systems.”
Sandy Boyson, a research professor and the co-director of the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland, said the new policy is an important milestone for a long-term strategy.
The White House once again tapped a CIA veteran to be the next chief information officer of the intelligence community.
President Donald Trump announced Aug. 18 he intends to appoint John Sherman, the CIA’s deputy director of its open-source enterprise, to be the new IC CIO.
Sherman joins former CIOs Al Tarasiuk and Ray Cook, the last two IC CIOs, as having spent time at the CIA.
President Barack Obamanamed Cook in July 2015, after Tarasiuk retired the April before. Since Cook left in January, Jennifer Kron, the deputy CIO of the intelligence community, has been acting.
It was a busy week of people news in the federal technology community. Over the last two weeks, three agency chief information officers have left or have been moved out of their positions and two cybersecurity executives decided to leave federal service.
Let’s add one more to the growing list.
Roopangi Kadakia, the Veterans Affairs Department’s chief cloud strategist, is leaving for the private sector.
Sources say Kadakia is joining a non-federal related industry.
Nearly every major technology reform bill has followed a similar path over the last 30 years. After being introduced as standalone legislation, lawmakers eventually attach it as an amendment to the defense authorization bill.
It seems the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act is heading down the same well-traveled trail.
Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) have filed an amendment to the NDAA bill that is the MGT Act.
“I am very hopeful that the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee will take up the MGT Act soon after the August recess,” Udall said in an email to Federal News Radio. “There have been constructive, bipartisan conversations between the bill sponsors, committee leaders and the administration, and I believe we can come together and move the bill through the Senate in the coming months. To that end, I joined Sen. Moran in filing the MGT Act as an amendment to the NDAA since that may again be a viable path towards enacting important federal IT reform legislation.”
The goal of shared services for federal back-office systems now has crossed into its third administration. And while there is plenty of progress on paper, the on-the-field performance remains problematic at best and wasteful at worst.
The latest example is the Homeland Security Department. After nearly three years, DHS has decided to “cut short” its effort with the Interior Business Center (IBC).
“The solution we’ve developed together is a good investment that DHS plans to leverage going forward,” said Chip Fulghum, acting undersecretary for management, in an email to Federal News Radio. “DHS will use the solution to deliver a standardized baseline with increased functionality and integration. We fully expect it to improve financial operations for [the] Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Coast Guard.”
The House Appropriations Committee put a much less diplomatic spin on DHS and Interior’s efforts. The committee said in its fiscal 2018 spending bill that the agency spent $133 million and Interior is “unable to deliver a fully auditable financial management solution that meets DHS’ requirements. Reasons for the failure of this effort are multi-fold, including inadequate program management, inexperienced staff, lack of transparency in communications and governance.”
“Reporter’s Notebook” is a weekly dispatch of news tidbits, strongly-sourced buzz, and other items of interest happening in the federal IT and acquisition communities.