A MeriTalk survey finds that Federal agencies are in need of an efficiency jump-start, and 78 percent of Feds believe DevOps will help agencies innovate faster responses and services. Legacy systems are slowing agencies down, and new apps just add to the inertia. […]

Contractor Unisys said the Department of the Interior has completed the migration of its SAP-based financial and business management system (FBMS) to the cloud, making it the first Federal agency to do so.

President Barack Obama is directing the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to deliver a strategy within 90 days that will expedite the deployment of modern technologies that could help keep children, criminals, and the mentally ill away from guns.

“Technology has dramatically changed policing,” said Terry Gainer, former U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms. “We now have data-driven departments.”

Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., are planning to introduce the Cloud Infrastructure Transition Act, which is aimed at accelerating cloud adoption throughout the Federal government. Known as the Cloud IT Act, it is focused on reforming the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which has come under fire on several fronts.

The 34-page Protected Health Information (PHI) Data Breach Report analyzed 392 million security incidents and 1,931 data breaches, including breaches at the Department of Health and Human Services and a “significant number of records” from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The power of FITARA: Transportation Department CIO Richard McKinney this week froze all IT purchases across the agency until component agency chief information officers deliver a strategic spending plan.

Federal employees have greater job satisfaction for the first time in four years, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration remained the top Federal agency to work at, according to the Partnership for Public Service’s 2015 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. The Partnership released the study Tuesday. The study, the Partnership’s 10th […] […]

A new Federal agency is in the works to take over the security clearance process from the Office of Personnel Management, according to former intelligence officials with knowledge of the discussions. Word of the plan to create a new National Investigative Service Agency comes as security officials this week are scheduled to brief leaders of […] […]

The Interior Department has been hacked at least 19 times in the last two years by cybersecurity thieves with IP addresses from Europe and China, said a new report from the DOI’s inspector general. Why would hackers even be interested in an agency that oversees national parks and federal lands? There are plenty of reasons: […] […]

Just a handful of agencies have accounted for the nearly $2 billion saved by closing Federal data centers through the first five years of the program, according to scorecards distributed by Congress, and that trend is likely to continue. The Treasury Department, Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Commerce Department saved a combined $1.652 […] […]

The General Services Administration is considering a new, governmentwide acquisition contract that will allow Federal agencies to buy a range of cloud services to replace expiring blanket purchase agreements. The new contract would allow agencies to purchase infrastructure, platform, and software services and purchase integrated delivery solutions like hybrid cloud, Stan Kaczmarczyk, director of the […] […]

The Treasury Department has been working on redesigning its federal spending data website?USAspending.gov?and is eager to get public input on how well it’s doing.

The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a little-known contract Tuesday for virtual reality software that could one day have a dramatic impact on the ability of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to deal with the various symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. In a relatively small contract of just $77,496, the VA partnered with the […] […]

Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Information Officer LaVerne Council announced Nov. 6 that Brian Burns has accepted an offer to become the agency’s next chief information security officer. Burns takes over for Dan Galik, who has served as acting CISO since Stan Lowe retired in August. Burns will also continue in his role as deputy […] […]

Federal agencies are embracing more cloud deployment models as they become more comfortable with cloud computing and their options multiply. “Our default is absolutely public cloud,” said John Skudlarek, deputy chief information officer (CIO) at the Federal Communications Commission. “We get the scalability we want. We get the flexibility we want, and most importantly we […] […]

Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday outlined numerous shortcomings in efforts by Federal agencies to implement reforms in the bipartisan Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). The committee issued F and D letter grades to 17 agencies because of missed opportunities to cut costs and meet other benchmarks. The […] […]

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s hearing on the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) produced some good commentary from members of Congress and witnesses alike. Here are five comments from testimony and the subsequent discussion that provide perspective on the hearing. “I am so grateful to this committee for FITARA. I think […] […]

Almost every day, a news story appears about issues that affect the Federal government–shrinking Federal budgets, the low rate of employees’ job satisfaction, or cyber threats against its networks. The problems facing the Federal government are steep; however, the Federal government can better serve critical mission-support functions (think: financial management, human resources, information technology, procurement, […] […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs appointed Brian Burns to lead its new Enterprise Cybersecurity Strategy.