Federal CIO Vivek Kundra announced the Administration’s 25-point plan for IT reform last December.  Since that time, and much attention has focused on reviewing the plan’s elements (including in this blog), and OMB has led an active implementation agenda to achieve the milestones laid out by the plan.  Last week’s White House meeting with IT leaders added an important new c

 

  As occurs each year, the President’s Budget Proposal includes a Chapter on IT spending – it’s in the “Analytical Perspectives” document, Chapter 20.  This chapter highlights key current and forthcoming priorities, and represents the IT spending report required under the Clinger Cohen Act. 

In the midst of its seventh anniversary, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) that delineates a strategy focusing on five mission priority areas for the homeland security enterprise. “Mission one is preventing terrorism and enhancing the security of the country.

The RSA Conference (http://www.rsaconference.com/2011/usa) hosts the leadership and a large swath of the membership of the cybersecurity world.  Key figures speak at plenary sessions, including White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, Cyber Command Director Keith Alexander, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn, DHS Deputy Under Secretary Phil Reitinger, and NIST Director Pat Gallagher.  A much larger number participate in panel sessions and informal discussions.  I moderated a panel around the challenges that s

The Federal Government is the largest data processing / IT organization in the world. The shear number of computer centers, unique applications and support staff dwarfs even the largest private sector IT organizations.  With this scale comes a significant opportunity to enhance service performances and lower operating costs associated with physical assets such as computer equipment, data center space, staffing and overall investment. 

A decade ago, IBM faced a situation that in many ways is similar to that facing the federal government today.  IT service and assets were decentralized, redundant and expensive, and there was great pressure to reduce IT costs while improving performance.  Though no one who went through IBM’s consolidation would claim it was easy, the end result was a streamlined IT organization, billions in cost savings, improved operational and financial performance for the company, and a host of new capabilities that tran

Faster, better decision-making is needed through reduced learning curves and creating a collaborative environment. These goals have led to the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (or DCCI, February 26, 2010).  Near-term projects will focus on reducing cost, improving IT security, and shifting investments into more efficient computing platforms and technologies.

Here’s a quick review of Initiative 1: Consolidate Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure