Government IT News For VARs — September 10, 2014
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
In news this week, evolving federal procurement trends could result in shifting IT operations to outside providers. Meanwhile, GitHub is now used by more than 100 federal organizations, and the FBI is moving into the digital era. Also, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding two $10 million projects to fuel cloud-based research.
Vendors: It’s A New Federal IT Procurement Ball Game
This article from the e-Commerce Times reported that the evolution of federal procurement trends could bring a significant shift of agency IT operations to outside providers offering cloud and various shared capabilities. This does not necessarily mean that many current IT vendors will lose business. “Government outsourcing to the cloud will benefit a wide variety of industry partners,” said Deltek analyst Alex Rossino.
Which Of Your Clients Is Using GitHub?
More than 100 federal organizations are using GitHub to collaborate internally, across agencies and with the public on open-source content, according to Fed Tech Magazine. In this interview, Fed Tech spoke to Ben Balter, who has been described by the U.S. Chief Technology Officer as one of the “baddest of the badass innovators,” about GitHub in government.
The FBI’s Monumental Move Into The Digital Era
The bureau digitized more than 30 million files and some 83 million fingerprint cards in preparation for its move to the Next Generation Identification system. Migration to the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system marks the end of an era, when employees manually filed, retrieved and annotated fingerprints. The new digital system will provide faster, more efficient fingerprint identification processing and increased search accuracy, according to the FBI.
NSF’s $20 Million Investment Will Fuel Cloud-Based Research
Fed Tech Magazine reports that the National Science Foundation is funding two $10 million projects aimed at empowering “academic researchers to experiment with novel cloud architectures and pursue new, architecturally enabled applications of cloud computing,” NSF CIO Amy Northcutt wrote in a recent blog post. The two projects — dubbed Chameleon and CloudLab — will serve as testbeds for cloud experiments and development of new applications and will be available at no charge to researchers from institutions throughout the country. NSF expects thousands of scientists to use the new test beds.
“Sizing Up The Cloud’s Risks”
The recent iCloud security issue that’s been in the headlines all week underscores the fact that security threats keep growing. It’s important for your clients — and you — to be prepared, as this article from the e-Commerce Times explains.
For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Government IT Resource Center.