Tony Scott: OMB Unveils 3-Year Initiative to Reduce Federal Data Center Footprint
Published on
Tony Scott: OMB Unveils 3-Year Initiative to Reduce Federal Data Center Footprint


Tony Scott
Tony Scott

The Office of Management and Budget has introduced a three-year program that aims to require federal agencies to develop and execute strategies that seek to reduce the footprint of data centers and build up the federal government’s information technology security posture.

Federal Chief Information Officer Tony Scott wrote in a blog post published Monday the Data Center Optimization Initiative was introduced to comply with the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act’s data centers provisions as well as to build on the accomplishments of the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative that OMB launched in 2010.

Denise Turner Roth
Denise Turner Roth

DCOI has set five government-wide optimization targets for tiered data centers, such as the use of power usage effectiveness, facility utilization, virtualization and server utilization metrics, as well as installation of energy meters.

The initiative also sets a goal to close approximately 52 percent of all data centers across the federal government over a three-year period and aims to reach $2.7 billion in cost savings and avoidances from the consolidation of duplicative data centers by the end of fiscal year 2018, wrote Scott, an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 for 2016.

Scott noted that the initiative also calls for agencies to adopt cloud and inter-agency shared services.

Denise Turner Roth, head of the General Services Administration, announced Monday that GSA’s office of government-wide policy will serve as a shared services managing partner of OMB under DCOI.

Roth, also an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 for 2016, said OGP will set up a shared services marketplace in support of efforts to optimize data centers across federal agencies.

She also cited OGP’s efforts to help agencies manage their data centers, such as the evaluation of data center infrastructure management tools and collaboration with the Federal Acquisition Service and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program to provide agencies with information on cloud service providers.

NAVAIR Test Flies Osprey Aircraft With 3D-Printed Engine Nacelle
Published on
NAVAIR Test Flies Osprey Aircraft With 3D-Printed Engine Nacelle


V-22-OspreyThe Naval Air Systems Command put an MV-22B Osprey military aircraft fitted with a three-dimensional printed engine nacelle system through a test flight Friday at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.

The demonstration marks the first time a U.S. Navy-owned aircraft flew with a safety critical component that was built through the additive manufacturing process, NAVAIR said Friday.

The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, New Jersey produced the titanium, 3D-printed link and fitting assembly for the outer casing of the MV-22B engine.

“The flight today is a great first step toward using AM wherever and whenever we need to. It will revolutionize how we repair our aircraft and develop and field new capabilities,” said Liz McMichael, NAVAIR’s additive manufacturing integrated product team lead.

Prior to the demonstration event, NAWCAD and Penn State Applied Research Laboratory collaborated to build  multiple V-22 components and the subsystems were tested at the Patuxent River facility.

“We’ll be working with V-22 to go from this first flight demonstration to a formal configuration change to use these parts on any V-22 aircraft,” McMichael added.

NAVAIR noted her team has identified an additional six flight critical parts the group aims to produce and assess  over the next year for integration into the V-22, H-1 and CH-53K rotocraft platforms owned by the U.S. Marine Corps.

Boeing and Bell Helicopter jointly developed the Osprey aircraft.

/
DARPA Competition Aims to Help Automate Computer Security
Published on
DARPA Competition Aims to Help Automate Computer Security


cyberwarfareThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency intends to help automate computer security systems through the world’s first all-machine hacking competition scheduled for Aug. 4.

The Cyber Grand Challenge will take place in Las Vegas, where seven high-performance computers will compete live in conjunction with the DEF CON hacker convention, DARPA said Friday.

The seven competing teams consist of white-hat hackers, academics and private-sector cyber systems experts.

DARPA will award the prizes to the winning teams on Aug. 5 and the winners will engage human hackers in the annual DEF CON Capture the Flag contest on the same day.

The competition is part of a three-year program meant to develop autonomous systems for the detection, evaluation and removal of software vulnerabilities.

/
NIH, Partners Unveil Software Tool for Molecular Bond Identification
Published on
NIH, Partners Unveil Software Tool for Molecular Bond Identification


big dataA National Institutes of Health research team has teamed up with the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope and Freiburg University to build a new software tool to help drug developers identify aptamers or molecules that bind to biological targets of interest.

NIH said Friday the AptaTRACE tool was designed to analyze data collected using the High-Throughput Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment technique that identifies aptamers, in order to distinguish common features in the genetic sequences that bind.

Teresa Przytycka, a senior investigator at the NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information, led the NIH research team that developed AptaTRACE in an effort to further understand why some molecules bind and others do not.

“This research is an excellent example of how the benefits of ‘big data’ critically depend upon the existence of algorithms that are capable of transforming such data into information,” said Przytycka.

John Burnett leads the team from Beckman Research Institute while Rolf Backofen leads the Freiburg University team.

/
GAO Calls for Revisions in Agency Implementation Plans, Monitoring Progress Reviews
Published on
GAO Calls for Revisions in Agency Implementation Plans, Monitoring Progress Reviews


GAOThe Government Accountability Office has called on the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department to require complete documentation of controls and processes from agencies as they implement the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act.

GAO said Friday it found that OMB and Treasury failed to design and implement controls or fully documented processes for the review of the agencies’ implementation plans for the DATA Act and that the OMB did not identify the total number of agencies that must submit implementation plans to OMB.

GAO noted that in mid-June, the OMB asked only agency chief financial officers to submit the implementation plans by August 12.

“Lacking fully documented controls and processes as well as a complete population of agencies that are required to report under the DATA Act increases the risk that the purposes and benefits of the DATA Act may not be fully achieved, and could result in incomplete spending data being reported,” the government watchdog said.

GAO also found that none of the 42 implementation plans it examined include the 51 plan elements indicated in the OMB and Treasury guidance.

GAO recommended that OMB and Treasury request updated plans from non-CFO Act agencies and the two agencies agreed to the recommendations.

/
Air Force to Deploy B-1 Aircraft to Guam to Continue Pacific Bomber Presence
Published on
Air Force to Deploy B-1 Aircraft to Guam to Continue Pacific Bomber Presence


B-1The U.S. Air Force will deploy to Guam a fleet of its bomber aircraft along with 300 airmen from Ellsworth Air Force Base for the first time since April 2006, Air Force Times reported Thursday.

Oriana Pawlyk writes the B-1 Lancer fleet will deploy to Andersen Air Force Base on Aug. 6 as part of the service branch’s effort to establish continuous bomber presence in the Pacific.

The report noted the B-1B aircraft will replace the B-52 units from North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base.

“The B-1 units bring a unique perspective and years of repeated combat and operational experience from the Central Command theater to the Pacific,” the Air Force said, according to the report.

“They will provide a significant rapid global strike capability that enables our readiness and commitment to deterrence, offers assurance to our allies and strengthens regional security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.”

The B-1B Lancer long-range, multimission conventional bomber serves a conventional combat role and has completed more than 12,000 sorties since 2001.

/
NASA to Discontinue Space Station Live Program in September
Published on
NASA to Discontinue Space Station Live Program in September


International Space StationNASA plans to remove the Space Station Live program from its television network in September as part of changes in the agency’s coverage of International Space Station activities and various human spaceflight projects.

The agency said Saturday NASA TV will continue to provide live coverage of ISS spacecraft launches, dockings, landings, spacewalks and briefings as well as weekly highlights of life on ISS through the short-format Space to Ground program.

NASA added its social media accounts will feature stories from ISS, the Orion spacecraft program, other human spaceflight projects and behind-the-scenes updates on technology development efforts under the Journey to Mars initiative.

The Johnson Space Center will also provide weekly video highlights through a news release list that online audiences can subscribe to, NASA noted.

NASA added its ISS blog will continue to post research and operations updates while rundowns of station crew activities will be detailed on the in-orbit status report blog.

/
Booz Allen’s Henry Obering: MDA’s R&D Efforts Face Budget Issues
Published on
Booz Allen’s Henry Obering: MDA’s R&D Efforts Face Budget Issues


MissileDefenseHenry Obering, an executive vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton and a former Missile Defense Agency director, has said MDA faces budget constraints that could impact the agency’s research and development efforts, Air Force Times reported Saturday.

Phillip Swarts writes Obering told a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington the potential budget shortage could affect U.S. defenses against threats posed by North Korea, Iran, China and Russia.

“We have to be able to overcome things like advance countermeasures, maneuvering warheads, hypersonic vehicles and much more,” Obering said.

The retired U.S. Air Force general added the Defense Department should invest in technologies such as space-based targeting and tracking systems as well as directed energy weapons to engage adversaries’ missiles.

/
GSA Unveils Playbook to Help Agencies Develop Enterprise Risk Mgmt Program
Published on
GSA Unveils Playbook to Help Agencies Develop Enterprise Risk Mgmt Program


GSAThe General Services Administration has introduced a document designed to help federal agencies create an enterprise risk management program in an effort to comply with the requirements of the Office of Management and Budget’s revised Circular A-123.

OMB’s updated circular seeks to outline federal managers’ responsibilities in the management of risks and internal controls within an agency, GSA said Friday.

GSA unveiled the Playbook: Enterprise Risk Management in collaboration with the Partnership for Public Service.

The Office of Executive Councils asked risk practitioners and representatives from at least 20 federal agencies to collaborate on an interagency effort to develop the playbook that seeks to show and define practices on how to implement an ERM program within an agency.

The document outlines seven steps on how to create an ERM model, such as consideration of the context, risk identification, prioritization of risks, evaluation and analysis of risks, risk response, development of alternatives, and continuous risk assessment and identification.

/
Navy Rear Adm. Jeffrey Tussler Named OPNAV Future Plans Director
Published on
Navy Rear Adm. Jeffrey Tussler Named OPNAV Future Plans Director


Jeff Trussler
Jeff Trussler

Rear Adm. Jeffrey Tussler, commander of the U.S. Navy‘s Undersea Warfighting Development Center in Connecticut, has been assigned director of future plans at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and CNO Adm. John Richardson announced the flag officer assignment in a Defense Department release published Friday.

Tussler previously served as deputy director of analysis and requirements at OPNAV, where he managed a $200 million budget and supervised seven project managers for the service branch’s advanced maritime technology development efforts.

He also previously led strategic planning and crisis management initiatives at the Joint Staff as deputy director of operations and assistant deputy director of regional operations there.

Before that, he served as undersea warfare commander for the U.S. Sixth Fleet as well as deputy director of the submarine/nuclear power distribution division at the Navy Personnel Command and commanding officer on the USS Maryland battleship.

1 … 2,426 2,427 2,428 2,429 2,430 … 2,621