Tag Archives: FITARA

The General Services Administration, the Department of Education and the U.S. Agency for International Development received the highest grades on the latest version of the biannual modernization scorecard for federal agencies, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.   

Grant Schneider, federal chief information security officer, spoke about federal agencies’ improvement in cybersecurity and information technology modernization at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency summit Thursday, Federal Times reported.

Kevin Walsh, Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act executive for the Government Accountability Office, said the scorecard will deploy new data center optimization metrics by the Office of Management and Budget, FCW reported Wednesday. Walsh told attendees of a recent ACT-IAC event that GAO is establishing a balance on evaluation metrics for the FITARA scorecard, which is based on publically available information.

The Office of Management and Budget released an updated Data Center Optimization Initiative to better comply with the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act’s data center consolidation requirements. The revised DCOI establishes metrics and goals for data center optimization and defines requirements for agencies’ progress reports ahead of FITARA’s Oct. 1, 2020 deadline for consolidation.

The eighth iteration of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard shows that five agencies saw improvement in their letter grades. The agencies showing progress in their letter grades are the departments of Defense, Agriculture, Justice and Treasury and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Eleven federal agencies maintained their scores, while five agencies showed a drop in their letter grades.

Federal Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent said government agencies are showing progress around cloud efforts for collaboration and email tools, Federal News Network reported Friday. Kent, a 2019 Wash100 winner, said on the network’s Ask the CIO that application rationalization is vital since it goes in concert with data center-related initiatives. 

The Government Accountability Office discovered that nine agencies successfully implemented provisions of a 2014 law requiring changes to governmentwide information technology management. GAO released a report on Monday highlighting the 12 practices that helped agencies implement the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act. 

Andrea Norris, chief information officer at the National Institutes of Health, said her office moves approximately 6 petabytes of data each day through a core computational network, Federal News Network reported Thursday. “Our backbone network is one core because the predominant data that we’re moving through there is scientific by far, but we do have set up in some cases, we architect virtual local networks for specialized scientific instrumentation,” Norris said on the network’s Federal Monthly Insights - Digital Transformation.

Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said artificial intelligence, helping federal agencies address critical technology issues and a new cybersecurity scholarship program would be among his priorities in Congress this year to help modernize and secure the government, Federal News Network reported Friday. He aims to promote the FITARA scorecard across the government to ensure all 24 large agencies and departments “are following efforts to have good digital hygiene.”

The House plans to combine the subcommittees that handle information technology oversight and government operations to help in technology modernization across the government, FCW reported Tuesday. The decision comes amid the growing number of government operations relying on IT, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said in a statement.