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GSA Looks beyond Networx

Posted on: June 18, 2013 | Posted By: Kyra Fussell
Related Categories: Innovation, Mobility, Communications Services, Events, Technology Trends

Now that the government transition to Networx has been completed, the General Services Administration(GSA) is turning its attention to Networks Services 2020. According to Mary Davie, they’re not waiting for the next iteration of the program and are aiming to implement changes as soon as possible.

The American Council for Technology Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) hosted the launch of the Network Service 2020 (NS2020) Working Group. The event was organized by the Networks & Telecommunications (N&T) Special Interest Group (SIG) and included roundtable sessions for each of four committees:

- GSA/Vendor Operations

- Program Development, Goals and Metrics

- Business Growth and Collaboration
- Technology

The NS2020 Working Group aims to provide an ongoing forum for government and industry discussion on topics related to the entire lifecycle of the NS2020 program.

GSA and Vendor Operations explored service ordering, portal and pricer, vendor contract operations, and effectiveness around terms & conditions. Investigating government and industry operations highlighted the importance of inventory management. Transition success can be greatly impacted by good inventory.

The Program Development, Goals and Metricscommitteelooked attransaction costs, service level agreements (SLAs), success factors, value proposition models, and program management approach. Suggestions from this roundtable included offering positive incentives for providers to exceed SLAs, making it financially attractive for providers to get solutions in place rapidly (through the government covering up front costs), and improving inventory management.

Business Growth and Collaborationdiscussedstrategies for maximizing portfolio business, Small Business strategy, regional strategy, promoting competition, and collaboration. Three points that resulted from this topic are were the need for re-iteration of GSA’s value proposition, the need for better visibility into the services covered by the fees GSA charges, and the need for standardization (e.g. order placement, inventory, and billing).

The Technology committee addressed the current and future scope for products and services, innovation, and technology evolution. Needs recognized in discussion of capabilities not currently provided under Networx included ubiquitous access and cloud computing. The vision for the future this group described unlimited bandwidth, on demand, anytime, anywhere, with any device. Achieving this future would require more focus on services and less modification of commercial offerings.

The near term challenge for the working group is identifying where technology is heading and what services should be included in the scope of NS2020 (e.g. cloud computing, satellite services). Currently, GSA is working on determining what can be improved with the Networx program; for example, how inventory and service ordering can be made easier. At least for the time being, government is looking to get direction from industry.

The next ACT-IAC N&T SIG meeting will be held on June 27^th to discuss cloud computing services.

Originally published for Federal Idustry Analysis: Analysts Perspectives Blog. Stay ahead of them competition by discovering more about GovWinIQ. Follow me on twitter @FIAGovWin.

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Digital Strategy Scorecard Highlights Progress, Despite Open Items

Posted on: June 4, 2013 | Posted By: Kyra Fussell
Related Categories: Government Reform, Digital Government, Information Security, Mobility, Communications Services, Policy & Legislation, Technology Trends, Federal, Legislation, Open Government, Performance

May 23, 2013 marked the one year anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy. As government organizations worked toward their remaining deliverables, others took stock of the progress they’ve made toward the goal of delivering better services to American citizens.

Steven VanRoekel, Federal Chief Information Officer, has described the achievements in four categories: increasing data-centric approach to information technology, promoting shared platforms and services, improving customer access to information and services, and maintaining cybersecurity. These categories covered ten different milestones, which were comprised of a combined twenty-nine actions. The milestones scorecard shows that close to 76% of the milestones were achieved. While 4% of the actions appear to have not been completed, the statuses of several efforts are difficult to assess due to variance across agency reporting.

Originally published for Federal Idustry Analysis: Analysts Perspectives Blog. Stay ahead of them competition by discovering more about GovWinIQ. Follow me on twitter @FIAGovWin.

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Open Government Data Ramps Up

Posted on: May 28, 2013 | Posted By: Kyra Fussell
Related Categories: Digital Government, Innovation, Transparency, Office of Management and Budget, Mobility, Acquisition Reform, Policy & Legislation, Technology Trends, Legislation, Open Government

This month’s executive order and administrative policy on open data come four years after the launch of data.gov and an order tasking agencies to provide at least three “high-value datasets.” The hype is already building around the impact of the next phase of open government data.

Following the executive order issued on May 9, 2013, Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued an Open Data Policy establishing guidance for agencies to release data in “open, machine-readable formats.” (Even the policy itself is open.)

Over the next three months, agencies are expected to incorporate this new policy into performance goals. A six month timeline is set for agencies to update policies and create public listing of available datasets. Within 30 days of the policy release, federal chief information officer Steven VanRoekel and federal chief technology officer Todd Park were tasked with publishing “an open online repository of tools and best practices.” Not long after the policy announcement, OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched Project Open Data, including implementation guidance, tools, resources, and case studies. Within 90 days, OMB will integrated the policy into governance for purchasing of agency IT systems and services.

The Sunlight Foundation’s John Wonderlich responded with enthusiasm to the release of more government data, but he noted that delivery of this data is supposed to be done without any additional spending. Agencies are also supposed to take the “mosaic effect,” piecemeal information combined to pose a risk, into consideration with the information they make public. So, before disclosing information, other publicly available data (in any medium, from any source) could be combined to identify an individual or pose another security concern. This raises question about what datasets agencies will release. As Wonderlich noted, “Concerns like cost, privacy, and security will be used to justify non-disclosure (as they often are), and will be used to try to justify keeping even a description of many datasets private.” This suggestion reiterates that the barriers to delivering high value datasets are not technical ones.

Last May, with the Digital Government: Building a 21^st Century Platform to Serve the American People, agencies were directed to create public application programming interfaces (API) the could be leveraged by government and private developers. And, on Thursday, May 23, 2013, government officials will release the final set of almost 300 APIs that will enable users to stream information from agencies to computers, websites and mobile applications. Officials will continue adding API’s to the list after the launch. It’s hoped that this API catalog will enable private companies and non-profits to leveraging government data, as with Global Positioning System data. In remarks delivered in Austin, Texas on May 10, 2013, President Obama explained that greater access to government information will “fuel more private sector innovation and discovery,” yield entrepreneurial opportunities, enable startups, and promote economic growth. It also has the potential to improve the solutions available to government organizations.

The increasing liberal use of the phrase “treasure trove of data” in referring to the measure of information within the government calls to mind another expression about the relative nature of “treasure.” While developers will put data to work, the value it returns will rely on the viewpoint. For the most part, open government data has been outward facing, related to products and activities of agency mission areas. Inward looking information, related to management and decision making, comes sparingly by comparison.

Government contractors expand and improve current products and services stand to benefit from the move toward open data. Since, open and machine readable data will be part of governance for federal IT purchases going forward, products and services that currently meet those requirements will be well positioned.

Originally published for Federal Idustry Analysis: Analysts Perspectives Blog. Stay ahead of them competition by discovering more about GovWinIQ. Follow me on twitter @FIAGovWin.

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Agencies Evolve Toward Cloud and Leading Cloud Vendors

Posted on: May 28, 2013 | Posted By: Alex Rossino
Related Categories: Innovation, Cloud Computing, Forecasts & Spending, Technology Trends

Recent data released by OMB shows that federal agencies spent $4.5 billion on cloud computing services in FY 2012 and 2013. OMB estimates that agencies will spend another $2.2 billion on cloud services in FY 2014, bringing the three year total to $6.7 billion. This data shows that the federal perspective on the cloud is changing, a development that is to industry's benefit.

When the White House published the President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2014 back in April, the materials released included an Excel workbook called the Exhibit 53C. This workbook provided data documenting federal spending on cloud based solutions in FY 2012 and FY 2013, and it provided an estimate for anticipated cloud spending in FY 2014. Taken together, these numbers reveal that federal agencies have spent a total of $6.7 billion on cloud computing since FY 2012. The deployment type of the cloud solutions that agencies have been buying shakes out as follows:

Two conclusions can be drawn from this data:

First, it is clear that cloud solutions are a hit with federal customers. FY 2013 in particular was a good year for cloud service providers as federal agencies spent a total of $2.3 billion.

Second, federal customers overwhelmingly prefer private cloud solutions. If projected spending in FY 2014 is any indication, this trend is likely to continue as feds ignore the cost benefits of moving to public, community, and hybrid of clouds in favor of a private cloud model that fits their comfort level. The takeaway from this is that federal customers have overcome their initial hesitation about the security of cloud computing, but they have also chosen to hedge their bets. Could this be one of those rare moments when we are witnessing evolution? Federal customers are still risk-averse, but at the same time they are showing signs of innovation too.

Leading Cloud Vendors

Turning to the other side of the story, who in industry is benefitting from all of this contract money being spent? Here at Federal Industry Analysis we track developments in the federal cloud market, including who is winning business. Our data does not account for all of the dollars spent by federal agencies on cloud solutions that makes up the OMB data set above, but it does account for approximately $6 billion in awarded contract value (this includes consulting and strategic planning) since FY 2009. Given the data we have we are able to make a few observations on the state of competition in the market.

The chart below shows the top ten cloud service providers by number of awards. This data was collected for the period from Calendar Year 2010 to May 2013 and it makes up a total of 54 cloud contract awards. The calendar year has been used in place of fiscal year because the exact date of award for many of the efforts could not be confirmed.

According to this small data set, Terremark/Verizon is the leading provider of cloud solutions to federal customers, followed closely by HP Enterprise Services and CGI Federal. This data includes all kinds of competitions – GWACs, task/delivery orders, GSA IT 70 procurements, and set-asides. Another interesting point worth making about the data set is that neither Google nor Amazon appear in it. With the recent announcement of Amazon Web Service’s FedRAMP certification one would expect to find AWS on this list. AWS is missing, however, because of a curious trend in the cloud market. Specifically, 3^rd parties are often given contract awards to move agency applications to cloud environments hosted by AWS and Google. For example, several of the Smartronix awards on the chart are for efforts that resulted in the migration of agency apps to Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. These efforts make is seem as if AWS and Google are not big players in this market when they actually are.

Lastly, below is the same breakout of vendor awards by NAICS Code. Of the 8 codes represented the one under which the most contracts have been awarded is 541519: Other Computer Related Services, with a total of 18 awards. This is followed by 541513: Computer Facilities Management Services, with 12 awards, and 541512: Computer Systems Design Services, also with 12 awards.

The variety of NAICS codes used suggests that contracting offices too have evolved to handle cloud procurements. This is borne out in other data I have seen as well which shows that contracting offices have adapted to the subscription pricing model common to cloud services. Therefore, with this and other procurement adaptations around pricing and NAICS codes accomplished, the path seems to be clear for the federal adoption of cloud computing to accelerate in the years to come.

Originally published for Federal Idustry Analysis: Analysts Perspectives Blog. Stay ahead of them competition by discovering more about GovWinIQ.

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A Look at the Defense Agencies Initiative (DAI) ERP Program

Posted on: May 14, 2013 | Posted By: Alex Rossino
Related Categories: Department of Defense, Technology Trends, ERP

Since Congress first mandated in 1994 that the Department of Defense achieve full auditability of its financial statements, the DoD has engaged in multiple lengthy and costly efforts to implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently pushed up the date by which the DoD is supposed to be ready for full auditability from FY 2017 to September 2014. Congress then adopted this date into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2013, a development that put considerable pressure on the DoD to accelerate the pace of its ERP deployments. The date changes are beneficial for the contracting community because the DoD is unlikely to meet its updated deployment schedule. This suggests that despite the difficult fiscal climate the DoD will continue funding ERP deployments and all of the related work associated with these systems. Funding means contracts and contracts mean business opportunity.

One of the many systems being implemented is the Defense Agencies Initiative (DAI). Per the FY 2014 Exhibit 300 for the DAI, the program leverages the Oracle E-Business Suite, version 11i, to modernize Defense agency financial management capabilities in 7 process areas: Procure to Pay, Acquire to Retire, Order to Fulfill, Time & Attendance, Budget to Report, Cost Accounting, and Grants Accounting. The DAI is a holdover project from the Business Transformation Agency that is now under the purview of the Defense Logistics Agency. Work on the various elements of the DAI is directed by the DAI Program Management Office (J623) which resides under the Information Operations (J6) Program Executive Office (J62) at DLA.

Background

Implementation of the DAI began at the BTA in 2006-2007 with the award of a 5 year contract to Computer Science Corporation (CSC) for the DAI Financial Business Management Solution. Since that initial award DAI implementation efforts have also commenced at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), TRICARE Management Agency (TMA), Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA), Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), and Washington Headquarters Service (WHS). Readers should keep in mind that this list is limited to those customers for DAI which could be confirmed. According to the DAI PMO, the Defense Applied Research Project Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA), Defense Security Service (DSS), and Defense Media Activity (DMA) also have been prepped for the implementation of DAI.

Assuming it is the DoD’s intention to eventually implement DAI across all of the Defense agencies, the following agencies remain potential candidates for DAI deployment, implying that further contract support may be planned.

Contract Support

The following contracts have been identified as related to DAI implementation efforts over the period from FY 2007 to FY 2013. As we can see, a number of these are expiring in FY 2014, 2015, and beyond, providing the potential for follow-on work to be procured, or for new contracts to be competed to perform deployment services and support for the agencies listed above. In addition, the possibility exists that more contractor support for DAI sustainment will be required.

Historical Spending

Historical spending to date on the contracts listed above is as follows. Curiously, there is a considerable discrepancy between the reported base and all options value of these contracts. Likely this is because many of the contracts have remaining option years on them to be exercised. Also, it is possible that spending on many of the contracts remains unreported.

Lastly, the chart below depicts spending on these contracts over the period from FY 2010 to FY 2013. Obligations on these contracts began ramping up in fiscal 2010 to reach a high point in fiscal 2012. Now, in fiscal 2013 it looks as if spending is slowing, probably due to the uncertainty surrounding Sequestration.

Conclusions

Wrapping up, there is good news and bad news. The bad news for the DoD is that much like the challenges facing Army ERP implementations, the Defense Agencies Initiative will likely struggle to hit full deployment milestones for all of the participating agencies by the September 2014 deadline mandated in the FY 2013 NDAA. The challenge of meeting the deadline becomes even more daunting when potential cuts from Sequestration are taken into account. Should Sequestration be imposed in its current form, funding for many of the DoD’s ERP deployments would undoubtedly take a hit. This does not mean that funding will dry up. It will simply be reduced.

The good news is that in chaos there is opportunity. Given the legislative mandates, the DoD is likely to continue spending on ERP implementation. In FY 2014 the budget for DAI is $99M, out of which $52M (52%) is for development, so funding for DAI this fiscal year is not a problem, assuming an FY 2014 budget is passed. Even if the DoD is forced to operate under another Continuing Resolution at FY 2013 baseline numbers, the funding for DAI will be similar (DAI DME funding in FY 2013 is $63M). In short, DoD ERP implementations like the DAI are likely to remain excellent places in the next few years to seek out business opportunity in trying economic times.

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A closer look at Mississippi’s IT hardware term contracts

Posted on: May 10, 2013 | Posted By: Lindsay Clifton
Related Categories: Transparency, IT Services, Contract Opportunities, Procurement, Technology Trends, State & Local

With more than 70 statewide term contracts from Mississippi’s IT Hardware Express Products List (EPL), it’s evident that the IT hardware category is a hot one in today’s market. The state took one solicitation and created 70-plus contracts offering a wide range of products including desktop/mobile-based computers, GIS-level workstations, monitors, printers/scanners, servers, storage, and video-conferencing equipment.

Mississippi has 77 approved manufacturers and 99 resellers on the IT Hardware EPL. While there is no confirmed spend value for statewide term contracts since they are based on purchases over the course of a contract, vendors may see large returns; statewide term contracts offer a large range of products and are available for use by all Mississippi agencies, universities, colleges and governing authorities.

The state has a purchase limit for users of $200,000 per project, per fiscal year for the IT Hardware EPL, which notes the anticipated high value. Mississippi also requires customers to obtain quotes from at least two EPL sellers if their purchase will be more than $50,000, which increases vendor competition. Another benefit to the EPL is that new sellers can submit proposals to get in on the action every six months.

Mississippi’s EPL Interactive website provides in-depth contract, vendor and pricing information, specifically for the IT Hardware EPL contract, but is not as robust with spending information. The site allows users to search by category, manufacturer, and seller name. You can also search by manufacturer reseller group, where a manufacturer sets a not-to-exceed price that resellers must obey; from there, some resellers will offer discounts on that manufacturer’s price. They keep this updated as the manufacturer changes any products on their website to make sure it meets state requirements.

Displayed in Table 1 are the different IT hardware categories offered under the EPL. The audio-visual components class is offered by 20 manufacturers and 66 resellers, the most of all categories. Interactive devices, which include whiteboards, voting devices and displays, is a close second with 18 manufacturers and 64 resellers. Some vendors offer both of those top contracts, like the Visix Term Contract. Deltek’s State & Local Term Contract resource has a searchable, saveable, living record for each of the more than 70 Mississippi IT hardware contracts, and 1,200 IT hardware term contracts throughout the United States.

Key take-aways

The IT Hardware EPL contract is set to expire in June 2014, and the state has indicated a replacement RFP will be released in April 2014. If IT hardware vendors don’t want to wait for the new solicitation, they can get on this contract in the next update cycle – the due date for proposals is June 4, 2013.

Forty-six states are using term contracts as an approach to purchase IT hardware. To explore more term contracts and gain insight into competitor contracts and pricing, check out Deltek’s State and Local Term Contracts resource. Not a Deltek subscriber? Click here to learn more about Deltek’s GovWin IQ database and take advantage of a free trial.

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Montana's 2013 spending forecast

Posted on: May 8, 2013 | Posted By: Alexandra Howden
Related Categories: Fiscal Update, Transparency, IT Services, Procurement, Technology Trends, State & Local

Just four months into the year, Montana has already awarded 86 statewide contracts – 11 of which were IT related – according to the state’s transparency website. The state started off the year slowly, only awarding a few contracts in January and February, one of which was IT related; but with more than half of the contracts awarded in April, Montana’s procurement cycle is picking up steam.

The beginning and final months of the year are always slightly slower with contract awards, while the start and end of the fiscal year (ending in June and beginning in July for most states) prove to be much livelier for procurement.

Last year, Montana’s awarded contracts had a bell-curve distribution; Q1 started off sluggish, the majority of contracts were awarded in Q2 and Q3, and activity died down again in Q4. If this year is any reflection of last year, we should look for an active next couple of months in the state.

As awarded contracts are growing in number, the Q2 spending trend becomes evident. Oftentimes states with a June-July fiscal year see a lull in spending at the end of the fiscal year, once funds have been used up. However, they typically see spending pick back up in July as project funds are approved and allocated. Therefore, vendors should be ready for high procurement activity ahead.

Most of this year’s awarded IT contracts are for software and software systems, and awarded vendors include Dell, High Point Networks LLC, and Hewlett Packard State and Local Enterprise Service. Further IT procurements include contracts for telecommunications systems, technological equipment, and professional services, of which CenturyLink, Compview Inc, and Northslope Capital Advisors are among the awardees. All of these vendors are pretty big players in the IT market, which means Montana contracts are fairly competitive and the state tends to do business with existing vendors. Smaller and newer vendors should take note of this.

The awarded contract values range from $17,000 to $500,000, and total approximately $1 million spent on IT contracts this year. Vendors should keep an eye out for more high-value contracts in the coming months as Montana still has a lot to spend.

Additionally, state departments just submitted their proposed budgets and bills for approval, and as Governor Steve Bullock approves them, procurement activity will rise. The Governor’s Information Technology Summary mentions a few projects the state is most interested in pursuing, including a statewide voter registration system, enhancing e-services for property and state taxes, and a computerized management maintenance system. The state outlined more than $15 million for these opportunities, as well as more than $14 million in long-term IT projects. Further opportunities can be found in the Montana state profile database.

Not a Deltek subscriber? Click here to learn more about Deltek’s GovWin IQ database and take advantage of a free trial.

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North Carolina’s bleak performance audit of 84 IT projects

Posted on: May 7, 2013 | Posted By: Randi Powell
Related Categories: IT Services, Efficiency Initiatives, Technology Trends, State & Local, Efficiency, Performance

Vendors who have ever worked on a government IT contract know that there are often discrepancies between initial estimates and actual hours worked and dollars spent on the project. In a way, overages (time and budget) have become the unspoken status quo for many projects. The problem is state and local governments looking to cut waste and seek efficiencies are realizing that this new norm is counterproductive to their bottom line.

The North Carolina State Auditor’s Office released a performance audit on April 12 that called out 84 IT projects that cost the state a total of $356.3 million in overages, and took a total of 389 days longer than initial project estimates suggested. Essentially, these projects have cost twice as much and taken 65 percent longer than expected.

The audit highlighted some of the more glaring examples, such as the state’s Medicaid management information system (MMIS), which was initially estimated to cost $92.7 million with the project completed in November 2011. However, the MMIS project ballooned to $229 million and now has a completion date of October 31, 2013. Another example is the N.C. toll collection management system (TCMS) project, which was expected to cost $19.8 million, but now has a revised budget of $41 million.

The most egregious project on the audit is the state’s tax information management system (TIMS), which had early estimates of costing only $525,000, with a completion date of December 31, 2011. Nonetheless, the project exploded to $97.3 million and now has a due date of January 31, 2014.

The audit highlighted the seriousness in which the state of North Carolina is viewing this problem and pinpointed two main issues that have heavily contributed to the overages among state IT projects:

1. Actual costs and schedules differ significantly from original estimates, which can result in unplanned spending and resource use.

a. No standard practice for creating IT projects estimates

b. No independent validation of agency estimates

c. No accountability for unreliable estimates

2. Procedures do not ensure complete, accurate, and timely data.

a. No method to identify IT projects that circumvent the SCIO approval process

b. No assurance that historical IT project data is preserved

c. No oversight/review of self-reported IT project data from state agencies

d. No consequences/incentives to compel state agencies to submit IT project status reports in a timely manner

The auditor’s office made six recommendations to mitigate these issues:

North Carolina Information Technology Services (ITS) should develop and publish written guidance for developing state agency IT project cost and schedule estimates. The guidance should also describe the education, experience, and credentials needed by the personnel who develop the estimates.
ITS should require state agencies to obtain independent validation of the accuracy and reasonableness of IT project estimates. Alternatively, ITS should require agencies to submit appropriate and adequate documentation so that ITS can evaluate and determine the accuracy and reasonableness of agency estimates.
ITS should request that the General Assembly consider enacting state law to hold state agency managers accountable and require them to meet IT project cost and schedule estimates.
ITS should develop and document a method to identify state agency IT projects that require the SCIO’s approval. ITS should also ensure that the EPMO Tool retains both historical and current information to allow for trending and analysis.
ITS should develop and document procedures to verify state agency data in the EPMO Project Portfolio Management Tool.
ITS should consider asking the General Assembly for the authority to ensure that ITS receives project status reports on schedule.

North Carolina’s new chief information officer (CIO), Chris Estes, agreed with all six recommendations produced from the audit and said ITS will address the issues found in the audit in the upcoming Statewide IT Plan, which is expected to be released on October 1, 2013.

Analyst’s Take

The audit reviewed IT projects from December 2011 to October 2012, and selected only projects whose original cost and schedule estimate data was available. North Carolina has a total of 1,034 state IT projects contained in its Project Portfolio Management database, with 128 active IT projects valued at $1.7 billion. Besides the cost of the overages identified, the fact that only 84 out of 1,034 IT projects had enough information to be included in the audit to begin with more than justifies the audit’s findings and recommendations.

If taken seriously, the North Carolina 2014 IT plan will include hard and fast solutions to improve oversight and management of state IT projects moving forward. These solutions will likely come in the form of policy, procedure and personnel restructures that will affect existing contracts and future procurements. Vendors looking to do business with North Carolina should count on an extra layer of scrutiny during the procurement process, especially when it deals with pricing, scheduling, and the management and success rate of past IT projects.

Not a Deltek subscriber? Click here to learn more about Deltek’s GovWin IQ database and take advantage of a free trial.

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The Joint Information Environment (JIE) Begins Taking Shape

Posted on: May 7, 2013 | Posted By: Alex Rossino
Related Categories: Cloud Computing, Department of Defense, Big Data/Analytics, Contract Awards, Technology Trends, Emerging Technologies, Joint Information Environment (JIE)

Over the last two years, the Department of Defense’s effort to create a new Joint Information Environment (JIE) has been in the news a lot. The JIE is mentioned in practically every briefing and interview with DoD officials, but details concerning what the JIE is and where work related to the JIE is being done are hard to come by. In this post I will attempt to provide some substance to the elusive JIE and in the process point out a few areas where I see work happening.

First, what is the JIE? My rudimentary understanding is that the JIE is a common set of technology standards, products, and open architectural approaches that are being implemented to enable system interoperability, enhance security, and make capabilities available to any DoD end-user on any approved device. In short, the JIE is the DoD-wide version of common operating environments/pictures that many federal agencies are currently implementing. In the DoD’s case, work toward the JIE is going on at all levels. The Military Departments are working on it in their own network convergences (e.g., LandWarNet, NMCI/NextGen, and AFNET) and, generally speaking, work at the Defense agency level is being directed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Given the size of this topic, this discussion will be limited to outlining some of the work going on at DISA.

DISA’s JIE Strategy

Back in August 2012, DISA released its Global Information Grid (GIG) Convergence Master Plan (GCMP), a strategy document that outlined the agency’s vision for the JIE. GCMP sections 2.1 through 2.3 described the following objectives that DISA is seeking to achieve. Readers please note I’ve changed a little of the language in the DISA document to cut down the amount of text:

Short-term objectives

Provide common user services and platform services through consolidation of infrastructure and existing software licenses.
Provide two private clouds: an unclassified DoD cloud and a classified DoD cloud.
Improve end-user device access by migrating end-user applications to the cloud and migrating end-users to a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) environment.

Mid-term objectives

Develop methods, when using commercial cloud service providers, which protect data in transit and at rest, authenticate users, and apply appropriate access controls.
Provide virtual container technologies supporting secure unclassified operating environments on a wider variety of approved end-user devices.

Long-term objectives

Move to a commercial-government hybrid cloud computing environment with DoD retaining the identity provider role.
Improve service interoperability across core, intermediate and tactical edge environments.

Achieving the Short-Term Objectives

Although DISA laid out these objectives in short, mid, and long terms, each stage is interrelated and in some cases DISA appears to be working toward all terms simultaneously. Starting with Short-Term Objective #1, DISA, the Air Force, and the Army awarded the 3 year, $617 million Joint Enterprise License Agreement for Microsoft products last December. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, infrastructure consolidation efforts are ongoing at both the Defense agencies and in the Military Departments. An example of this would be the ongoing effort to integrate the networks of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and U.S. European Command (EUCOM).

As for the effort to establish the private clouds mentioned as Short-Term Objective #2, this is proceeding at a slower pace. DISA announced just last month that it has developed a process for gathering and assessing mission partner requirements and establishing contract evaluation criteria for an Enterprise Cloud Service Catalog. This suggests that competitions for cloud computing contracts by DISA are likely to be coming in FY 2014. DISA also began laying the groundwork to address Short-Term Objective #3 by awarding a sole source contract in April 2013 to Jackpine Technologies. Under this contract, Jackpine will continue developing combined milCloud and Infrastructure-as-a-Service capabilities resulting in the delivery of an ALVE (Application Lifecycle Virtualization Environment) that will support DISA's Agile, Rapid Development and Deployment Model. The migration of users to a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) is the one area of this plan that seems to be moving ahead at the slowest pace. One potential area of progress is the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for a Mobile Device Common-Access-Card-Enabled Thin Client solution that DISA released in September 2012. Under this BAA multiple vendors will provide innovative solutions for Common Access Card (CAC)-enabled virtual thin client solutions for managed and unmanaged mobile devices. Presumably, these solutions would also address the requirement for virtual container technologies listed as Mid-Term Objective #2.

Achieving the Mid-Term Objectives

Regarding Mid-Term Objective #1, work to be performed under the mobile device CAC enabled thin client BAA discussed above would address these requirements. Similarly, DISA’s Program Executive Office Mission Assurance and Network Operations recently released a Sources Sought Notice for Community Data Center (CDC) and Sensor Operations. Under this contract, the industry partner will support Centaur Operations within the Community Data Center. Centaur Operations protects and defends the JIE, DoD Enterprise Services, and the GIG through the maintenance of network sensors and tools that gather terabytes of data. Fulfilling this requirement entails designing, building, and maintaining cloud based multi-petabyte parallel distributed files systems and “big data” analytics.

Achieving the Long-Term Objectives

Concerning the longer-term objectives, it appears DISA will fulfill these by building on solutions that it acquires in the short and mid-term. For example, achieving Long-Term Objective #1 is fulfilled by DISA’s efforts to stand up commercial cloud and cloud broker offerings, as well as through the CDC and Sensor Operations acquisition. This leaves Long-Term Objective #2, enabling interoperability across core, intermediate and tactical edge environments. This goal will only be achieved when work being done across the Military Departments’ networks reaches a sufficient level of maturity. In DISA’s case, however, the agency recently took a big step in this direction by awarding a $45 million sole source Blanket Purchasing Agreement to Alliance Technology Group for Large Data Object Storage. The LDOS capability will provide the foundation for an ISR Storage Cloud that enables the sharing and analysis of ISR data across all components of the DoD.

In conclusion, work on the JIE is just getting started. Mobile computing and communication solutions, for example, will also be part of the JIE. However, DISA is expected to award contracts for this requirement soon. Industry can remain confident that more requirements are sure to come.

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Deltek releases annual state-of-the-states analysis: Webinar to be held this Thursday

Posted on: April 29, 2013 | Posted By: Kyle Ridley
Related Categories: Education, IT Budget, IT Services, Contract Opportunities, Forecasts & Spending, Policy & Legislation, Procurement, Technology Trends, Consolidation, Budget, State & Local, Justice/Public Safety, Legislation, Elections

Every year, Deltek analysts carefully comb through all 50 governors’ state-of-the-state and budget addresses to identity crucial trends in rising and falling priorities. Understandably, the past few years haven’t been so fruitful, with states cutting key programs, canceling major projects and shifting efforts to stay afloat amid recession’s strapped-budget undertow.

Fortunately, states are successfully weathering the storm, and this year’s report contains a bevy of potential vendor opportunities as governors’ agendas increased project items for the first time since 2008. Overall, the total number of governor agenda items rose a sharp 11.6 percent from 2012.

In addition to the report, Deltek is presenting a free webinar this Thursday at 2 p.m. EST so vendors can learn how to align technologies with current and emerging policy trends. Go here to register for the free event.

Major take-aways from “State of the States, 2013,” include:

Governors’ renewed interest in performance-based management, particularly in education
More effort to cut corrections and incarceration costs by investing in probation, parole and electronic monitoring programs
Heavy focus on Medicaid expansion (both for and against), and how to reduce its costs
Increased dedication to developing a strong future workforce by establishing a wealth of present educational opportunities, led by digital learning platforms
Amplified justice and public safety initiatives due to natural disasters (Hurricane Sandy) and national tragedies (the Newtown shootings)
Continued plans to streamline and consolidate government operations through technology

The report also breaks down governors’ 2013 goals per vertical market, with several charts detailing the number of agenda items mentioned year to year and technology-specific projects.

The full list of report graphs include:

2013 by vertical
2011-2013 comparison by vertical
2008-2013 average by vertical
2013 Agenda Item Popularity vs. 2011-2013 average by vertical
Top 25 cross-over agenda items
Agenda items with mention of technology, 2013
Agenda items mentioned by state, 2013
Community development, economic development/regulation, natural resources/environment, and transportation agenda items, 2013
Education agenda items, 2013
General government services and public finance agenda items, 2013
Health care and social services agenda items, 2013
Justice/public safety agenda items, 2013

To read the full, 33-page report, please go here. Deltek clients that subscribe to State & Local Industry Analysis (SLIA) may also request (via their Deltek Client Advisor) the Excel workbook containing all of the agenda data compiled for the report.

Lastly, please register for our free webinar this Thursday to learn more about the initiatives and implications of 2013’s state-of-the-state addresses.

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