technology | The Contracting Education Academy

December 30, 2019 By cs

Federal contracting moves that will ripple beyond 2019

The past year has been long and significant in just about every respect, and government contracting is no exception.

The year was defined by one big, controversial procurement; the ongoing shift to buy more IT products and services through the General Services Administration; that agency’s consolidation of its major contracts on the Multiple Award Schedules; and a new cybersecurity standard that has the defense contracting community holding its breath.

Before 2019 comes to a close, Nextgov spoke with federal contracting experts Chris Cornillie, federal technology market analyst for Bloomberg Government, and analysts at The Pulse of GovCon, a market intelligence firm.

Top of mind for Cornillie was arguably the biggest contract — and upset — of the year. The Defense Department’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract is projected to be worth up to $10 billion over up to 10 years, as a single provider builds a “war cloud” for use across the services.

The Defense Department started the JEDI contract two years ago, a process stretched out further by bid protests and lawsuits. Constant drama surrounded this contract—including a salacious dossier, a last-minute recusal from the secretary of defense and statements from the president—and the award announcement was no exception.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/12/federal-contracting-moves-will-ripple-beyond-2019/162025/

December 3, 2019 By cs

DHS acquisitions are steady despite CIO departure

Technology procurement at the Department of Homeland Security remains on steady ground despite the departure of CIO John Zangardi earlier this month for an industry job.

“We’re going to miss Dr. Zangardi, but the next CIO will come in,” said Soraya Correa, the chief acquisition officer at DHS, said on the sidelines of an industry event hosted by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management. “What I’ve seen is that CIOs are pretty much aligned with things like cloud and the strategies we’re trying to implement.”

Correa added: “Leadership changes are going to happen. That’s the nature of government. The question is: do goals and strategies still align. Dr. Zangardi and his staff knew where we were trying to go. He brought his deputy in, and we started working those strategies.”

DHS Deputy CIO, Beth Cappello, is expected to move into the acting CIO post.

On the procurement front, DHS has yet to issue its solicitation for the General Services Administration’s $50 billion, 15-year, next-generation telecommunications contract.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/11/21/dhs-acquistion-cio-change.aspx?m=1

November 7, 2019 By cs

Civilian vendor cybersecurity certification would look very different from DoD

A civilian counterpart to the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification would need to suit the varying missions across government, according to federal deputy CIO Margie Graves.

The Defense Department is working on a new policy that will require its vendors to obtain a certification confirming the contractor’s own systems have strong enough cybersecurity to protect the department’s secrets. A civilian agency counterpart to that would look very different than what the Pentagon is developing, according to the second-ranking civilian IT official.

While the government does have a method for certifying the cybersecurity of vendors’ products — through the authority to operate, or ATO, process and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP — it does not have a program for assessing the security of the systems used by the vendors.

The Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, looks to change that with a set of 18 “key sets of capabilities for cybersecurity,” according to the draft released in September.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/10/civilian-vendor-cybersecurity-certification-would-look-very-different-dod/160982/

October 15, 2019 By cs

How OMB can make ‘agile government’ not an oxymoron

Over the last 18 months, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) painstakingly went over nearly every federal technology policy that came out in the last 20 years with an eye toward modernization.

Every new policy, whether for cloud or identity management or data center consolidation and optimization, that came from that effort included a list of rescinded regulations which had grown old and held no value any more.

The most recent update to the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative rescinded four policies, some dating back 12 years.

The identity management policy from May terminated five policies, of which some went back to 2004.

As you can see, OMB did more than a little spring cleaning.

This exercise over the last two years or more has led to a new way of thinking about policymaking. OMB and other agencies are taking a page out of the agile software development playbook and applying this methodology to policymaking.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/09/how-omb-can-make-agile-government-not-an-oxymoron/

October 11, 2019 By cs

GSA’s Thomas to leave as head of acquisition service

Alan Thomas, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration, has resigned.

Multiple sources confirmed Thomas announced his decision Oct. 2nd.

“After more than two years of dedicated service leading the Federal Acquisition Service, Commissioner Alan Thomas is departing GSA to pursue a new opportunity in the private sector,” wrote GSA Administration Emily Murphy in an email to staff, which Federal News Network obtained. “I am very grateful to Alan for his commitment to our mission and the accomplishments achieved by the FAS team during his time here. “

Murphy said in her note that GSA senior advisor Julie Dunne has agreed to serve as acting FAS commissioner, beginning Oct. 15.

Thomas became FAS commissioner in June 2017 and immediately went to work on improving FAS around people, processes and technology.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/people/2019/10/gsas-thomas-to-leave-as-head-of-acquisition-service/

The past year has been long and significant in just about every respect, and government contracting is no exception.

Technology procurement at the Department of Homeland Security remains on steady ground despite the departure of CIO John Zangardi earlier this month for an industry job.

A civilian counterpart to the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification would need to suit the varying missions across government, according to federal deputy CIO Margie Graves.

Over the last 18 months, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) painstakingly went over nearly every federal technology policy that came out in the last 20 years with an eye toward modernization.

Alan Thomas, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration, has resigned.

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