Government Policy, Business and Technology

Cloud-Driven Databases Improve Service Quality, Reduce Costs

Most agencies have migrated at least a few applications to cloud services, but progress has been slow, due primarily to internal IT complexities, cybersecurity worries and a reluctance to abandon physical resources. Increasingly, however, agency leaders find that optimizing data management provides a critical first...

Top Barriers to a Digital Government
Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 2:00pm

Digital leadership in today's government is a must. From major federal departments to small agencies, government is modernizing the way they do business with staff, suppliers and citizens. Even still, while the US Army, USDA and GSA are using esignatures to accelerate project timelines for...

Agencies need in-house techies to know how to buy good tech, GAO reiterates

FedScoop: Spend enough time around personnel from tech-in-government organizations like 18F and the U.S. Digital Service, and you’ll hear them say something like this: Their teams save the taxpayers money not just by building things, but also by being in the room during large-scale tech acquisitions and knowing the right questions...

Overcoming Aging Infrastructure

Explore the use of IoT sensors to monitor vibrations and better track the safety of bridges and other structures. Using real-time, cloud-based, advanced analytics and IoT sensor data, government executives can measure vibrations that would help federal, state and local organizations more closely monitor aging...

How as-a-Service is Simplifying Government Procurement & IT Management in 2019
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 2:00pm

Gain insights from government industry experts on how to successfully modernize IT with an as-a-Service financial model. Explore lessons learned and get practical advice from other IT leaders who have used the as-a-Service model to tap into a variety of next generation technologies needed to support a modern data...

Where's My Endorsement? Party Support Is Harder to Get This Year

Governing: It's always difficult to bring a party together after a hard-fought primary. Kris Kobach hasn't yet succeeded in that task.

Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas, unseated Gov. Jeff Colyer in last month's primary by just 343 votes. On Tuesday...

A Natural Evolution: From Data Center Consolidation to IT Optimization

As federal IT organizations make progress consolidating and modernizing their IT infrastructures, the impact of legacy platforms, technologies and traditional data centers still weighs heavy, along with each agency’s ability to attract and maintain the skill sets and applications needed to meet 21st century requirements. If...

Shanahan downplays disagreements over Space Force structure

Defense News: Days after the Air Force released a Space Force memo that seemed to contradict a plan laid out by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, the number two at the Pentagon downplayed any differences of opinion.

“There is no group thinking at the Pentagon,” Shanahan...

Growing Government Cyber Intelligence (ebook)

As traditional network perimeters surrounding data centers dissolve, agencies face enormous difficulties fending off attacks using a patchwork of traditional security tools to protect classified or personally identifiable information (PII). Time and again, traditional security practices have proven porous and/or unsustainable. This is why public sector officials...

Healthcare Spending at 20% of GDP? That's an Economy-Wide Problem

Health Leaders: Continued growth in U.S. healthcare spending to care for an aging population is having a ripple effect across the economy, straining budgets and dampening growth in businesses and households, according to a new report from Moody's Investors Service.

DOE provides $148M in funding for separate energy storage research efforts

Utility Dive: Energy storage research is alive and well at the DOE despite President Donald Trump's threats to gut funding for DOE programs, particularly clean energy projects. In fact, after the budget dust settled, scientific research got a boost at the DOE with a 16% increase in the budget to $6.2 billion.

Health Care for Life: Will teachers' post-retirement benefits break the bank?

Education Next: At a recent school board meeting in Los Angeles, the budget director put up a slide with a dire warning. Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the country, is on pace to spend more than half of its annual budget on retirement and health-care costs by the year 2031. By then, it is projected to spend 22.4 percent...