It is no mystery cloud migration has captured the attention of government agencies and government contractors the past several years. Agencies are required to find new innovative ways to save resources, be more efficient, and maintain security standards and are at very different stages in their development towards a mature IT portfolio and cloud environment. One of the biggest challenges facing agencies today is how to migrate legacy systems and documents to cloud infrastructure and ensure they are retrievable.

Determining how to enter the Federal government marketplace for the first time is a challenging process for any company. As such, many companies find subcontracting to a government prime contractor to be the most effective method, as well as the path of least resistance. While this method can be an excellent option for companies new to the Federal marketplace, it can also come with difficulties. One of the most common complaints among government prime subcontractors revolves around late payments.

The success of the top 50 fastest growing Federal contractors of 2012 reveals small businesses can not only compete, but also dominate a tough market. Every year Washington Technology ranks contractors by their growth, which reminds us, that success “in this market, it is also about resiliency and diversity.” According to Washington Technology in order to be considered, “companies submit five years of government contracting revenue, which is used to determine a five-year compound annual growth rate. The companies are then ranked by that rate, not by overall revenue.” Additionally, “companies must be a small business according to one of the myriad small-business categories the government uses.” [1]

A proposal by Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, seeks to eliminate the kind of governmental waste both of the Presidential candidates have pledged to eliminate. Backed by the ranking member of the IT subcommittee, Rep. Gerry Connolly, the proposal plans to save about $20 billion that is currently wasted supporting outdated technology by giving CIO’s of Federal agencies more authority with their IT programs and encouraging collective government IT procurement. Critics of the proposal note its limited scope and claim it would create more bureaucracy. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a conspicuous absence from the proposal even though it accounts for roughly half of the government’s $80 billion annual IT budget and is a major source of the waste the proposed law strives to eliminate. While the scope of the proposed law is not as expansive as some hoped, it has nonetheless received support from the private sector because it requires "active engagement with the private sector to use up-to-date commercial technologies and to remove unnecessary burdens on industry in its interactions with the government." Regardless of whether this proposal becomes law, it is an exciting step on the path to a more efficient and cost-effective commercial interaction between government agencies and the private sector. Wow! As if this time of year wasn’t already brimming with innovative ideas and exciting possibilities. This proposal is a great way for government agencies to save money by leaving expensive obsolete technologies behind to embrace the current tools of doing business. Businesses selling to the government will benefit from agencies improved ability to rely on each other’s expertise and collaborative purchasing. We are looking forward to see what happens when this proposal is introduced in early 2013. What do you think?

With both the Obama Administration and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) so steadfast on the implementation of the cloud, it is imperative that they subdue all doubts the general public may have about its security. FedRAMP has reached out to officials from General Services Administration (GSA), Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and others to standardize the security of government cloud-based services.

NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) IV is a government wide acquisition contract supporting IT investments spanning from 2007 to 2014. SEWP is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle and is coveted by many contractors as a gateway into large scale contracts and access into a plethora of agencies. SEWP is one of the few contract vehicles which actually manages the contracts and allows agencies to utilize resources from a centralized platform. A Federal Computer Week Report highlights some key features: