IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The White House has aligned its data center consolidation plan with its efforts to promote sustainability across the federal government.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) will work together to extend existing sustainability efforts to the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), according to a CIO.gov blog post. The FDCCI is the official name for an OMB-led, government-wide initiative to drastically reduce the number of federal data centers that currently exist.

Howard Schmidt, the nation’s cyber security coordinator, said this week that the administration wants to make online commerce more secure so that government, industry and consumers will feel comfortable doing more of their business to the Internet.

Tad Anderson, OMB's associate administrator for e-government and information technology, told reporters after his keynote address that OMB soon will convene task forces to develop details for "lines of business" on health, case management, grants, human-resources management and financial management.

The White House on Wednesday issued an update of the Obama administration's ongoing cybersecurity work, detailing some of the steps being taken in an effort to secure the nation's networks against cyber attacks and in the process offering some new insight into the administration's future plans.

The progress report, issued immediately after a meeting held by White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt with agency secretaries, cybersecurity experts, and industry, notes that the cybersecurity directorate of the White House national security staff is currently in the midst of developing an updated national cybersecurity strategy based on the 12-piece Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.

The Office of Personnel Management has failed three times to get this program going, the most recent coming in 2008 when it pulled the plug on a contract with Hewitt and Associates. The goal is to modernize the processes and systems federal employees data goes into when they retire.

In fiscal 2011 request, the White House withdrew $4 million for the "retirement record-keeping systems." An OPM spokesperson referred all calls on RSM to the Office of Management and Budget. A call to OMB seeking comment on RSM was not immediately returned.

Details of the plan, which was first announced the day after President Obama took office, included three phases of public participation via cyberspace, e-mail and traditional mail.

The online-savvy administration on Saturday switched to open-source code for – meaning the programming language is written in public view, available for public use and able for people to edit. www.whitehouse.gov

Submitted to Congress on June 28, the report by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) urged agencies to work together to create more e-government programs.

Government auditors certified and accredited 77% of the federal government's 8,623 IT systems after undergoing risk assessments and security-control testing last fiscal year, up from 62% in fiscal year 2003, according to a White House report to Congress made public Friday.

This week, they're at it again, outlining the next steps in implementing the White House's open government directive. Earlier this month, the Cabinet departments and large agencies published their open government plans, posted online at the agencies' ".gov/open" pages.

A memo (PDF format) released this week by the Office of Management and Budget lays out new requirements for agencies to set up automated threat-monitoring feeds that automatically gather data from security management tools -- enabling admins to gather real-time data on attacks and other dangers.

That was the message more than 50 private-sector CEOs told top Obama administration officials at a Jan. 14 White House summit on how to use IT effectively to make the government run better.

At an industry day event in Washington, D.C., officials presented their visions for common e-government solutions in the financial management, grants management and human relations business lines. The administration is leaving details of the solutions up to the vendors.

Looking ahead 18 months to the fiscal year 2006 budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, 2005, the White House Office of Management and Budget has began a governmentwide analysis of five lines of business to expand electronic government, the agency said Tuesday.

The vision of the group is: “To improve the trustworthiness and security of online transactions by facilitating the establishment of interoperable trust frameworks and implementation of improved authentication technology and processes for all online transaction participants, across federal, civil and private sectors.”

"The Mobile.WhiteHouse.gov program is just the latest in our effort to make our content available on a broad number of platforms as technology changes how -- and where -- people get their information. And we'll continue to look for new opportunities to develop applications for even more mobile platforms," the administration announced on its official blog.