Browsing: General Services Administration

Federal officials are working to streamline the government’s security program for cloud products and services. A critical part of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)mandates that cloud vendors hire a third-party organization to verify they meet federal security requirements. Today, the General Services Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology must first approve those third party-organizations, or 3PAOs. Then there’s the task of monitoring the performance of the 3PAOs and recommending whether to renew or revoke their status. In a request for information to industry, GSA asked for input on how to privatize the accreditation process for 3PAOs. As FedRAMP…

Dan Tangherlini, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, has appointed Michael Casella as the agency’s new chief financial officer, according to a Feb. 13 blog post. Casella managed the development and humanitarian assistance budget at USAID and has worked at the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department. “This experience promises to provide us with significant insights into the needs of our customers,” Tangherlini said. The General Services Administration saw the resignation or firing of top leadership in April after an inspector general report detailed nearly $823,000 in wasteful spending at a 2010 conference in Las Vegas.…

The General Services Administration announced another 60-day round of public comment Tuesday on which green building certifications the federal government should use. GSA is required every five years to evaluate green building certifications for government use and make recommendations to the Energy Department about which systems to use. The Energy Department will then choose any combination of standards that best fit the government’s needs. The Energy Department has avoided picking one certification standard so far. In 2010, the agency proposed a rule that would allow agencies to use any third-party standard that met Energy Department criteria. GSA has been under…

The top official at the General Services Administration said in a blog post Monday that the agency’s priorities in 2013 will be to save agencies money, become more environmentally friendly and expand opportunities for small businesses. Acting administrator Dan Tangherlini took over the post on April 2 after the publication of a GSA inspector general report detailing wasteful spending at a $823,000 conference in Las Vegas and the ouster of the agency’s leadership. Tangherlini said in a blog post published Monday that the agency will focus on six areas in 2013, including: Saving agencies money by expanding its strategic sourcing…

North Carolina-based Autonomic Resources last week became the only firm to complete a new security review process for all federal cloud products and services. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) was launched in June to standardize security reviews of commercial cloud products. The program is housed within the General Services Administration. As part of FedRAMP, a joint board of chief information officers from the Homeland Security and Defense departments and GSA reviewed Autonomic’s cloud offering and whether it met federal security standards. The company had to verify that it met some 300 security requirements, including proof that its…

The General Services Administration has awarded contracts to 43 small businesses for tablet computers, mobile devices and other common information technology products and services, the agency announced Thursday. The blanket purchase agreements were awarded through GSA’s National Information Technology Commodity Program and are available to federal, state and local agencies. GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services launched the program last year in an effort to procure IT commodities and supplement services for government agencies. The contracts will provide agencies with deeper discounts than those offered on GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules, according to an agency new release. Other products offered on the…

The General Services Administration has launched an online dashboard to provide agencies and industry with greater access to its contract spending data for planning and budgeting purposes. The Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) Dashboards  aggregate  non-classified data on federal information technology spending from 2004 to present through GSA’s five GWACs: 8(a) STARS, 8(a) STARS II, Alliant, Alliant Small Business and VETS contracts, GSA announced on Tuesday. “This tool is especially valuable to small businesses as it provides access to business intelligence they can use to assess market opportunity, decide how best to allocate resources, and identify potential teaming partners for future projects,” GSA Federal…

A new virtual hub is searching for federal experts to help agencies with source code sharing tools, web hosting challenges and related issues. As part of the Digital Government Strategy released in May, the General Services Administration stood up the Digital Services Innovation Center. GSA’s Gwynne Kostin is leading the center’s efforts. “The center will work with agencies to establish shared solutions and training to support infrastructure and content needs across the federal government,” including video captioning and language translation, according to a blog post by federal chief information officer Steven VanRoekel.  “The Innovation Center will support agencies lacking these capabilities, not supersede agencies’…

A program intended to standardize the government’s security certification of cloud products and services is now accepting vendor applications. Starting Wednesday, cloud service providers and agencies can apply to have products and services vetted under the Federal Risk and Authorization program (FedRAMP). The program is managed by the General Services Administration. Companies that already provide cloud technology to agencies under GSA’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service contract will be among the first to have their technology vetted through FedRAMP. Companies on existing government contracts that provide popular cloud services, such as email services, will get priority vetting early on. By June 2014, all cloud…

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