Chief Information Officers Council - Chapter 19-2

 

MODERNIZING FEDERAL AND NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE TO BE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE

 

Centralized Provision of Information Technology Services for Non-Military Agencies—As technology and IT management practices continue to evolve at a rapid pace, we need to identify and adopt creative and innovative means to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. Following examples set by the Department of Defense, several State governments, and best practices in private industry, the Administration will establish one or more efficient, centralized service providers for non-military agencies for key strategic IT services. Centralizing key Federal IT services through this approach will reduce duplicative and wasteful spending, reduce facility space usage and energy consumption, increase security, and improve service delivery. Centralized provision of key IT ser-vices could prevent billions of dollars in increased costs across the Federal Government.

 

Several IT services have been identified as potential candidates for delivery through new platforms hosted by central service providers. Central service providers will leverage planning and analysis conducted in 2010 to de-liver shared IT services more efficiently and effectively. Governance, funding, performance metrics and service models will be created, communicated and implemented. In 2011, previous pilot efforts will migrate into production. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will provide guidance addressing the provision of services by central providers and their role in supporting the efficient and effective use of IT in the Federal Government in delivering benefits to the public.

 

Cloud Computing—Adoption of a cloud computing model is a major part of the strategy to achieve efficient and effective IT. After evaluation in 2010, agencies will deploy cloud computing solutions across the Government to improve the delivery of IT services. There will be an on-line storefront to enable subscribers to access lightweight collaboration tools, software, and platform and infrastructure service offerings in a cloud environment. Cloud computing will be implemented in a secure manner.

 

Data Center Consolidation—Data center consolidation is another key element of the new Federal IT strategy. It is clear that agencies are not implementing technological solutions as effectively and efficiently as possible. A 1998 survey of Federal agencies identified 432 agency data centers. In September 2009, agencies reported that the number of Federal data centers grew to 1,100. This growth trend conflicts with the proven best practice of consolidating and reducing the number of data centers to reduce costs, energy consumption, and environmental impacts, and improve service and performance. Consolidating Federal data centers will play an important role in meeting the goals of Executive Order 13423 “Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy and Transportation Management,” Executive Order 13514 “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance,” and the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007. OMB will work with agencies to develop a Government-wide strategy and agency plans to reduce the number and cost of Federal data centers. This will reduce energy consumption, space usage and environmental impacts, while increasing the utilization and efficiency of IT assets, in concert with the transition to cloud computing. OMB will monitor agency implementations of data center consolidation plans, identifying and addressing any problems that arise.
 

 

 

Leveraging the Federal Government’s Buying Power and the Federal eMall—The Federal Government often buys information technology through numerous, fragmented suboptimal purchases. Existing programs such as Smart Buy, run by the General Services Administration, enable the government to pool its purchasing, but they are limited in scope and much more can be done. In 2009, Apps.gov was established to provide a modern online storefront to streamline agencies’ acquisition of software at low cost or no cost. OMB will work with the acquisition community to identify additional opportunities to consolidate purchases, reduce administrative costs, and leverage Federal buying power to get the greatest value for the taxpayers’ dollars.

 

Federal agencies are spending upwards of $20 billion annually using purchase cards. In many instances, staff within the same agency purchase identical goods through separate orders. Some of these orders are placed through existing on-line ordering portals (e.g., GSA Advantage, Navy eMall); others are placed over the phone or by fax; and many are made by staff walking into stores. Currently, there is no effective way for agencies to collect the data on all of their purchase card activity so that they can identify savings opportunities, such as taking advantage of bulk discounts or soliciting more strategic sourcing opportunities.

 

Moving the majority of routine Federal purchase card transactions to one or more of the existing online Federal eMalls has the potential for significant annual savings. Specifically, an on-line Federal eMall will provide visibility into Government-wide purchase card transactions, including the ability to view and analyze purchase data across the Government to more effectively develop strategic sourcing policies. At the same time, internal controls related to Federal purchase cards will be improved through the use of electronic approval of purchases, re-cords of purchases, and documentation of purchases maintained electronically. OMB will work with agencies to expand the use of on-line eMalls for Federal purchases in 2010 and monitor these efforts for further expansion in 2011 and beyond based on lessons learned.

 

Building a Strong Federal IT Workforce—Rapid advances in IT are driving strong demand for highly skilled employees to manage IT projects and systems needed to improve program performance. Qualified personnel with the necessary competencies are required to help ensure agency IT systems are well planned, man-aged, operated and maintained. The need for skilled IT professionals, including experienced managers for major IT investment projects, has steadily increased. According to the Office of Personnel Management, there were about 70,000 IT professionals (GS-2210 Federal job series) in the Federal workforce as of March 2009. Increasing demands will conflict with anticipated retirements of current IT professionals projected by the Center for Workforce Information at OPM to continue at a rate of over 2,500 annually (or about 4% of the workforce) for the next seven years. In 2010, the Federal CIO Council will conduct a government-wide IT workforce survey to enable agency managers to identify future workforce needs. Streamlined hiring processes will help agencies to attract and retain the best talent in the future.

 

An Efficient Federal Workforce—With rapit advances in IT, agencies must adopt the best in 21st century technology employees and enable all Federal employees to work at their peak performance. Much of the work within the platform that enables effective collaboration across agencies, across distances, and across governmental boundaries. The rise in social media and web 2.0 technologies has proven that no single organization has a monopoly on good ideas. Today, in the Federal Government, it is difficult just to locate a person in another agency, much less find people with common interests and problems and leverage IT to work collaboratively. A collaboration platform would integrate social media technology across Government boundaries. This platform would enable employees to locate other Government employees with common challenges, needed skills, and ideas to solve common problems, communicate and share information, and generate better solutions to problems more efficiently. In 2010, we will evaluate alternatives, determine the best solutions, develop an implementation plan, and initiate implementation. In 2011, these cababilities will be deployed across the Federal Government.

 

Health Information Technology (HIT)—As the Federal Government implements the requirements of the HITECH Act of 2009, the Administration will continue to leverage Federal information technology to support goals for population health, encourage care coordination through the development of interoperability standards, and assist the development and integration of privacy and security protections into the HIT framework.