Recently we reported that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra planned on leveraging dashboards to further government transparency and accountability. In particular, Kundra envisioned a dashboard as a way to gauge the productivity of the US government’s $74 billion investment in federal technology projects. That vision has now become reality. Just yesterday, Kundra unveiled the US Federal IT Dashboard at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009 in New York City.

“This administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government and the IT Dashboard exemplifies that goal,” said Kundra in a statement. “Through the dashboard, we are putting critical information about IT spending at people’s fingertips. We are putting ourselves on the line for better management of taxpayers’ dollars and better results from technology initiatives.”

The most critical part of the IT Dashboard is its Investments page. There you’ll find reports on the overall performance of every major investment in the government’s IT portfolio. Performance is measured in terms of cost performance, schedule performance, and evaluation by agency CIO, with the overall score computed from those factors. For more details on the dashboard and how to navigate it, check out this 8-minute tutorial:

What do you think of the IT dashboard? Share your comments here.

Russo-American tensions are flaring over cybersecurity.  The US wants an expansion of talks similar to the 2004 Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, signed by 22 nations (editorial note: neither Russia or China signed).  The US-backed agreement would criminalize cyberattacks and focus on the individual crimes.  On the other hand, Russia wants a treaty banning cyber warfare, similar to Cold War-Era chemical weapons treaties, that many experts contend the USSR ignored.  The US believes that an international treaty would be ineffective because it is almost impossible to distinguish between a rogue individual attack, organized criminal enterprise, or government-sanctioned offensive.  As a Department of State official told the New York Times on Sunday, US strategy is “defense, defense, defense,” while Russia wants to “constrain offense” to prevent a cyber arms race.  Bottom line, according to the State Department official: “We need to criminalize these horrible 50,000 attacks we’re getting a day.”

Unamanned Vehicles, the Future of Combat and a Lot More

Efficient, versatile, ever vigilant and poised to grow dramatically.  The DoD wants an 18.4 percent ($870 million) spending increase for unmanned systems in fiscal 2010 as comparted to ‘09. Line items for unmanned systems in the ‘10 budget total $5.4 billion, a 39% increase over the $3.9 billion spent on unmanned systems in ‘08.

Cloud Computing: It’s Not Technology…. It’s A Business Model

Prior to introducing the enabling technology of cloud computing or other disruptive technologies, management must first adopt the change in business process and business modeling in order to align their organization with the mindset, requirements, and demands of the new computing model.

The benefits of cloud computing:

1. Cost.
2. Increased Productivity.
3. Increased Mobility.
4. Tighter Security.
5. Cloud Systems are Easy to Upgrade.

Need proof?  Check out virtualization start-up Hyper9: they’re struggling to keep up with demand, even with established players like Microsoft and VMWare competing for business.

Obama Administration Talks Healthcare, ExecutiveBiz Talks Health IT Innovation

Robert Wah

Robert Wah of CSC: ”Health information technology will provide  the foundation for health system reform. To achieve the goals of improved quality of care, expanded coverage and increased efficiency, our healthcare system must use technology to share information that enables the right decisions to be made.”

Joel Selzer

Joel Selzer of Ozmosis on Social Media in Health IT: “The beauty of social media is that with very little cost you can enable parties across the world to more effectively share information and to collaborate in real time…Whether it is Ozmosis or another platform, you can crowd-source all those great insights and best practices to let physicians see the virtues of one solution…versus another.”

Last we reported, Bob Coleman was getting ready to start his own company, Six3 Systems, which specializes in providing national security and defense intelligence services. Now comes word that Six3 Systems and GTCR, one of the nation’s leading private equity firms, have announced plans to acquire Harding Security Associates, Inc. HSA is a provider of identity intelligence, forensics analysis and security services to the federal government. Backed by over 350 employees, the company provides mission-critical intelligence and counter-intelligence training and security services to the DoD and key civilian agencies.

“We view this deal as a critical first step in achieving our long term objective of building a highly specialized national security services provider that is focused on solving our nation’s most pressing security challenges domestically and abroad,” says Coleman, who was named one of ExecutiveBiz’s top 20 people to watch this year. “HSA is working at the heart of the identity intelligence and forensics mission, and I look forward to continuing to build that capability under Six3 Systems.”

We brought our camera to the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons on Thursday for the Ernst & Young Executive of the Year awards.  Federal CIO Vivek Kundra and CTO Aneesh Chopra took a break from their marathon push to meet the administration’s ambitious IT goals to congratulate industry leaders and take in some top-notch surf-and-turf (or, in Vivek’s case, a great vegetarian meal).  Check out ExecutiveBiz’s exclusive photo of the two federal IT policy architects side-by-side.

Winners included Reggie Aggarwal the CEO of Cvent (IT Services); Fuad El-Hibri, the chairman and CEO of Emergent BioSolutions (Technology); Eric Major, the president and CEO of K2M (Emerging); Ronald Paul, the chairman and CEO of EagleBank & Ronald D. Paul Cos. (Business Services); Richard Shurtz, the president of Stratford University (Government/Education Services); Philip Soucy, the CEO of Modern Technology Solutions (Government Contracting); and John Young, the president and CEO of Colfax (Infrastructure).

Washington Power Players: CIO Vivek Kundra and CTO Aneesh Chopra

 

Paul Smith of Red Hat

Sudhakar Kesavan of ICF

 

Rick Marcotte, CEO of DLT Solutions and his wife

Hollis Helms of Abraxas and Rene Salas of Ernst & Young

The Award-Winners

 

John Kraft

While Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has emerged as a highly compelling application delivery model for Public sector organizations, it has also presented government decision makers with a heady challenge. Federal agencies striving for security and compliance assurance are still struggling to leverage SaaS while maintaining the required security, policies, visibility and accountability. It was in the context of this challenge that ServerVault, the Dulles, Va.-based managed services provider of secure, compliant hosting, eyed a market need - and opportunity - to deliver a fully-compliant platform for Federal applications and systems.

Branded FCAP (Federally-Compliant Application Platform), the operating platform is comprised of business, technology, process/procedure and security elements designed to satisfy a set of delivery characteristics required of and mandated by U.S. Federal Government Agencies. The response - from both the public sector and software/SaaS providers selling into the Government - for FCAP since it rolled out roughly one year ago has been highly positive. ServerVault President and CEO John Kraft recently connected with us on the market need FCAP is filling, trends at play in secure, managed hosting, and the firm’s growth plans in the coming months.

ExecutiveBiz: 2009 is half in the books. How has the year treated ServerVault so far?

John Kraft: We’ve enjoyed a great first 5 1/2 months as it is really the best position we’ve ever been in as a company. We feel that we’ve executed as true leaders in the area of providing managed hosting,  with an expertise in cyber security.

ExecutiveBiz: Talk about cyber security. How are trends in this area impacting business?

John Kraft: As someone once told me, running a successful business is like being a surfer: You’ve got to be in position to catch a wave sometimes, and we believe we are positioned at ServerVault to catch that wave when it comes to cyber security. Certainly for some early adopters in government and enterprise with experience in their information being compromised it connected right away what we do. Others hesitated until they actually had a problem. Now cyber security is broadly enough recognized, in part because the President’s cyber security concerns and the efforts of Melissa Hathaway [Obama administration's acting director of cyber security] have raised sensitivity to the subject.

ExecutiveBiz: What is FCAP? Why did ServerVault launch it?

John Kraft: ServerVault’s FCAP (The Federally Compliant Application Platform) debuted about a year ago and it was less something we came up with in creativity sessions and more something customers were telling us they appreciated about us as far as what we could deliver. FCAP came out of conversations with organizations on how to take advantage of SaaS, but also the fact that FISMA required that SaaS be Federally-compliant. During one of these conversations a customer basically said what you’ve developed is a Federally Compliant Application Platform. The response to the platform has been great;  it has been the most popularly downloaded white paper on our Web site.

ExecutiveBiz: Last Summer ServerVault and Apptis partnered to offer a trusted cloud computing environment to federal agencies to “…provide federal agencies a cloud computing platform that boosts the efficiency and productivity of their IT systems by delivering a flexible, highly secure, fully-managed and federally compliant computing infrastructure, as well as application support services.” Why was a trusted cloud needed in the public sector?

John Kraft: We did announce that partnership with Apptis, and there is definitely more to come. Most cloud computing discussions right now have been how to help Agencies take advantage of opportunities in the Cloud yet remain secure and compliant. For example, Amazon EC2 is a great service but you never know exactly where that information is residing and Federal Agencies must know this information so they have the ability to take info out of that cloud if necessary. That is typical of many of the leading cloud environments.

ExecutiveBiz: What are some other trends you are observing the public sector that you believe create opportunities for ServerVault?

John Kraft: We are seeing Federal Agencies continue to get more comfortable with the whole outsourcing concept. Some were reticent to go there in the past because they don’t like to give up control of servers and IT assets. More widespread adoption [of secured managed services] can be traced to a few key drivers like power (most federal data centers built in 1980s/1990s were not built with power requirements needed today to drive blade servers) and cooling. Many older data centers are outmoded, and public sector organizations don’t have the capabilities to upgrade them to be competitive and cost efficient. Finally, Agencies continue to have issues with the graying of workforce and the loss of key people that have been in key jobs.

ExecutiveBiz: We’ve spoken a lot about the public sector. What is happening on the commercial side of the business?

John Kraft: Great question. Because we don’t have a large national sales force we must focus efforts where we get the biggest ROI. Right now we are focused on the Federal market but not all of that focus is on Federal agencies. What I mean by that is there are many enterprises looking to increase the volume of business they are doing with Federal Agencies. The Federal government is the largest procurer of IT services in the World so in this environment that is attractive relative to traditional large enterprise buyers. Companies that want to sell into government need to do it in way that is compliant with FISMA and other NIST-driven standards, so we have found a market far more attractive than it was in the past.

Bottom line: our enterprise market is a federally-related enterprise market rich with opportunity and driven by the same factors driving our Federal side business. We also continue to do a lot of business with systems integrators, because they don’t all have focus on the compliance side.

ExecutiveBiz: What are your growth plans going forward?

John Kraft: In December we brought property next door to our primary Data Center in Dulles that gives us the capability to build a 3 acre campus which we are in the process of getting going. Our plans are to build a campus of highly secure hosting facilities that will allow us to have the capacity to respond to building demand. We’ve also expanded our employee count by almost 15% since December, and we are seeing similar growth looking forward.

Mark Gerencser

Cyber Community in 5 easy steps? OK, maybe the steps aren’t that easy, but they can simplify and improve your focus on building a more cooperative and efficient cybersecurity model across industry and government. Mark Gerencser is the author of the well known book Megacommunities and the following is taken from his recent ExecutiveBiz interview:

Click here for the full article.

1. Know your vulnerabilities.
2. No company is an island.
3. Do an early stakeholder analysis.
4. Think two moves ahead.
5. Pool resources to achieve resilience.

Here’s Your JibJab.  Barack Obama Takes on the World

ICF International Builds Health Informatics Business Using Health Informatics

With an award from the NIH worth $60 million over five years, ICF builds upon existing contracts with the NIH’s electronic Research Administration (eRA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Read more

Tony Zinni: Interim CEO of BAE

Tony Zinni, Interim CEO of BAE

Gen. Tony Zinni (USMC, ret.) will take over for Walt Havenstein at BAE until a permanent successor is appointed.  Read More

Michael Chertoff Speaks to POC July 16

Click here to register.

It’s official: Walt Havenstein has been named CEO of SAIC, the scientific, engineering, and technology applications company with 45,000 employees. Havenstein will become CEO on September 21. He will also become member of SAIC’s board of directors.

Havenstein most recently served as chief operating officer and member of the board of directors for BAE Systems plc, and president and CEO of BAE Systems Inc., the company’s wholly owned U.S. subsidiary. Havenstein will succeed Ken Dahlberg, the company’s chairman and CEO, who will step down in keeping with SAIC’s mandatory retirement policy for executive officers (Dahlberg is reportedly 64; the mandatory retirement age is 65.) However, Dahlberg will remain chairman through June 2010.

“The board and I are extremely pleased to have Walt join the company’s executive management team,” says Dahlberg. “He has demonstrated an outstanding record of success at BAE Systems, where he managed the company’s wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, with 53,000 employees and annual sales in excess of $20 billion … Walt brings more than 25 years of experience not only in our core competencies, but also in a wide range of services that will provide new avenues of growth for the company. Most importantly, he is committed to a high quality of performance, outstanding customer satisfaction, and high ethical standards — hallmarks of SAIC’s success since 1969.”

“I am pleased to be joining the SAIC leadership team,” adds Havenstein.  “I’m moving from one great company to another and I look forward to contributing to SAIC’s growth as a premier science, technology and engineering firm.”

Industry colleagues are offering their praise. “Having known Walt Havenstein for nearly 40 years, I can say unequivocally that he is a leader and a man of integrity,” says Bill Hoover, president and CEO of AMERICAN SYSTEMS. “Walt respects all with whom he works while demanding nothing less than one’s best efforts at all times.  He has served our country as a Marine officer and as a leader in our industry which is committed to serving our nation’s present day mission. SAIC, our industry and our nation are fortunate to have an individual like Walt during dynamic times like those which we face today.”

Share your comments here.

Walt Havenstein

Walt Havenstein has just resigned as director and chief operating officer of BAE Systems, plc, and has stepped down as president and CEO of BAE Systems, Inc., a fully-owned subsidiary of the global company. Havenstein’s resignation will take effect Friday, June 26, and he will leave BAE Systems, Inc., this coming September. Meanwhile, BAE reports that General Anthony Zinni has been appointed acting president and CEO of BAE Systems, Inc..

Havenstein has been credited with successfully implementing BAE Systems’ global strategy and ensuring the growth of its US-based business, BAE Systems, Inc. “Walt has been a valued member of the board and the executive team,” says Dick Olver, chairman of BAE Systems.

So, what now for Havenstein? An unnamed source tells The Wall Street Journal that Havenstein is set to head on over to SAIC. Meanwhile, sources exclusive to ExecutiveBiz tell us that Havenstein’s possible new role is “close” but “not a done deal yet.” SAIC, for its part, has made no announcement. We’ll keep you posted.

Richard “Dick” Galanis is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Serco Inc., the $1.3 billion professional, technology, and management services company headquartered in Reston, Virginia.  He joined Serco in 2008 after 6 years as CFO of General Dynamics’ Advanced Information Systems unit.  During his less than two years at Serco, he supervised the $500 million acquisition and integration of SI International, one of the largest acquisitions in the Washington, DC, region in recent years.  Galanis was recently honored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council as “CFO of the Year.”

ExecutiveBiz: Over the last year, we have seen unprecedented turmoil in virtually every part of the economy.  How has the changing economic landscape altered the way you approach your job as CFO? Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Gerencser

Don’t let the headlines fool you. While the 60-day cybersecurity report emphasized that the White House should take the lead in strengthening cyberspace, the private sector shares full responsibility for that effort. Mark Gerencser, senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton and author of Megacommunities, puts it more bluntly. “You can’t wait to follow,” he says, “we all have a responsibility.” What’s needed, he adds, is a megacommunity in which organizations join together. So, how can your organization take the first step? ExecutiveBiz recently brought that question to Gerencser himself. Here’s his five-step action plan.

Five steps to a megacommunity

The past seven months have been a watershed period for cybersecurity. First came the Cyber Strategic Inquiry ‘08 conducted by Business Executives for National Security (BENS). Around the same time, CSIS released its own report addressing cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency. Now comes the 60-day cybersecurity review. “A common theme across all of them is that the public-private relationships need to be extended and re-crafted,” says Gerencser. Here’s how you can help:

1.) Know your vulnerabilities. Companies, particularly with ties to DoD and other branches of the government, should get a handle on their security posture, says Gerencser. “Start with the CIO but it should ultimately be on the CEO’s agenda, and even the board’s agenda,” he says. The issue centers on more than network and data protection; it’s about understanding your operating model, your people, your culture, and your business partners. For instance, you may not outsource your IT today, but what about tomorrow? Ultimately, it’s essential that you take stock of your overall business model when assessing your current security infrastructure.

2.) Remember no company is an island. “We need to evolve from thinking about maximizing our own interests to thinking about how we can optimize the whole [e.g., defense industrial complex, etc.],” says Gerencser. He cites an example from systems theory. “Systems theory tells you that if all subsystems are running at their peak performance, the overall system will not be at its peak by definition,” he says. “If we look at ourselves as components of a larger entity, like the US national security infrastructure, we also have to realize we are not operating within ourselves for ourselves … we are trying to optimize how we all work together,” he adds.

3.) Do a stakeholder analysis. Moving forward with a megacommunity requires a knowledge of the stakeholders’ objectives, capabilities, and limits. Perform a stakeholder analysis early on.  Stakeholders would be the defense industrial base, relevant government agencies, the military services, certain non-profits, academic institutions — anyone with a vested interest in the topic or problem, says Gerencser. Begin the analysis by asking yourself: “What are my customers most worried about? What are my partners or suppliers most worried about, what are they doing about it? How do their efforts fit with my own?” An effective way to get answers is through roundtable sessions, cooperative workshops, and even war games.

4.) Abandon convention. The BENS Cyber Strategic Inquiry showed that the existing legal foundation is not adequate for the US to achieve the level of cybersecurity we need as a nation. Many of the laws on the books today were crafted long before we had knowledge of or an understanding of cyberspace.  The inquiry also demonstrated that current public-private partnership constructs are too limited to work effectively in an ever changing cyber environment. Gerencser suggests, “We must require that the lawyers shift gears and take on more of a facilitation role. We need them to define the right frameworks, policies, and laws that best serve our needs.”  When everyone realizes and understands overlapping vital interests, it will be easier to get people committed to action.  “Once we have the proper legal foundation we will be less encumbered,” says Gerencser. “Then all we need is an effective way to work across public and private sector boundaries as a megacommunity, so we can all mobilize in a powerful and aligned way,” he adds.

5.) Pool resources to achieve resilience. “We, in industry, are part of the challenge; hence, we can’t think of cybersecurity as solely the government’s responsibility,” says Gerencser. Which means it’s time for industry to align, work together, and pool resources. It’s the only affordable way to get there. Industry is already starting to take steps in that direction. About a year ago, approximately 15 large defense companies agreed to a common set of security protocols as part of the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC). “The DIB CIPAC can be the beginning of our cyber megacommunity … as a matter of fact being a part of this community may become a requirement in the future to contract with the defense department,” says Gerencser. “What I hope, though, is that it doesn’t become a checklist just for bidding eligibility … we’ve got to do this because we must protect all our vital interests … we are all interconnected and this is a great first step in the right direction.”

What is your company doing to be part of a megacommunity to strengthen cybersecurity? Share your comments here.