Just 1 DOD megacenter has an acceptable disaster plan
Should a disaster strike one of the Defense Department's data processing megacenters tomorrow, chances are good that its customers would suffer serious disruptions in computer service. The 16 megacenters, which process administrative applications such as payroll, accounting and logistics for all of DOD, are supposed to have disaster recovery plans, or DRPs, that ensure seamless continuity of service through backup facilities in the event of massive system failure.
DISA pushes back deadlines on $5.65b in DISN contracts
The Defense Department last week pushed back the bid deadlines for its three main Defense Information Systems Network buys. The Defense Information Systems Agency moved the bid deadline for the $400 million DISN Switched Bandwidth Management contract from Oct. 31 to Nov. 30. Bidders had asked for more time after DISA released amendments that changed 175 pages of the solicitation.
AT&T balks at GSAs plan for govt. telecom
If post-FTS 2000 acquisition strategy isn't overhauled, the governmentwide FTS program should be dumped and agencies turned loose to find services on their own, FTS 2000 contractor AT&T Corp. is telling the government. Unless the General Services Administration fundamentally changes the acquisition strategy, "the PF2K plan is in a failure mode [that]...will also likely take the existing FTS 2000 program down with it," AT&T predicted in a statement prepared for a hearing on the program.
GSA puts surcharge on Group 70
Starting in April, agencies will pay 1 percent more for purchases made through the General Services Administration's IT schedule contracts. The schedule vendors will pass the 1 percent surcharge along to GSA to finance the schedules program. The surcharges will apply to all Multiple-Award Schedule Group 70 contracts covering Pbs, mid-range and mainframe hardware, packaged software, financial management software and telecommunications.
Graphics add-on for Office 95 first to exploit Binders power
Micrografx Inc. has the first graphics suite out of the blocks that's not only Microsoft Windows 95-compatible but Office 95 Binder-compliant, too. What does that mean? If you're an Office 95 user, it means you can store graphics-rich compound document components together in one file and print everything in flawless order.
Fixing code for turn of century will cost government big bucks
The cost of ensuring that federal computer applications continue running when the calendar changes to 2000 is being estimated at up to $25 billion. The Social Security Administration alone is evaluating 30 million lines of code, which will take an estimated 300 employee-years, said acting deputy commissioner for systems Dean Mesterharm.
Considering the move to NT?
Is your office rehosting legacy applications to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT environment? If so, you're not alone. Like their private-sector counterparts, government systems professionals are choosing Windows NT as their client-server platform and then confronting hundreds of issues, big and small, associated with the move. But federal decision-makers have a special challenge on their plate. They must decide whether they want a Unix application to remain a Unix application or become a Windows application with
Defense Department Briefs
DynCorp in Reston, Va., will automate Navy personnel records under a three-year, $18 million contract awarded by the Naval Information Systems Management Center. Dyncorp will use commercial technology to digitize, store and retrieve records for the Navy Bureau of Personnel at facilities in Arlington, Va., Millington, Tenn., and New Orleans.
Can you go home?
Like a lot of folks, I have a home office, really a sort of alcove in the basement. Where I live, they call the basement the "lower level," and mine's finished with paneling and carpeting. I'm pretty self-sufficient down there. Still, I'd have a lot of trouble going to work if it meant going down the into the basement and settling in at the old steel desk. Here would be my initial train of thought:
Web projects revive debate over data sales
The debate over how much information the government should give away is heating up again because of new Internet projects at the Patent and Trademark Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whether the government encroaches on industry turf when it disseminates documents publicly is not a new issue. But in the past decade the arguments have gotten more intense as more agencies move into the on-line services arena, a realm the private sector almost
Soldier's PC takes to the field without B2C2
The Grunt II has everything going for it as a soldier's computer, except for B2C2 software. To be indispensable on the battlefield, a mobile PC should run the Army's Brigade and Below Command and Control software, written for Santa Cruz Operation Unix. But Unix (at least off-the-shelf Unix) lacks support for touchscreens, pens or PC Cards.
Agencies urged to process data for each other
Unleashing competition among agencies for data processing services may be the best way to eliminate duplicative and legacy financial systems as well as cut costs, the Chief Financial Officers Council reported this month. At the same time, Office of Management and Budget Controller G. Edward DeSeve said the administration will step up its endorsement of agency cross-servicing arrangements.
Defense Department Briefs
John C. Wilson Jr. is the new director of the Air Force Electronic Systems Centers' Engineering and Program Management Directorate at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. Wilson succeeds Anthony Salvucci, who retired earlier this summer. Wilson most recently was deputy program director for the C-17 Globemaster III system program office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
$9 billion DOD IT budget eludes knives on Hill
The House and the Senate have agreed to spare the knife on nearly all the items in the Pentagon's $9 billion information technology budget request for fiscal 1996, while throwing in close to $100 million in unrequested funds for good measure. In their final conference report on the 1996 Defense appropriations bill, the two houses of Congress bucked the prevailing budget-cutting trend and stuck by the generous tone set this summer during authorization and appropriations
Decision time
Digital Signature Standard. Unless you're a security nut or a truly committed lover of applied mathematics, the subject can be a real yawn. And until recent months, the arcane arguments over competing DSS's seemed remote to the average agency manager. But the DSS is important. The no-end-in-sight debate it engenders has meaning for the entire government. And it shows how seemingly small issues are getting ground up in the headlong rush to "downsize" government without
New Wang PC with secure OS earns NSA's B3 security rating
Wang Federal Inc. has received the National Security Agency's highest B-level security rating, B3, for its XTS-300 computer system running Wang's Unix-like Secure Trusted Operating Program (STOP). The new XTS workstation is the first such system to run on standard PC hardware. It carries the Wang label and is built on an Intel Corp. 486 50-MHz DX2 processor and commodity PC parts.
GIS data unites in team pool
Information embedded in geographic information system maps helps government agencies monitor large areas for environmental shifts and other changes. Until now, this meant maintaining two sets of databases--one specifically for the GIS. Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. of Redlands, Calif., a leading GIS vendor for almost a quarter-century, wants to streamline this double bookkeeping. Under an agreement with Oracle Corp., ESRI will give its GIS tools direct access to information in Oracle-based data collections.
Confederates' point
The Confederacy's constitution provided that no bill before the legislature could deal with more than one topic. A bill's title had to reflect its content, and unrelated amendments couldn't be added. Although not much else of value may have come from the Confederates, that short-lived legalism was no doubt a reaction to the excesses of mid 19th century Congresses from which the Southern lawmakers had withdrawn.
GSA will cut agency phone bills
Consolidating the responsibility for government telecommunications needs in one office will reduce agencies' local line charges by about $4 a line per month, starting this month. General Services Administrator Roger W. Johnson announced the consolidated role of the new Federal Telecommunications Service (FTS) last month just as Congress agreed to continue mandatory agency use of FTS 2000 services in fiscal 1996. The lawmakers also asked the General Accounting Office for an independent comparison of FTS 2000
OMB: Agencies must close small data sites
HERSHEY, Pa.--With new marching orders from the Office of Management and Budget, agencies must consolidate government data centers to close about half of them, or roughly 100 centers, by June 1998. OMB plans to release the final plan before month's end. The new OMB bulletin will require all agencies to compile data center inventories by March 1 and to develop consolidation strategies by next June.
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