Profile of John Foley

Editor, InformationWeek

News & Commentary Posts: 741

John Foley is director, strategic communications, for Oracle Corp. and a former editor of InformationWeek Government.

Articles by John Foley

Amazon Cloud Gets Federal Stamp Of Approval

5/21/2013
FedRAMP compliance means federal agencies can now access Amazon Web Services almost immediately, without spending months on their own cloud-security assessments.
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What's Next In Video Surveillance

5/17/2013
Driven by the consumer market, video surveillance is the next big data challenge.
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IT Strategies For Future Cities

4/19/2013
How mayors and CIOs in five U.S. cities are using technology to create more efficient, sustainable urban areas that are good for business and great places to live.
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New York City Builds On Its Technology Base

4/19/2013
An expanding IT infrastructure and tech-savvy workforce are evidence of the Big Apple’s emergence as a global tech center.
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New York's 32-Story Data Fortress: Inside Tour

3/22/2013
Sabey's 1-million-square-foot facility in lower Manhattan is billed as the world's tallest and largest high-rise data center.
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NASA Curiosity Rover Hit By Software Snafu

3/19/2013
Back-to-back computer glitches have put Mars mission's science observations on hold for nearly three weeks.
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ATF's Gun Tracing System Is A Dud

3/13/2013
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is using 1960s era technology to manage a 21st century problem. When will this get fixed?
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Federal Gun Control Requires IT Overhaul

1/30/2013
White House plan will work only if the IT systems and databases used for background checks and gun tracing get the improvements needed to support stepped-up oversight.
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Intelligence Agencies Must Operate More Like An Enterprise

1/10/2013
Comprehensive IT strategy promises efficiency and increased collaboration, but the required cultural changes could be jarring.
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Feds Face Challenges In Mobility Mandate

1/10/2013
As agencies develop apps that extend government data to on-the-go citizens and employees, many issues have cropped up.
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Tech And The City: New York's Future

12/12/2012
U.S. cities stand to benefit in important ways from well-planned technology implementations, according to our survey. The possibilities include better quality of life for city residents.
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Feds Pull Plug On 'One Stop' Cloud Portal

11/30/2012
The General Services Administration plans to decommission Uncle Sam's Apps.gov site, which was supposed to make it easy for agencies to acquire software as a service.
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NASA Mars Mission: No Little Green Men -- Yet

11/30/2012
NASA debunks rumors of new evidence of life on Mars, but its Curiosity rover continues to make many smaller discoveries. Some of NASA's latest images raise interesting questions.
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Future Cities: IT Priorities For Urban Transformation

11/28/2012
City planners and their IT teams are setting big goals -- and facing big challenges -- in the development of tech-enabled "Future Cities," our survey results show.
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Digital Revolution's Winners And Losers

11/7/2012
Workers with in-demand digital skills benefit most as computers increasingly take over everyday tasks. In this InformationWeek 500 video, MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson discusses how this trend could affect your enterprise.
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How The Feds Drive Cloud Innovation

10/26/2012
NASA, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies are shifting toward more strategic and complex cloud applications, as they try to drive down costs amid flat IT budgets.
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Expect To Save Millions In The Cloud? Prove It

10/12/2012
Top government IT officials will discuss their plans to implement cloud computing and save money at the GovCloud 2012 conference in Washington.
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Obama's IT Transformation Is A Work In Progress

10/4/2012
The president's record on IT strategy is long on vision but short on results.
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Top 15 Government IT Innovators For 2012

8/30/2012
From mobile apps to testbeds on wheels, creative thinkers at government agencies are finding ways to better serve the public.
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FBI's Sentinel Project: 5 Lessons Learned

8/2/2012
Agency used agile development and private sector know-how to finish its long-delayed digital case management system.
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How Not To Plan A Data Center

7/11/2012
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency built a bigger data center than it needed. Now the potential federal IT boondoggle is being turned into a storage center for data generated by remote sensors and cloud computing.
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Drones Fail 'Perch And Stare' Contest

6/28/2012
DARPA competition to develop unmanned aerial vehicles capable of landing and relaying real-time surveillance video ends without a winner.
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NASA Cranks Up Its Rocket Science

6/27/2012
Commercial space industry tests rockets, books flights, and builds spaceports in anticipation of playing a bigger role in the U.S. space program.
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10 Developments Show Government Cloud Maturing

6/22/2012
Emerging trends such as FedRAMP, community clouds, and single-source contracts point to the start of phase two for cloud computing in federal government.
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NASA, FAA Collaborate On Commercial Space Travel

6/18/2012
Space agency increasingly turns to private sector partners for services, so feds seek to ensure safety and minimize overlapping efforts with a new cross-agency agreement.
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Pentagon Outlines Mobile Device Plan

6/15/2012
The Department of Defense releases a formal strategy that outlines its goals, challenges, and next steps in adopting commercial mobile devices and mobile applications.
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10 Handy Mobile Apps From Uncle Sam

6/14/2012
Take a look at federal agencies' newest iPhone, Android, and mobile applications, ranging from a Smokey Bear wildfire-tracking app to an app that advises you how long it will take to clear customs at the airport.
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What's The ROI On Federal IT Spending?

6/7/2012
Uncle Sam should develop an IT savings dashboard that shows the returns on its multibillion-dollar IT investment.
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Busting Through The Federal IT Budget Ceiling

4/30/2012
Federal agencies in lean startup mode? It's one of the ideas being floated as government CIOs look for ways to deliver new technologies and services despite flat IT spending.
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NYC Tests Replacing Pay Phones With Tablets

4/10/2012
In soon-to-launch pilot program, city will install interactive smart screens around town; pedestrians can access maps, local information free of charge.
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FBI's New Sentinel System: Exclusive Look

3/30/2012
Our first look at the FBI's $451 million case management system reveals a user interface and features with the look and feel of a PC application.
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FBI CIO Exits, With Sentinel Project Nearly Done

3/27/2012
Chad Fulgham, a former Wall Street tech exec, says software development for FBI's delayed Sentinel case-management system is now complete.
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Angry Birds Space Mirrors Real Rocket Science

3/23/2012
Did you know Rovio's Angry Birds Space was developed in collaboration with NASA through a Space Act Agreement? The game illustrates microgravity, a concept fundamental to current NASA experiments.
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NASA's Blue Marble: 50 Years Of Earth Images

3/9/2012
NASA's Earth-observing satellites help scientists render photo-like composite images with unprecedented detail. Take a look, from the earliest attempts to the newest stunners.
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5 Keys To U.S. National Mobility Strategy

2/28/2012
Security, device support, and applications development are tough issues that agency CIOs must address as they hurry to put smartphones and tablets into more employees' hands.
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Agile Government: Elusive, But Not Impossible (Really)

2/13/2012
A coming together of technologies and IT management philosophies at the federal level---including agile development and shared services--is cause for guarded optimism.
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Obama's Google+ Debut: Lessons Learned

1/31/2012
Online get-together with a handful of citizens was a step forward for open government, but participation was limited and key questions were skipped.
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Federal Researchers Push Limits Of Cloud Computing

1/18/2012
Energy Department's Magellan project, measuring the expansion of the universe, determines cloud computing can't beat its HPC systems on cost or performance. But flexibility is another story.
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FBI's Beleaguered Sentinel Project Delayed Again

1/4/2012
Bureau's next generation case-management system suffers another setback, as performance issues arise in testing and push deployment out to May.
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Pentagon Unveils Enterprise IT Strategy

12/15/2011
Department of Defense looks to save up to $5.2 billion through IT consolidation and enterprise-wide adoption of shared platforms and services.
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Federal IT Needs A Cost-Savings Dashboard

12/9/2011
We need better measures of government IT reform's payback, including concrete numbers on savings and returns.
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How Defense IT Will Cope With Billions In Cuts

11/28/2011
The Pentagon is betting that spending on technology can save money and help it meet huge cuts in the defense budget that have been ordered and additional cuts that may be on the way.
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NASA's Next Mission: Deep Space

11/22/2011
NASA's Mars Science Lab and Curiosity rover are the next steps in a long-term plan to travel farther and faster into space. Check out this visual tour of the future spacecrafts and tools that will get them there.
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Army CIO Seeks $1.5B In IT Efficiencies

11/18/2011
How will Lt. General Susan Lawrence do it? Data center consolidation, enterprise email, and server virtualization are part of the plan.
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Under Pressure, Pentagon Adopts New IT Strategy

11/16/2011
The CIO of the Department of Defense has devised an ambitious IT plan that aims to help the military branches cope with billions of dollars in budget cuts.
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IBM Gives First Glimpse Into Cloud Sales

11/4/2011
With processes in place to track its cloud revenue, IBM puts its SaaS business at "hundreds of millions" of dollars. It's a start, but more details are needed.
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Pentagon CIO's Tech Revamp: 4 Priorities

11/2/2011
With a new enterprise IT plan in hand, Teri Takai outlines what's next as the Department of Defense looks to introduce new technologies while strengthening its cyber defenses.
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How To Build A Government Cloud

10/7/2011
As federal agencies race to meet OMB's 'cloud first' mandate, they must adapt the cloud model to the idiosyncrasies of government.
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New York Seeks To Turn Ideas Into Mobile Apps

10/5/2011
At Interop, NY CIO Carole Post outlines next steps in the city's open government and IT modernization initiatives, including a mobile apps competition.
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U.S. Marshals Service Invests In IT, Then Faces Cuts

10/3/2011
Its three-year IT project to provide better law enforcement tools is nearly complete. But the Marshals Service, which was part of an across-the-board 10% budget cut during the past year, now faces another 15% cut.
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Federal IT's Revolving-Door Problem

9/7/2011
Vivek Kundra's resignation as federal CIO underscores a nagging issue in government IT -- a lack of continuity among key decision makers.
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The New Federal CIO: A Closer Look

8/4/2011
Vivek Kundra's successor, Steven VanRoekel, logged time at the FCC and Microsoft and is known to be an innovator. But he's never been a CIO.
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Office 365: 5 Factors That Swayed One Enterprise

6/29/2011
Hendrick Automotive chose Office 365 over Google Apps and other alternatives. The IT director explains why.
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Cloud Revenue: The Question Vendors Keep Dodging

6/28/2011
Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Google play coy when breaking down their cloud computing revenues. That reticence is no longer acceptable.
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Feisty Ballmer Talks Cloud, Office 365, And Big Data

6/17/2011
In this Q&A, Microsoft's CEO pushes back, but also provides new insights into the company's cloud computing business, its hardware strategy, and his customers' next big bet.
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Government Technologist: Give Federal CIOs The Authority They Need

6/9/2011
It's not clear if agency CIOs have the clout and support they need to accomplish all the tasks they've been given.
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FBI Recasts Sentinel As Model Of Agility

5/16/2011
The agency's CIO and CTO share the methodology they're using to hasten completion of its overdue case management system, so that other agencies can learn from their approach.
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Feds Seek IT Ideas From Private Sector

4/29/2011
Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has called a meeting with business CIOs to identify emerging tech trends, with a goal of helping federal agencies begin planning now for what comes next.
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Government Technologist: Cloud Computing's Hard Realities Set In

4/15/2011
It's becoming apparent that cloud computing isn't as easy as it sounds.
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Report Blasts Problem-Plagued Cancer Research Grid

4/8/2011
$350 million caBIG technology program is too complex and its business model is unsustainable, says National Cancer Institute working group.
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The Government CIO 50: Vision, Influence, And Results

3/3/2011
The top IT execs in federal, state, and local government are using new technologies and hands-on project management to drive change in the public sector.
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Government Technologist: The $1 Trillion Question

2/16/2011
Six powerful CEOs have a big idea for improving government efficiency--but could it possibly work?
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The $1 Trillion Federal IT Challenge

2/15/2011
The CEOs of IBM, Dell, and other tech companies say the U.S. government can reap huge savings from IT-driven initiatives, but their ambitious plan has virtually no chance of success.
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Innovation Mandate: An Interview With NASA's CTO For IT, Chris Kemp

1/3/2011
From a technology perspective, I see every new space craft and new mission as a new way to connect with the public.
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Where's Government Data In The Cloud?

12/10/2010
Amid the Obama administration's 'cloud first' strategy, federal agencies face the prospect of seeing their data go offshore. There's a lesson to be learned from WikiLeaks.
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USDA Taps Microsoft Cloud For 120,000 Workers

12/8/2010
As part of its IT modernization strategy, the federal agency has turned to Microsoft and Dell to provide e-mail and other online applications across its operations.
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Navy CIO Torpedoes Public-Facing Blog

12/3/2010
The first public blog post by the U.S. Navy's new CIO is also his last. Less than two weeks into the job, Terry Halvorsen has posted a blog to explain that he will no longer communicate via that platform.
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Tech Teams Vie For Federal Cloud Business

11/16/2010
GSA has approved 20 companies, ranging from IT industry leaders to lesser-known specialists, to provide infrastructure as a service through its cloud computing portal
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Top 20 Government Cloud Service Providers

11/15/2010
Nearly a dozen teams of technology vendors have been approved to provide IT infrastructure as a service to government agencies through Apps.gov, the General Services Administration's cloud computing portal. The new blanket service agreement makes it possible for federal, state and local government agencies to order on-demand virtual servers, cloud storage and web hosting as needed from GSA-approved service providers. Cloud vendors must satisfy FISMA's "moderate impact" data security level to par
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Air Force CIO Priorities: Networking At Mach 6

11/5/2010
Lt. Gen. William Lord outlines an ambitious plan to bolster the Air Force's cybersecurity posture, drive IT efficiencies, deploy new tech tools, and establish aerial networks at supersonic speeds.
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Signs Point To Amazon Data Center Expansion

10/29/2010
The e-retailer and cloud services vendor has reportedly purchased 10 acres in eastern Oregon to be used for an expanding data center footprint along the Columbia River.
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New York As IT Center Of The World

10/26/2010
The Big Apple's new licensing agreement with Microsoft is just one part of an ambitious IT strategy that includes data center consolidation and central management of policies and services.
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Takai Named CIO Of Defense Department

10/25/2010
Only weeks after having the DOD nomination withdrawn, Takai resigns from her position as the state of California's top IT executive to go to the Pentagon.
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Amid Contract Scandal, A Shakeup And Lingering Questions

10/22/2010
A suspension on systems integrator GTSI is lifted following an agreement to be monitored independently and the resignation of two top company executives.
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Interop: Cloud Security Remains A Sticking Point

10/21/2010
At Interop New York, experts tackle the state of cloud computing security, and hear that IT departments want increased visibility into the capabilities of service providers.
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Federal Employees: Underworked Or Underappreciated?

10/19/2010
One new survey portrays the federal workforce as being overpaid and less qualified than private sector employees, while a second survey finds that government workers waste hours looking for files in internal databases.
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State CIOs Head For The Exits

10/15/2010
The list of CIOs in state government who have resigned, or are about to, is growing. Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington are losing their top IT execs, and California is on the watch list.
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Berkeley Lab Taps Google, Tests Amazon Cloud Services

10/7/2010
CIO Rosio Alvarez, who's also advising the Department of Energy, is devising a strategic plan to provide high-performance computing to the lab's scientists and researchers.
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Pentagon Reopens Child Porn Investigation

9/22/2010
We now learn that the Department of Defense, after seeming to come clean on an internal child-porn investigation, was withholding more than it was sharing. It's now time for the Pentagon to deal with this problem with openness and determination.
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Gov 2.0 Summit: FCC Offers 'Citizen Developer' Tools

9/7/2010
As part of its open government push, the agency introduces four APIs and a website that make FCC data available as web services.
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Government Technologist: DoD Must Confront Child Porn Issue

8/5/2010
In the wake of an Inspector General report, John Foley argues that the Defense Department must take aggressive steps to prevent access to child porn on government PCs and review its policies for dealing with the problem.
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White House To Review High-Risk IT Projects

7/28/2010
As part of its effort to improve IT project management across federal agencies, OMB will require that designated projects devise improvement plans and get executive backing.
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Tech Industry's Pain Is Federal IT's Gain

7/15/2010
In his Government Technologist column, John Foley argues in favor of the federal freeze on financial system projects, despite an industry backlash.
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VA Halts $500 Million Financial System Overhaul

7/13/2010
The move follows an OMB freeze on contracts for new financial systems and other steps aimed at fixing long-standing problems with IT project management.
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Webcast: Army Talks Cloud Strategy

6/23/2010
The U.S. Army will discuss plans for integrating cloud computing into its enterprise architecture and broader IT transformation, during an InformationWeek Government Webcast on Weds., June 23. It's a unique opportunity to hear one of the world's largest IT user organizations share its strategy for the emerging cloud model.
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Gov Forum: NASA Seeks To Optimize IT Innovation

6/17/2010
The space agency's newly appointed CTO for IT outlines a plan to make technology innovation more widely available to NASA engineers and scientists.
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Federal Agencies Shift Into Cloud Adoption

6/14/2010
Technology leaders with the Department of Energy, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and GSA will outline their next steps in cloud computing on June 15 at InformationWeek's Government IT Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C. With new implementations of infrastructure as a service and software as a service, including hosted apps from Google and Microsoft, the feds appear to be shifting aggressively into full-s
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Army Outlines Cloud Computing Strategy

6/2/2010
Application consolidation and server virtualization are steps in a broader plan to consolidate data centers and offer cloud services across Army operations.
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How To Build A Government Cloud

6/1/2010
Federal IT managers are under pressure to move beyond the evaluation of cloud computing and into actual implementation. Two early adopters in government next week will share their insights on how to do that.
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Gov 2.0: NASA, Microsoft Ready Mars 3D Views

5/28/2010
Users of Microsoft's virtual WorldWide Telescope will soon be able to zoom in on the surface of the red planet and take tours of areas of interest.
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Gov 2.0: NASA Readies Mission-Oriented Cloud Computing

5/27/2010
The space agency's Nebula cloud computing environment will be used to provide on-demand computing and storage to NASA scientists and engineers.
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Gov 2.0: Aspiring To Greatness In Open Government

5/24/2010
Tim O'Reilly is raising the bar on what he envisions for the open government movement. At this week's Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C., O'Reilly won't be talking merely about government serving as "a platform" -- that was last year's idea -- but about government as "a platform for greatness."
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Photo Gallery: Google's Scenic Oregon Data Center

5/17/2010
One of Google's newest data centers is nestled among the mountains, canyons, and waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge.
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FBI CIO Unveils Next-Gen IT Strategy

5/17/2010
Despite a setback to its Sentinel case-management system, the agency is deploying a high-speed network, new Office-based PCs, and other infrastructure improvements.
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Cloud Learning Curve Is Steep For Uncle Sam

5/6/2010
The federal government's cloud computing strategy has hit a "snag," reports the Wall Street Journal. That's noteworthy but not surprising, and you can bet there will be more glitches along the way.
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Image Gallery: Who's Who In U.S. Intelligence

5/4/2010
The U.S. Intelligence Community comprises 17 federal agencies and departments that gather, analyze, and share information for national security and defense, foreign relations, law enforcement, and other purposes.
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Government IT Innovators: Apply Here

4/27/2010
Government offices may be prone to bureaucracy and inefficiency, but they're also places where technology is being used to drive new ways of working and to deliver better government services. InformationWeek is looking for examples of such tech innovation in local, state, and federal government.
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Government Technologist: Can Cloud Computing Save San Jose?

4/22/2010
The city runs seven-year-old software on aging PCs, and its CIO says the setup feels too risky. He's evaluating cloud services as a better, but not necessarily cheaper, alternative.
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White House Deputy CTO Questioned Over Gmail

4/13/2010
A potential gap in the White House's e-mail retention policy has been exposed, ironically by one of the officials overseeing that policy. One congressman wants White House deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin to explain how messages sent to and from White House staff via Web e-mail systems are preserved. The scrutiny comes after McLaughlin apparently used Gmail for some of his own correspondence.
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Claims Of Government Cloud Savings Don't Add Up

4/9/2010
Federal CIO Kundra sees cloud computing as a cheaper alternative to existing IT, and a new report supports that, but detailed examples are still lacking, argues our columnist.
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