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DHS Opens the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC)

October 30, 2009 By

If you are an enterprise CTO I'm hoping you already have the site of the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) bookmarked.  It it has been a while since you have seen their site please check it out at http://www.us-cert.gov They provide important resources for any enterprise technologist, not just security professionals. Organizationally they have a team of strong cyber players that have been honing their craft for years.  The US CERT serves a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cyber Security, Gov2.0 Tagged With: , , , ,

DCGS Worldwide Conference 2009

October 30, 2009 By

Yesterday I was on a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) panel at the 2009 Distributed Common Groundstation (DCGS) conference in Virginia Beach VA.  The panel, which was pulled together by JFCOM J2 CTO John Marshall, included Ms. Michele Munson of Aspera, Mr. Lewis Shepherd of Microsoft, Mr. Rudi Ernst of Pixia, Dr. Kari Kelton of NSI and Ms. Casey Henson, CTO of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Slides from the presentations at the conference will … [Read more...]

Filed Under: CTO, Gov2.0, The Future

DoD Clarifies Guidance on Open Source Software

October 27, 2009 By

As friend John Scott points out on his blog, Dave Wennergren, DoD CIO, has just signed out a very well coordinated, well staffed and well thought out clarification of guidance regarding Open Source Software (OSS).   A copy is attached. Some key points: - Open Source Software meets the government's legal definition of "commercial computer software," which is an important clarification in the procurement world.  Some who don't understand open source … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, CTO, Open Source Tagged With: , ,

More sane thoughts on the topic of Cloud Computing

October 18, 2009 By

I'd like to refer all interested in the topic of Cloud Computing to the blog of Reuven Cohen.  Reuven blogs at http://elasticvapor.com He can also be found on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ruv Although I've been a long distance follower of Reuven for a while, I was particularly appreciative of his post titled "Anatomy of a Cloud Consultant".  As many of us have noted, there has been an explosion of hype regarding cloud computing and this post, like … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing Tagged With: , ,

Flash of the obvious: you are responsible for protecting your data

October 13, 2009 By

I really feel sorry for the modern consumer.  None of us, even those of us with computer science degrees, can really assess the security of our computer systems (at least not with any precision).  We can study historical trends and glean lessons on which operating systems are more secure and we can educate ourselves on best practices and optimal configurations, but how can we really know what is secure and what is not? This has been a problem for as … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Cyber Security Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Great IT change came with a whisper not a bang

October 8, 2009 By

I have a thesis I would like to try on you. In the IT world, like in many other human endeavors, the things that get measured get improved. And the things that don't get measured are easy to ignore.  So, when the world's largest IT enterprise (the US federal government) starts measuring IT differently we need to take note. Specifically the feds will be improving the measurement of energy efficiencies of IT.  This will be done to meet goals mandated … [Read more...]

Filed Under: CTO, Gov2.0 Tagged With: , , , ,