menu
Archived Government Notes
Published in 2020
Permanent URL
US Military Is Furious at FCC Over 5G Plan That Could Interfere With GPS
by jon brodkin
FCC accuses military of “baseless fear-mongering” in fight over Ligado network.
GPS is facing a major interference threat from a 5G network approved by the Federal Communications Commission, US military officials told Congress in a hearing on Wednesday.
In testimony to the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy disputed the FCC's claims that conditions imposed on the Ligado network will protect GPS from interference.
When the FCC approved Ligado's plan last month, the agency required a 23MHz guard band to provide a buffer between the Ligado cellular network and GPS. Deasy argued that this guard band won't prevent interference with GPS signals:
Read full story at arsTechnica…
first published week of: 05/18/2020
Permanent URL
Virginia Begins Taking Payments Via App on Some Toll Roads
by Skip Descant
Drivers on some Virginia toll roads can now use a smartphone app to pay.
( Shutterstock )
For regular toll road drivers, there's the E-ZPass. But for drivers who don't use Virginia's toll roads often, the state has launched a new solution: a smartphone app that should make payment easier.
Drivers in parts of Virginia now have a new option for paying tolls: their smartphones.
A new app allows motorists to use the roads while payment happens automatically in the background. The GoToll app, developed by software company Transurban, is now live across 12 toll roads in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.
“We think it will potentially increase the use of toll roads, because if you have the ability to pay, then you can avoid a violation,” said David Caudill, director of tolling at the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).
Read full story at GovTech…
first published week of: 03/02/2020
Permanent URL
Virginia Boots Up New Cloud-Enabled Data Center
by Phil Goldstein
Government IT modernization can sometimes take on the look of a pie-in-the-sky discussion about digital transformation. However, the nuts and bolts of technology upgrades that make transformation happen are always being tightened behind the scenes.
In Virginia, those efforts are well underway, as the commonwealth launched its migration to a cloud-enabled data center. The new data center went live in mid-August, and migrations began on Sept. 12, the Virginia Information Technologies Agency announced on Oct. 7.
VITA is coordinating with 32 state agencies to migrate servers to the data center. As of Oct. 7, the agency had migrated 225 and expects to complete the process by 2022. The move is expected to allow Virginia to virtualize many of its physical servers and enhance cybersecurity.
Read full story at STATE Magazine …
first published week of: 11/23/2020
Permanent URL
Watch These 4 IT Trends in State and Local Government in 2020
by phil goldstein
Cloud, ransomware, election security and 5G are expected to dominate the conversation in the new year.
The condition of state and local government IT going into 2020 is something of a paradox. According to a report released in October 2019 from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and Accenture, “The Future State CIO: How the Role Will Drive Innovation,” 83 percent of those surveyed said innovation was very important or important in their day-to-day jobs and leadership responsibilities. However, just 14 percent reported they engage in extensive innovation.
State and local government IT leaders are pushing for more innovative technology deployments at their agencies but are often hampered by a lack of support from executives and legislatures, budget constraints, lack of a skilled workforce and not enough time to experiment with new technologies, the report indicates. Only 26 percent of respondents reported their CIO organization had enough funds dedicated to technology innovation.
As the new year dawns, there is no pause in innovation. However, expectations for how much technological change will actually happen should be tempered by reality.
Here are the key trends to watch in 2020.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 02/03/2020
Permanent URL
What Is Mainframe as a Service for State Governments?
by phil goldstein
Mainframe as a Service via external providers offers some state governments enhanced staffing, budgeting and other capabilities.
Offering efficient, reliable and powerful data-processing capabilities, mainframe computing systems have been used to run state government applications and process large amounts of data for decades.
While traditionally the systems have been managed in-house by staff IT members, in recent years, some states have instead opted to utilize a Mainframe as a Service model, in which a third-party vendor provides the infrastructure, support and maintenance.
Mainframe as a Service allows state governments to tap into external, cloud-provided mainframe management services. The model can potentially help states reduce the costs associated with the energy and physical space mainframe machines require, and help alleviate some of the challenges state governments face trying to find qualified professionals who can operate the mainframe.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 06/29/2020
Permanent URL
White House Releases National Strategy for 5G Security
by
The strategy focuses on four lines of effort and will guide how the government approaches 5G for the near future.
The White House this week released its National Strategy to Secure 5G of the United States to formally frame how the nation will safeguard fifth-generation wireless infrastructure at home and abroad.
The 7-page policy document sets forth the president’s “vision for America to lead the development, deployment, and management of secure and reliable 5G communications infrastructure worldwide, arm-in-arm with [its] closest partners and allies.”
Its release marks President Trump’s initial move to meet the requirements laid out in the Secure 5G and Beyond Act, which he signed Monday. The new law directs the president to produce a strategy “to ensure security of next generation wireless communications systems and infrastructure,” within 180 days of its enactment.
Read full story at NextGov…
first published week of: 04/06/2020
Permanent URL
Why Active-Active Data Centers Fit the Bill for Local Governments
by wylie wong
Some cities and counties eliminate the worry of outages by investing in two running data centers.
In Michigan’s Muskegon County, some departments need 24/7 access to computers, applications and the IP-based phone system, including the Muskegon County Sheriff's Office, the Muskegon County Juvenile Transition Center and the Muskegon County Wastewater Management System.
To improve uptime, the county recently upgraded its IT infrastructure and turned its primary and secondary data centers into an active-active environment. Now, if one data center goes down, the second site automatically continues IT operations. “We are a 24-hour operation. Downtime is not an option,” says Ivan Phillips, information systems director for the county.
Local governments are increasingly embracing active-active data center configurations to improve resiliency and bolster continuity, says Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO, an IT consulting firm in Stillwater, Minn. Government agencies rely on critical applications such as 911 systems, and residents increasingly want anytime access to services, such as the ability to pay property taxes during off hours.
Read full story at StateTech…
first published week of: 04/27/2020
Permanent URL
Why Agencies Cling to Outdated Data Centers
by phil goldstein
Although federal agencies have made significant progress in closing and modernizing their data centers, only six of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies have achieved their data center closure goals, according to the federal IT Dashboard.
That makes sense in light of a recently released MeriTalk report, “Infrastructure Psychology: Overvaluing Outdated Data Centers,” based on a survey of 215 government and industry IT decision-makers registered for the AWS Public Sector Summit last June.
According to the survey, nearly 3 in 4 respondents (74 percent) say their agency “holds onto outdated data centers longer than they should.” Meanwhile, more than half (62 percent) say their agency “needs to make more effective data center migration decisions.”
Read full story at FedTech…
first published week of: 01/20/2020
Permanent URL
Why Feds Need to Take Ransomware Seriously
by phil goldstein
( Getty Images )
A recent survey indicates that federal agencies are experiencing ransomware attacks at roughly the same rate as state governments.
Ransomware attacks are definitely the scourge of state and local governments, as attackers continue, with increasing sophistication, to encrypt agencies’ files and hold them hostage for a ransom payment.
However, federal agencies are also prime targets for ransomware, and a recently released survey indicates that they are underprepared for such attacks.
In August 2019, FedScoop and StateScoop conducted an online survey, underwritten by Veritas Technologies, of 150 prequalified government IT decision-makers about their agencies’ perceptions of ransomware and data recovery capabilities. Of the respondents, 74 were in the federal government.
According to the survey, almost the same share of federal agency respondents (30 percent) as state agency respondents (32 percent) have experienced a ransomware attack.
Read full story at FedTech…
first published week of: 01/06/2020
Permanent URLGeofencing Feature Could Give Lime a Competitive Advantage
by skip descant
A Lime scooter sits on Market Street in San Francisco. The company is making its devices more responsive to geofence zones …
(Ben Miller/Government Technology )
Upgrades to the company’s electric scooters will make the devices more responsive to travel restrictions set by local rules. Since coming to cities nationwide, governments have struggled to regulate them.
Lime, one of the largest operators of the small, electric, app-based scooters, is in the process of upgrading its scooters so they respond more quickly to operational requirements inside geofenced zones.
“We’re launching the feature globally this week, and rolling it out, technologically, to all of our scooters,” Adam Kovacevich, head of Americas government relations at Lime, said last week. “It requires updating the firmware in the scooter itself.”
Technology today works by having the scooter “ping” a central server about every 60 seconds. In the industry these signals, which relay location data in the form of GPS coordinates, are what’s known as the “heartbeat” of the scooter, Kovacevich explained. The server, which contains all of the area’s geofence maps, compares the scooter’s GPS location with the map.
“The challenge is that if you have this happening every 60 seconds, it can delay the execution of the zone command,” said Kovacevich. By not getting the command right away, compliance with the geofence zones is delayed.
Read full story at GovTech…
first published week of: 03/23/2020