FCW Insider: Dec. 20

The House and Senate agreed on plans for a continuing resolution to fund the government through Feb. 8. It's not clear if President Donald Trump will agree to punt a confrontation on funding for the border wall until February, when Democrats control the House of Representatives. Also unclear is the fate of a 1.9 percent federal civilian pay raise that passed in a Senate funding bill. Adam Mazmanian has more.

GSA plans big moves in e-commerce in 2019. In the coming year, the agency will tackle the multiple complexities of launching an e-commerce acquisition platform from scratch. Mark Rockwell reports.

The Senate passed legislation to establish an interagency council with broad authority to develop rules of the road for federal supply chain security and give agency heads new powers to eliminate products and services from agency systems. Derek B. Johnson explains.

Implementing intelligence automation is a big challenge, writes KPMG's Kirke Everson in this FCW commentary. Leaders tend to overlook the fact that implementing intelligent automation means a full commitment to a digital-first operating model in which technology is supported by people, and not the other way around.

Quick Hits

*** NASA reported an internal data breach that includes the possible theft of personally identifiable information on current and past agency employees. According to a Dec. 18 all-staff memo from Bob Gibbs, NASA's assistant administrator and chief human capital officer, the breach affected NASA civil services employees who joined, departed or transferred within the agency between July 2006 and October 2018. Gibbs' memo was first published by SpaceRef.

NASA began probing a potential compromise of agency servers on Oct. 23. According to a press statement, the space agency doesn't believe any missions are threatened by the breach. NASA said it plans to "provide identity protection services to all potentially affected individuals."

*** NASA's Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement is finishing up upgrades to its supporting IT systems and plans to have an upgraded structure up by the end of next spring, according to its program manager. 

In an email to FCW, NASA SEWP Program Manager Joanne Woytek said her organization has been working in 2018 to put its operations on a "High Availability system" with total redundancy. 

The system, she said, would provide that redundancy between the main SEWP system located on the Goddard Space Flight Center facility, which is part of a NASA data center, and a secondary, back-up system mirrored and located at the SEWP offices. Those offices are two miles from the main Goddard facility, she said. 

"We are working on finishing touches and plan to have the systems up and running in late spring," she said.

*** The Office of Personnel Management is looking to prepare for a future federal workforce reduction, as called for in President Donald Trump's government reorganization plan. In a Dec. 14 memo, acting Office of Personnel Management Director Margaret Weichert asked agency heads and inspectors general to include "supporting long-term workforce reductions and exigent mission priorities" in their calculations for personnel needs in the FY 2020-2021 Biennial Review. By Dec. 31, agencies must submit allocations for increased or decreased executive positions, as well as changes to the designation of positions.