The Fed Mission Success Round Up: Workforce, Cybersecurity, PMA Agenda, and More in Federal Agencies

Weekly News Round Up
Written By Fareeha Khan

Welcome to the Fed Mission Success News Round Up brought to you by Makpar. Each week, we will provide a summary of actionable news and insights to help aid in overall mission success for Federal agency IT decision-makers and influencers.

White House Formalizes 2.7% Pay Raise

President Biden released an executive order on Wednesday formalizing an average 2.7% pay raise for civilian federal employees under the General Schedule.

DOD Publishes CMMC 2.0 Assessment Guides

The Department of Defense published two detailed guides on how contractors will have their networks inspected to continue earning contracts once new regulations are added to contracting rules. The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification assessment guide for level one and two requirements will cover the vast majority of contractors in DOD, with level one being a self-assessment and level two requiring some to get a third-party assessment, according to the documents.

CISA, FBI issue new guidance on addressing Log4j risks

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released a joint advisory with the FBI, NSA and several international agencies offering new ways to respond to the Log4j vulnerability for any public or private entity affected by the widespread security flaw.

White House Releases ‘learning agenda’ Draft for PMA

The White House released a draft of a management-focused learning agenda for the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) on Dec. 21 as part of an effort to spark research in key areas and inform policy with evidence. The administration is also asking for feedback from the public on what questions are being asked.

White House AI Initiative Launches Public Research Support Tools

The National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office opened a new page dedicated to providing AI researchers with sophisticated tools to bolster research projects.

Federal Agencies Enthusiastic but Lagging in Yearly Evaluation Implementation

A report measuring the growth and efficiency of federal agencies’ internal evaluation methods found that despite evaluation officials being adequately equipped and most government offices enthusiastic about evaluation procedures, the implementation of actual results from such processes is broadly lagging.

Silicon Valley Warns the Pentagon: ‘Time is running out’

According to defense leaders who spoke throughout the Reagan National Defense Forum, there is awareness that a put-up-or-shut-up moment is approaching, and in typical Pentagon fashion, there are a million ideas for how best to move forward — without clarity that any of them will actually change anything.

Why Federal Agencies Are Shifting Back to Hyperconverged Infrastructure

IT leaders in the Federal government have recently warmed back up to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). HCI replaces the traditional, three-tier architecture for computing, storage and networking, and combines all of those elements into a single hardware unit with one virtualized management console.

Deadline extended for Federal 100 nominations!

You now have three extra weeks to finish up and submit your Fed 100 nominations. The new deadline (which was originally set for New Year's Eve) is 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Jan. 11.

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