Farewell NASA: The Circular CIO

When I was aschool-aged math student, I always held a special fascination for circles.  I loved trigonometric functions and wouldplay with identities just for sport.  So,here I am now, a more “seasoned” girl and I find myself thinking again about mylove for circles. 

First, let’sdefine a circle.  It is a set of pointson a plane equidistant from another particular point which is its center.  It has no beginning and no end.  It just goes around, and around, and around –from beginning to end to beginning again. 

And here Iam at the end.

Again, atthe beginning.

I’m leavingNASA.  Retiring actually.  Well, kinda. Ending my Federal NASA career and starting a new post civil servantadventure. 

Way back inMay of 1980, I started a nearly 34-year professional career at NASA at GoddardSpace Flight Center.  I was a GS-7 1520Mathematician.  I was in the professionalinternship program (PIP) and had to have great grades to get in and do greatthings to get promoted.  I met anotherGS-7 1520 Mathematician – a shy young girl named Stephanie Gayle Henry who endedup being a BFF for life.  I was a systemsprogrammer on the IBM 360/95 working in Code 500 for Jack Balikirsky.  IBM Assembler Language was fun.  Not for wimps, for sure.

But I leftNASA.  Got married (the first time), to aguy who wanted to move to Seattle.  Twenty-fiveyears, 4 additional Federal agencies, and stint at Boeing Computer Services…later, I divorced and came back to an agency I never wanted to leave.  I came full circle.  Now, I am leaving again – at the end of thecircle.  Again.

As I beginand end, I want to mention a few great NASA leaders that I had the pleasure ofserving under this time.  They all havesomething in common – they are tough … some perhaps in some cases rather mean. 

 I willmention them in pairs, which are almost as good as circles.

Ed Weilerand Rob Strain.  They were pretty toughand mean.  On the surface, they werequite different – in stature and in academic background.  But, at the end of the day, Ed was a thugfrom the South Side of Chicago shaped by the hope and despair that surroundedhim;  and Rob was a thug form Flint,shaped by the hard work and long hours of the tireless men and women in theauto industry.  Both men are tirelessleaders whose love of space made NASA a better place.  One focused his telescope on heavenly bodieslight years away and the other focused his on Earth objects and businesssystems that just kept things running. Thanks Ed and Rob.

Lori Garverand Charlie Bolden.  Pretty tough andmean – well, maybe some think Charlie isn’t mean – but he is a Marine.  Get it. Hoorah.  So, Charlie is anastronaut and Lori is a policy wonk. Yet, this Odd Couple often accused of not getting along have the mostawesome thing in common.  Greatleadership and love of EVERYTHING space. Thanks Lori and Charlie. 

A quickpersonal story.  My husband’s first wifewasn’t especially fond of me.  And Istayed clear of her.  Then our mutuallove, her grandson, broke his foot and was in severe pain.  We were both in the orthopedic surgeon’soffice crying – because this little boy we both loved was in a bad way.  We loved the same thing.  Therefore, we loved each other – the associativeproperty of love.  That’s the real Lori and Charlie. 

So, I’m atthe end again.  Really at thebeginning.  What am I doing next?  Just Google that.  But, I sign off on my last NASA CIO blogsaying that I am leaving and agency I love to start a new beginning again. 

NASA, thanksfor being at my center.  Cureton Out.

LindaCureton, NASA CIO

The End

 

The Out of This World Reality of the Virtual NASA

Well we are on our way.  We launched a pilot of a large meeting of NASA senior executives.  This is a precursor to Administrator Bolden’s a virtual Executive Summit – all remote using collaborative technologies.  While the pilot contained up to 80 participants, the real virtual summit will have well over 600 executives agency-wide, nation-wide – perhaps even in low Earth orbit.  
We had 9 speakers from across the country
 who shared 10 different files consisting of documents, spreadsheets, videos and presentations. Nine speakers across the county shared documents, spreadsheets and presentations.  We even looked at a movie clip of Apollo 13. We were able to see each other on video and web cameras in our new desktop ACES desktop, laptop, and mobile device environment.
  
Using chat and webcams, we were able to get a reasonable sense of the mood of the attendees.  After we worked through some of the idiosyncrasies of the technology, we navigated pretty well by asking questions and making comments for the records.  We even got a few good jokes in to loosen up the room and saw a great close up shot of the administrator’s tie. 
 
As the CIO, I nearly had a nervous breakdown (occupational hazard).  The technology was new to the participants and the headquarters wireless network was in a bouncy mood that day.  But at the end of the day, we were one giant leap closer to implementing Administrator Bolden’s vision of an anywhere, anyplace, anytime organization.  
We also demonstrated several of the fundamental tenets of the Administration’s Digital Government Strategy.  In reminding us about the need for a mobile environment, the strategy states: 
“Mobility” is not just about embracing the newest technology, but rather reflects a fundamental change in how, when, and where our citizens and employees work and interact. Mobile technology – the devices, infrastructure, and applications required to support a mobile citizenry and workforce – is a critical enabler of mobility, but is only part of the profound environmental shift that mobility represents.
Technology will not (yet?) replace the human contact required to build trust nor the complex interactions typically used in multilateral problem solving.  But we got one step closer to augmenting the ability to collaborate in a virtual if not more cost-effective way.  
Linda Cureton CIO, NASA

The IT Revolution

Well, well,well … the IT Revolution ishere.  Who knew?  Well, CIOs did, of course.  It really feels that way anyway. 

The ConstitutionI was theaccidental recipient of an email this week. It was about me, but not intended for me.  Basically, the writer of the email said, “Canyou believe it; she is trying to takeover our meeting?”  Well, excuse the heck out of me for trying tohelp by offering my conference room.  It’sno surprise that a CareerBliss.Com survey reveals that thisjob is rated the worst. 

 But, it’s notime to whine about how hard the gig is. It’s really time for CIOs to perhaps take on the same role as ourfounding fathers did during the infancy of our government.  It wasn’t easy back then, and it’s not easynow for CIOs to lead in times of change, stay focused on mission, and implementthe right changes in their IT Governance to establish perfect unions. 

After theAmerican Revolution, our government was basically in a big mess.  There was no money and threats were allaround us – the unknowns of a western frontier, pirates threatening marinecommerce, and an unhappy motherland back across the pond.  Furthermore, the citizens in the nascent countrystill wanted to feel the benefit of their new independence and the resourcesavailable were meager. 

Citizensback then, were concerned about having a government that was focused on itscitizens and ensured that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” wouldmaintain its strategic importance.  Havingjust recovered from the centralized rule of a monarchy, the notion of afederation that would “provide for the common defense, promote the generalwelfare, and secure the blessings of liberty” was now an absolute right. 

In the IT Revolution, we see the same thingshappening.  The Bring Your Own Device(BYOD) craze, gives us IT citizens who want the freedom of accessing data withany device they want, anywhere they want, and any time they want it.  Furthermore, the cyber threats are increasingbeyond anyone’s individual ability to provide a credible defense.  

The Officeof Management and Budget (OMB) is asking its Federal CIOs to be the foundingmothers and fathers of this IT Revolutionin supporting a DigitalGovernment Strategy, a cross-cutting Cybersecurity Strategy, andframing cost-saving strategies that leverage cloudcomputing and smartconsolidation 

Yes, the IT Revolution is here.  It calls for a new IT Governance that is ofthe end-users, by the end-users, and for the end-users.  It requires CIOs to lead with courage,emotional intellect, and political resolve to give the people they serve whatthey really want and need. 

LindaCureton CIO, NASA

Mobility: Now That's Rocket Science

NASA Kennedy Space Center Office of Launch Services in partnership with the Center CIO Mike Bolger (pictured here) developed this cool little educational app that teaches kids (and old CIOs like yours truly) about rocket science.  It’s called Rocket Science 101 and is a great example of how these technologies make things like science a more personal experience.  
When I found out about it, I started playing with it … er …. evaluating it. Kennedy Space Center CIO Mike Bolger with NASA CIO Linda Cureton with Space Shuttle in background I launched a mission (successfully) with a Delta IV and an Atlas rocket.  Before I knew it, I got caught up in it and felt like a genius.  Mike lamented that his 12-year old daughter got excited and started asking him all kinds of questions.  Well, Mike, at least now “there’s an app for it!” 
Innovative use of technology like this is encouraged in the US Federal CIO’s recently announced 21st Century Digital Government Strategy.   It gets the information to citizens in a very intimate way.  
NASA IT is also developing a Mobility Strategy to complement our Administrator’s “Work from Anywhere” initiative.  This strategy seeks to create an experience for our workforce that will be enhanced by the use of mobile technology allowing them to function more efficiently or effectively from wherever they are and whatever device they are using.  Supporting this, we developed a tightly-managed way of delivering internal in our apps store, while external mobile apps will be made available using existing commercial sites.  As new services are developed, they will be done so with mobility in mind and in a device agnostic manner to the extent practicable and securely.  
Mobility is all the rage now with an ever-increasing amount of hype.  At the end of the day, when all the hype settles down, it will simply be about getting information out to those who need it, wherever they are, any time, any amount, securely.  Now I have to run – I need to go intercept an asteroid.  
Linda Cureton, NASA CIO

IT Reform at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The NASA IT community has worked diligently during the past year to implement meaningful IT reforms to better serve our Agency’s mission and the American people. These reforms represent the start of a journey that affects our very culture by changing the way we do business, innovate, and use technology to the benefit of our diverse customers. Improved investment management practices, the use of cloud services when appropriate, and the use of shared services as a provider and consumer are core tenets in our IRM Strategic Plan released in June 2011. To underscore the importance of this shift, I identified a Deputy CIO for IT Reform, Gary Cox, in 2012 to provide an integrated focus on IT innovation and service delivery to ensure that our services are effective and efficient from our customers’ perspectives.
In the area of investment management, we collaborated across NASA during two TechStat evaluations in the past year. The TechStat for the Integrated Collaborative Environment (ICE) in March 2011 resulted in actions that improved the governance and usability of the robust management software capability for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. In April 2012, we held a TechStat for our IT Enterprise Service Desk (ESD) to ensure that the requirements were aligned with Agency business needs and that the investment should continue as planned. The outcome was that the critical capability should continue but more focused governance and performance measures were necessary to improve user acceptance. Two Center-level TechStat investment evaluations are being planned for later this summer.
Our use of cloud technologies has benefitted NASA as well as the public. To engage the American people in space exploration, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) loaded 250,000 pictures of Mars into a Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform. This “Be a Martian” initiative has been very popular, serving over 2.5 million data queries from crowd-sourcing applications and proving that the cloud can be a terrific way to reach and engage the public and support STEM activities in our schools. NASA is the midst of deploying SERVIR, a project in partnership with USAID, to a cloud-based geospatial information technology infrastructure. SERVIR integrates satellite and ground-based data with forecast models to monitor environmental changes and improve world-wide response to natural disasters.  Finally, NASA shifted to a new web services model that uses Amazon Web Services for cloud-based enterprise infrastructure. This cloud-based model supports a wide variety of web applications and sites using an interoperable, standards-based, and secure environment while providing almost a million dollars in cost savings each year.
We have also implemented several other major reforms. During the last 18 months, we laid the foundation to streamline and improve transparency into our IT operations by deploying centrally-managed end user services, communications services, web services, and enterprise application management and development capabilities. We also launched a central business office and working capital fund to support several major IT contracts and we have been integrating the industry-best Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) process guidance into our service frameworks. In parallel, we have closed 20 data centers to date as we continue optimizing our computing capabilities.
We also implemented new, innovative technology to support our scientists and engineers so that they can work from anywhere, any time.  Our Chief Technology Officer for IT, Dr. Sasi Pillay, is also working with industry partners to expand our mobile strategy and improve our ability to attract young employees by allowing them to use their own technology devices on our networks.  And, our Center for Internal Mobile Applications is developing mobile applications that expand our employees’ ability to develop new scientific and engineering breakthroughs for the nation’s space program.  
Finally, while I serve as the co-Chair of the CIO Council’s Strategy & Planning Committee to facilitate improving Federal IT management, I am committed to ensuring that NASA is an avid consumer of idea sharing and best practices from other Agencies. For example, NASA’s Strategic Investments Division (SID) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Treasury to implement Performance Measure Manager to drive efficiencies by facilitating the input of Agency performance data and providing a consolidated archival capability. Only by working together, collaboratively and in an open environment, can we continue to achieve long-lasting Federal IT reform.
Linda Cureton, NASA CIO

International Space Apps Challenge: Carbs, Caffeine, and Coders

NASA’s OpenGovernment Team saw a great turnout in citizens from around the world gatheringfor 48 hours to develop software code, technology, and solutions.  Teams from every continent gathered to solvechallenges that were relevant to both space exploration and social need.   From4/21-22, 2,083 collaborators from 111 organizations in 25 cities and 17countries addressed 71 challenges.  They created101 unique solutions in 48 hours with 50 submitted for global judging.

I had thepleasure of manning the San Francisco site. It was unseasonably warm in SFO – a sweltering 85 degrees.  The coders consumed massive quantities ofwaffles, bagels, and pizza to fuel their passion for space and their strongdesire to contribute to outcomes that improved life for all of us on this amazingblue marble.  Tech Shop, which gives the initialimpression of a high school shop class, provided the perfect atmosphere for themakers and shakers. 

Collaborators working on solutions

Here are afew examples from some of the sites:

 ·        SatelliteData Correlation System

·        LunarTerrain Roughness Mapper

·        WaterSampling System

 Challengeslike these engage citizens in a meaningful way. It taps into the collective creativity of the crowd and fostersco-creation that quickly and cost-effectively helps agencies advance theirmission. 

 

LindaCureton, NASA CIO

 

The End of the Mainframe Era at NASA

This monthmarks the end of an era in NASA computing. Marshall Space Flight Center powered down NASA’s last mainframe, the IBMZ9 Mainframe.  For my millennial readers,I suppose that I should define what a mainframe is.  Well, that’s easier said than done, but heregoes — It’s a big computer that is known for being reliable, highly available,secure, and powerful.  They are bestsuited for applications that are more transaction oriented and require a lot ofinput/output – that is, writing or reading from data storage devices.  

Source: IBM archives - www.ibm.com

They’rereally not so bad honestly, and they have their place.  Things like virtual machines, hypervisors,thin clients, and swapping are all old hat to the mainframe generation thoughthey are new to the current generation of cyber youths. 

In my first stint at NASA, I was at NASA’sGoddard Space Flight Center as a mainframe systems programmer when it was stillcool. That IBM 360-95 was used tosolve complex computational problems for space flight.   Backthen, I comfortably navigated the world of IBM 360 Assembler language and stillremember the much-coveted “green card” that had all the pearls of informationabout machine code.  Back then, realsystems programmers did hexadecimal arithmetic – today, “there’s an app for it!”


 But allthings must change.  Today, they are thesize of a refrigerator but in the old days, they were the size of a CapeCod.  Even though NASA has shut down itslast one, there is still a requirement for mainframe capability in many other organizations.  The end-user interfaces are clunky and somewhatinflexible, but the need remains for extremely reliable, secure transactionoriented business applications. 

 

//LCURETONJOB (NASA,CIO)

NASA Launches apps@NASA

NASA launched apps@NASA (http://apps.nasa.gov), a website where NASA employees and contractors can download mobile apps that securely access NASA systems.  These apps enable our users to perform critical job functions at anytime from anywhere via personal and NASA mobile devices.  

This is part of a full suite of services that is provided by the NASA Enterprise Applications Competency Center (NEACC).  The NEACC resides at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  It is supported by SAIC under the Enterprise Applications Service Technologies (EAST) contract of our Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P).  The NEACC’s role is to help NASA improve business processes and to deploy enabling technology needed to implement our Agency’s strategic plan. 

A wide range of services are available under NEACC’s Center for Internal Mobile Apps (CIMA).  This includes the ability to host, distribute, and provide support for internal mobile applications; the ability to develop internal mobile applications for NASA mission needs; and the ability to provide secure NASA-approved methods for authentication and access to Agency internal resources. 

Even though apps@NASA is only available to NASA employees and contractors (don’t you wish you worked at NASA?), the use of internal apps stores has a broad interest.  There’s a lot of debate in the IT community relative to the use of mobile devices in the workplace in general.  Whether or not IT providers are ready or not, mobile devices both enterprise-issued and personally-owned are in the workplace.  This service advances us a bit further beyond debate and into the world where IT service providers must enter – a world where the driving force of technology and customer expectations advance faster than policy and procurement cycles and the restraining force of security and legal issues like e-Discovery and records management keep our feet firmly grounded in reality. 

Managing diversity like this is where CIO’s tread carefully.  apps@NASA is a first small step for the mankind that work at NASA into a daunting world where customer expectations are measured in hours or minutes and not in 18-month software develop lifecycles. 

Linda Cureton, NASA CIO

 

 

Five Steps to Becoming a Trailblazer

Five Steps to Becoming a Trailblazer

 

A trailblazer is a pioneer or someone who is considered a first in their area of expertise.  As leaders, they point the way, take the risks, and change the environment.  They have a vision for a different future, a faith that turns their dreams into reality, and a determination that cuts through barriers and obstacles.   

 

The Wright Brothers overcame obstacles of aerodynamics so that man could have wings.  Grace Hopper handled hexadecimal hurdles to make the computing machine accessible and practical for business.  And the late Steve Jobs gave us innovations putting wings on computers taking the everyday consumer to new heights. 

 

So how does a person become a trailblazer?  In particular, how do you blaze a trail?  Well….look it up at http://www.wikihow.com/Blaze-a-Trail.

 

Here are the steps (seriously, these are listed) you’ll find.  I add my thoughts for applying this in your leadership walk.

 

Steps

 

1.       Assess the density and type of foliage the area has growing and equip yourself with the stuff from the “Things You’ll Need” accordingly.

 

Trailblazers are known for being innovators.  Those people who do things that have never been done, create things that never existed, or perform in ways unimaginable.  In their Harvard Business Review article, Clayton Christensen and others in The Innovator’s DNA discuss some of the key skills that innovators have as part of their makeup.  They question status quo and challenge assumptions.  They welcome problems and gain momentum by overcoming them.  These trailblazers are also very observant, understanding the culture that they operate in, looking for customer needs, and being mindful of small details. 

 

Trailblazers have the personal qualities of strength, courage, and resilience causing them to be relentless in their pursuits and embracing and learning from failures or setbacks.  They are prepared so that they can perform their personal best to deliver what’s required of them.  Lou Gerstner in Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance emphasizes the need for an executive to bring with him the entire arsenal of their leadership skills, maintain clear and consistent focus, and be superb at execution in order to lead change in their organizations.  Trailblazers bring everything they have to accomplish their goals.  

 

2.       Plan the width of the trail. If it’s a private trail, it only has to be about a foot (30 cm) to a foot and a half (46 cm) wide, just enough for a single file line of people to go through.  If it’s going to be a public trail, make it wide enough for four hikers abreast.

 

Many people erroneously believe that innovation and trailblazing have no place in the public sector.  This is because of how things like profit and shareholder value work to provide the motivation and imperative for change and innovation.  However, currency of the public sector is politics.  Trailblazers in the public sector need to understand the impact of this political economy and the importance of the stakeholders.  This means that matters that improve life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness motivates much of the innovation in the public sector. 

 

And what about bureaucracy? This requires trailblazers in the public sector to consider innovations, processes and workflow as they move down those paths least taken.  This causes them to look at bureaucracy as a path towards implementation.  Public sector trailblazers create new structures and rules to govern their pioneering concepts.  They seek ways to blaze through trails while keeping us safe, auditable, and secure. 

 

3.      Plan the direction of the trail. Check to see if any unmovable obstacles, such as fences, boulders, large trees, or streams will disrupt things.

 

I had a boss who when discussing organizational change would always say if you can’t change the people, change the people.  After a few beats, I figured out what he was saying.  You need to have the ability to find out which obstacles continue to hinder change and address it … whatever it is.  It could be people, laws, or technology challenges.  But whatever they are, they must be overcome if you are going to blaze that trail. 

 

4.      Cut down or flatten all trees and bushes to make the path. Leave some plants growing at the entrances if you want to make it a hidden trail.

 

Trailblazer Grace Hopper exemplified this as she created new languages and algorithms to use with the new digital computing machine.  With her team, she resolved problem after problem—and flattened bush after bush — until she got the results that were needed.  She was always willing to credit others for achievement and enjoyed working in the background.  She preferred the hidden trail of not always asking for permission to do something and advocated asking for forgiveness instead.   

 

5.      Clean up the dead bushes. Remove and rocks that could trip people.

 

As you blaze a trail, you can’t just walk away once you think your job is done.  You have to make sure that others can follow the path you blaze.  Nancy Barry is an innovator in banking who was quite active in the mission of eradicating poverty by empowering low income women globally.  She was selected as the Forbes Magazine 2003 Trailblazer in recognition of her accomplishments.  Barry was a pioneer in microfinancing – investing low dollar amount loans for women to help them climb above the poverty line.  Microfinancing specialized in microloans – small loans, $500 on average, to help entrepreneurs do things like buy fertilizer for a crop, payroll for an office, or raw materials for items to be resold.  Barry was an advocate of helping eradicate poverty by educating and exciting these budding trailblazers.  Her goal was not just lending money to poor struggling women, but to serve them by creating a self-sustaining economic engine that would deliver value. 

 

Warnings

 

·         Watch out for poisonous plants and animals and thorny bushes.

·         Trails disrupt nature.

·         Nature preserves are government property.

 

There’s a saying that warns you never to pick up a snake because if you do, you can’t put it down.  As you go down the trail, be careful to maintain your values and integrity.  Picking up a snake to make your path safer always proves to be a bad idea. 

 

What you are doing is disruptive.  If you think that you aren’t going to “rock the boat”, forget it! However, watch out for what is sacred and should be spared.  These are things that are important to a culture and to an organization. 

 

Things You’ll Need

 

·         Hedge Clippers (for smaller bush)

·         Ax or Saw (for trees)

·         Shovel (to remove medium sized rocks and roots)

 

You’ll need the clippers and ax for many of the steps above, but don’t forget your shovel.  You’ll need this so that you can rely on more than your five senses to cut through the … what I meant was to shovel the ….well, maybe I should just leave it at that and end this instructive rant. 

 

Linda Cureton, CIO NASA

 

IT Reform at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

 Note from Linda Cureton:

 I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the goals of President Obama’s administration as it relates to improving how IT is managed in the Federal Government.  We support the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 25 Point Plan with many activities from NASA’s stellar IT program.   I also volunteered to Co-Chair the Architecture and Infrastructure Committee with Michael Carleton, the CIO from the Department of Health and Human Services focusing government-wide activities by supporting the creation of practical architectures. 

 Along with all of our CIOs, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center CIO, Adrian Gardner is also answering the call. 

 Today’s NASA CIO Blog is written by guest blogger John Hopkins, Chief of Staff in the NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer

I remember in high School one of the coaches used to tell us that when the going got tough, the tough got going. The CIO Council has certainly got going early and with vigor to undertake a reshaping of the Federal IT environment which is indeed tough going. The undertaking is sometimes daunting. I can almost hear Calvin and Hobbs cartoonist Bill Watterson saying his favorite quote, “God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.”

The truth is that the “To-Be” vision of the Federal IT environment in our minds-eye is actually similar from one agency to another. No matter how hard the going gets, it is critical that we have a plan to get there. OMB’s 25-Point Plan and the TechStat reviews make participation a ‘no-brainer’. The activities in the plan and the TechStat reviews help propel us toward our goal of a more efficient and effective IT enterprise.  

NASA was an early adopter of a key element in the plan, the “cloud-first” approach. NASA became one of the first federal agencies to have a Cloud implementation. Tuesday, September 15, 2009, Vivek Kundra, the Federal Chief Information Officer, toured the NASA Nebula Container and the Security Operations Center (SOC) at NASA Ames Research Center in California.  He commented on the NASA Nebula Cloud project as he announced the launch of the Apps.gov platform, an online storefront for Federal agencies to browse and purchase cloud-based information technology (IT) services at a significantly lower cost to the Government. Nebula now serves dozens of customers with centralized services. In addition, NASA has expanded cloud availability with a second instance at Goddard Space Center in Maryland, and is actively adding new customers.  This “Cloud-First” philosophy is central to our department’s strategic plan.    

NASA held their first Tech Stat session on March 24, 2011 for the Integrated Collaborative Environment (ICE), a program that provides a common repository for authoritative data from the Exploration System Mission Directorate (ESMD). ICE is a web-centric environment designed for use by industry, academia and government for sharing, collaborating, integrating, NASA conducting a tech stat reviewaccessing and controlling management information and product data definitions for all ESMD products.

The key outcomes included requirements to develop performance metrics, consolidate applications.  It also included a discussion of investment opportunities, lifecycle costs, and customer usability. The next TechStat will review the Enterprise Service Desk (ESD), a major component of NASA’s IT Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P) which is designed to transform NASA’s IT Infrastructure services from a Center-based model to an enterprise-based management and provisioning model.  The scope of I3P is broad, entailing consolidation and central management of IT Services.

In addition, NASA’s participation and performance under the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI) has resulted in the closing of 13 data centers since February 2010 with plans to close one more by the end of calendar year 2011. The remaining 54 NASA data centers will be reduced to 25 by 2015, which actually exceeds the OMB requirement under FDCCI. NASA plans to continually assess data center requirements as these consolidations evolve and after current and future data center requirements become better understood.

We intend to not only meet, but to exceed our tasking to, “…drive business process improvement, investment management, and technical decisions.”  

John Hopkins, Chief of Staff, Office of the NASA Chief Information Officer