OMB, DOD to enforce desktop standard through procurement
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OMB and DOD are taking similar but separate paths to ensure a standard Microsoft Windows desktop configuration is used by all agencies.
The Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department are taking similar but separate paths to ensure a standard Microsoft Windows desktop configuration is used by all agencies.
Karen Evans, OMB's administrator for IT and e-government, has recommended to Paul Denett, the administrator in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, that the Federal Acquisition Regulations Council add a clause to the FAR, or OFPP send out a memo to all chief acquisition officers, that would require all IT contracts to include the requirement that all software and hardware does no harm to the standard configuration.
The Air Force, meanwhile, has submitted a three-part clause to the DOD chief information officer that would be included in every IT contract, said Ken Heitkamp, associate director for lifecycle management and director of the Air Force's IT Commodity Council.
Eventually, Heitkamp said, DOD's rule could be given to OMB for them to decide whether to take it governmentwide.
Both of these approaches are similar to what OMB and DOD required for other initiatives. The FAR Council recently finalized clauses to address the government's move to IP Version 6 and for the implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12.
'We are working through this with OFPP, the General Services Administration, DOD, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Homeland Security Department on what the language will say,' Evans said today at a breakfast discussion on OMB's memo requiring standard Windows desktop configuration sponsored by the SANS Institute and Government Executive magazine. 'This would address all IT contracts, even commercial products. We will have to think through how we would implement this.'
Evans said that companies may have to certify their software will operate in the standard environment whether 'it is shrink-wrapped or not.'
OMB has set a June 30 deadline for agencies to include provisions in contracts addressing the standard configuration. Evans said it would make sense to decide what path OFPP would take before that deadline.
With HSPD-12, for instance, OFPP took both paths. GSA sent out a memo to chief acquisition officers first, and then an FAR rule followed a year later.
Heitkamp said CIOs from the services as well as officials from the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations will decide on the procurement language this month.
'We already give hardware vendors our desktop image so they are bidding PCs with our image already factored in,' Heitkamp said.
The long-term goal for the Air Force is to have real-time standard configuration management. Heitkamp said right now Air Force software ensures that a laptop or PC connected to the network has the standard configuration every 90 minutes. The service by 2008 hopes to have the real-time enforcement running, he said.
'We are fairly good now, but we will be much better next year,' Heitkamp said. 'Moving to a standard desktop is about governance and policy, not technology. Our vision is real-time desktop management.'