Inside Enterprise IT

With more than 95 percent of federal agencies using Dell systems, it was no surprise for us that Symantec’s annual Government Symposium conference participants were keen on discussing their IT and Security business challenges. The symposium provided a forum to listen to public sector customer’s requirements, experiences and solutions.

During the E-Records Management/E-Discovery session, I moderated, there was a lot of interest around how government agencies “get started” when the problem requires collaboration around IT, RIM and legal expertise.  Approaches varied, but one consistent theme was that either as a distinct organization or as a formal cross functional team, you needed to have equal involvement and buy-in from these three domains in order to have an effective program for RIM and E-Discovery.  The panelists (representing United States Postal Service, Department of Justice, Department of Interior and Government Accountability Office) also tackled interesting questions about the responsibility for record and information management in the Web 2.0 world.  In short, participants recognized that as government expands use of social media (see Open Government Initiative) to reach citizens (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.), cross-functional collaboration, decision on what the business/mission needs your solving for and a defined policy for managing it are the main ingredients for a successful program.

Cybersecurity was also a key topic of discussion with a standing room only panel session hosted by Joe Ayers, Dell Federal, Area VP, on Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. Morning and lunchtime keynotes from Virginia Senator Mark Warner and Senior Director of Cyberspace Melissa Hathaway, respectively, also offered valuable commentaries on the challenges facing government, the role IT can play and the need for collaboration between the private sector and the public sector.  Melissa’s discussion about the Administration’s recently completed Cyberspace Security review laid out the challenges we face and recommendations for action and sounded the call for better public/private partnership models to protect and secure our critical internet infrastructure.  Her past activity and the emphasis the new Administration is placing here were clearly evident by the pervasive nature of security discussions in presentations and in IT industry exhibits.  Protecting client side computing is one step, but the overall cyber security challenge requires a comprehensive approach – an approach Dell looks at from an end-to-end process from the supply chain to the data on the laptop.  One concrete step identified during Melissa presentation and picked up in the media is the creation of a national cyber security incident response plan.

Again, no surprises from the conference, however, we’ll continue to partner on the dialog and collaboration needed for progress in addressing our Public sector’s customer’s IT challenges.