There’s a lot of change going on in federal government IT – from the appointment of the new federal CIO, Suzette Kent, to the opportunity to modernize legacy IT systems. So, we turned to Paul Parker, Chief Technologist for Federal and National Government at SolarWinds to get his insight on how these changes will affect the day-to-day operations for federal IT teams.

Parker sees the developments in the federal IT space as both exciting and positive.  Regarding the appointment of the new federal CIO, Parker sees her experience in complex enterprise environments as being an asset for the federal government.  Likewise, the passage of the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT Act) through Congress is a significant step for federal IT, but without full funding there are still many contracts in a state of flux.

During this period of flux, Parker notes that it’s an ideal opportunity for federal IT leaders to take stock of where they are today in their major initiatives and plan for where they need to go next. His three big pieces of advice for federal CIOs are: to bake security into all solutions at the build level, to think in terms of continuous lifecycle improvement, and…

Well, you’ll have to watch the video below to find out what Parker’s third big piece of advice is.