2022 Network News

In case you missed it: VITA teamed up with the Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics to mark Data Privacy Week, which ran from Jan. 24 - 28. We shared important information for individuals, businesses and organizations about taking action right now to learn about online privacy, and how to manage our personal and business data and keep it secure.

 

For more information, visit the VITA website and the website of the Office of Data Governance and Analytics. 

Entries are now due by Feb. 16 for the annual kids safe online poster contest. The goal of the program is to engage young people in creating posters to encourage other young people to use the internet safely and securely.

 

All public, private or home-schooled students in kindergarten through 12th grade are eligible to participate. Email submissions to CommonwealthSecurity@VITA.virginia.gov. A parent may submit entries for home-schooled students directly to MS-ISAC. 

 

The top five Virginia winners from each grade group (K-5, 6-8, 9-12) will be entered into the national competition. Entries received may be used in national, regional and state cyber and computer security awareness campaigns. The official rules and topic suggestions are included with the entry form. Please include the following entry form completely filled out (all fields are required) when submitting the poster.

 

Learn more about the contest and download the 2022 poster contest entry form. 

In 2021, the Commonwealth contracted $230 million worth of business with small, women, minority and veteran-owned (SWaM) businesses in Virginia, solidifying their role in making Virginia one the best states for business. VITA’s commitment to supporting SWaM businesses through increased access to IT business opportunities, statewide contracts and mentoring has led to even more opportunities for providers of IT contingent labor services to do business in our state. This year, we’re spotlighting these SWaMs who are working to provide services for Virginians every day, telling their stories and sharing their advice on how to work with the Commonwealth.

 

SWaM vendor Wize Solutions and CEO Wendy Marquez have been doing business with the Commonwealth since 2020. Their mission is to bring 21st century employment opportunities to rural communities, setting up headquarters in Abingdon, southwest Virginia, and providing IT services for the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Virginia Employment Commission and VITA. “Our focus is not only in creating technology jobs of tomorrow but we have a vested interest in our community: we’ve sponsored food drives, theatre companies, mentoring programs for kids… small businesses tend to go beyond the line of duty and provide a better return on investment to the Commonwealth,” said Marquez.

 

Her advice to SWaMs: “When you’re a small business, to get in the door, you need a proof of concept that you can deliver… Don’t give up, start small and show them that you can deliver these services. Once you can show that, you can expand and become a trusted partner… After a couple years, we were given a chance to provide robotic process automation (RPA) services to VITA and the Commonwealth – this opened many doors for us!”

 

To learn more about IT contingent labor contracts in Virginia, on the VITA website. 

As the transition to new messaging services progresses, VITA is providing the provisional fiscal year (FY) 2023 chargeback rates. This is to help agencies make informed business and fiscal decisions to remain on the Google platform or move to Microsoft 365. 

 

As you may know, overall messaging costs are significantly increasing due to industry changes outside of VITA’s control. FY23 customer impacts use the new chargeback rate structure, which is based on the new messaging supplier. The amount provided by the governor's introduced budget bill includes funding to support the new messaging rates, based on VITA's estimate of utilization at each agency, for agencies that receive general fund appropriation.

 

Messaging services provider NTT DATA continues to host meetings with agencies to review the technical aspects of the service options. VITA will directly address any questions on these new service rates. 

A new enterprise architecture (EA) standard, Smart Device Use, has been posted to the VITA website on the Policies, Standards and Guidelines page. The standard took effect on Feb. 1. 

 

The purpose of the new Smart Device Use standard is to outline the requirements on what qualifies as a Commonwealth of Virginia (COV) smart device, the constraints under which smart devices may be used, the requirements for smart device management and the rules for employing bring your own device (BYOD) smart devices. 

 

This document focuses primarily on the rules for smart device use, rather than on the application software that may be deployed on the device and covers both COV and BYOD smart devices used by executive branch agencies.

Google mobile device management (MDM) for Android has transitioned to a new application for mobile device management. All new device connections (newly onboarded user devices or existing users that factory reset their phones or get a new phone) are required to follow the new rules of business as of Jan. 19.

VITA is partnering with Microsoft to offer professional growth courses for Commonwealth agencies. Interactive cloud and security courses and training, designed based upon roles, are available via the Learner Experience Portal (LxP). 

 

All classes within the LxP are free, except for the partner-delivered courses. These courses are available to agencies at a significantly reduced cost for the Commonwealth through the preferred learning partners. The cost of partner-delivered courses is the responsibility of the agency. Please follow your agency’s internal process prior to registering and paying for the courses. 

 

Visit the LxP website to review available trainings and sign up for learning opportunities. If you have technical issues using the LxP, please visit the Microsoft enterprise skills initiative (ESI) support page.