Summer is quickly approaching in the Northern Hemisphere and we cannot believe how fast April came and went. The Red Hat Summit and JBoss World are officially four months away, and we are very excited about everything these co-located events will offer attendees. Mark your calendars and don’t forget to submit for the 2009 Innovation Awards before nominations close on May 31. This year’s winners will be announced in September at Red Hat Summit and JBoss World.

Red Hat has a busy May ahead of us, with events in every region of the world. Make sure to keep up-to-date on all Red Hat events by following us on Twitter.

Worldwide

Red Hat and the Salt River Project (SRP) will be hosting a webinar on May 5 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Learn from a customer’s perspective how SRP made Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployable, scalable and manageable.

JBoss will be hosting a webinar entitled “Make it Rich: JBoss Tools to Easily Build Rich Internet Applications.” The webinar will take place on May 7 at 2:00 p.m. ET, and recordings will be available soon after.

View all upcoming worldwide events.

North America

Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO,will be keynoting on Monday, May 4, from 1:30-2:30 p.m. PT at the SIIA Software Summit and CODiE Awards conference, located in San Francisco. This is a comprehensive conference for the entire software industry including: ISVs, platform vendors, system integrators, venture capitalists other influencers.

On May 5th, Red Hat will be hosting the JBoss Government Users and Developers Conference in Washington, DC. Back by popular demand, this complimentary one-day conference will help attendees learn how agencies can securely and rapidly deliver mission-critical Web 2.0 applications and SOA services by leveraging open source middleware and data services platforms.

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2009 has already been a big year for open source solutions in government. Enthused by President Obama’s call for a transparent, participatory and collaborative government, pundits and government and technology leaders are calling for an open source government. The Do It Yourself (DIY) Federal IT Bailout Report, issued by MeriTalk, an online community addressing IT and public policy issues, identified billions of dollars in potential Federal IT savings for government agencies from open source, virtualization and cloud computing. The Department of Defense (DoD) launched Forge.mil as a site where developers can work on open source software projects specifically for the DoD. Both Carahsoft Technology Corp., the Master Government Partner for Red Hat, and DLT Solutions, a Red Hat Ready Government Partner that serves as a government and educational reseller for Red Hat, were awarded Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) through the DoD’s Enterprise Software Initiative (DoD-ESI) to provide open source solutions – including Red Hat and JBoss – to the DoD community. And most recently, the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced that they would be collaborating on a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to publicly distribute more than 50 federal administration agreements under an open source license.

So why is the government’s adoption of open source solutions garnering so much attention these days?As Paul Smith, vice president of Red Hat’s government sales operations, outlines below (in an article originally contributed to MeriTalk), open source simply enables government officials to deliver a better government faster.

Delivering a Better Government Faster Through Open Source

By Paul Smith, Vice President of Government Sales Operations, Red Hat

Much has been said in recent weeks about the need for change transparency and accountability at all levels of government. During his first full day in office, President Barack Obama set forth his expectations regarding government transparency in two important memorandums fueling commentary that President Obama is the first open source president.

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President Obama came to office with the promise of change. His administration has pledged to create an environment of openness and participation. Some have already called him the “open source president” such as consultant and CNN contributor Alex Castellanos.

There’s no better time than now. Transparency builds trust. Participation solves problems. And we believe that open source provides an answer.

Red Hat is excited that the Obama administration recognizes the value of open source beyond software. Open source principles are changing how we learn, how we share information, how developers create, and how companies do business. Now it has the opportunity to change our government.

When information is open and individuals have the means to contribute, everyone shares in the responsibility for improvement. Informed citizens become engaged citizens. Engaged citizens contribute opinions, ideas, and effort. Our government has pledged to listen. It’s time to give citizens a new voice. » Read more

The United States recently ushered in a new CIO for the federal government. President Obama has directed the CIO to “work to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations.” Open source offers a compelling means to achieving these goals, harnessing the power of peer review and transparency of process and drawing on an ecosystem of thousands of developers and customers across the globe to drive innovation.

Healthcare IT presents an industry ripe for innovation and change. The new CIO appointment comes on the heels of the recent economic stimulus bill which includes legislation on healthcare IT that is of significant interest to the open source community.

An open source health IT system holds tremendous potential to improve the quality of the healthcare delivery system and make it more efficient. The current marketplace has had limited success in improving healthcare IT. Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology is a prime example. A July 2008 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that only 4% of physicians in the United States had a fully functional EHR, and 13% had a basic EHR. In addition, the study also found that 2/3 of physicians cited affordability as the key barrier to EHR adoption.

We wanted to highlight two specific items that were part of the Health IT language in the stimulus package. First, the National Coordinator for Health IT is empowered to support “the development and routine updating of qualified EHR technology.” The federal government has already developed an open source health IT system, VistA, that is in use today by many private hospitals. For example, Midland Memorial Hospital, one of just 33 hospitals nationally certified as HIMSS Analytics Stage 6 of EHR adoption, replaced its existing proprietary systems with an open-source solution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and VistA. We’re hopeful that the federal government will continue to adopt an open source approach to the development of any qualified EHR technology and welcome creative solutions to the problem, and the direct support of the National Coordinator should help move these efforts forward. » Read more

Red Hat’s government team today announced its new Government Advisory Board, a panel of public sector technology industry experts who will provide strategic advice to help the government team continue its rapid growth trend. The advisory board, which will meet on a quarterly basis, is comprised of a number of industry luminaries including S. Bradford Antle, Dr. Edward H. Bersoff, Dr. Renato “Renny” A. DiPentima, Jerry C. Harrison, Carleton S. Jones and Dendy Young.
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North America

The VA Information Technology Connection 2008 (VA ITC) will take place from July 7-10 in National Harbor, Maryland. Come learn how Red Hat serves the government sector with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware suite. VA ITC 2008 highlights the establishment of a single Information Technology (IT) authority and the consolidation of multiple IT operational and development activities. This event supports the VA strategic initiative for IT and advances the realization of “One VA” from an IT perspective. Be a part of this unique and dynamic forum that encourages interaction between developers of applications, systems architects, users, security experts, other field operations support and associated business partners. Make sure to stop by and visit us at Booth #700 to see how Red Hat solutions can help your agency.
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Today, with atsec information security, we announced that JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, v4.3 is currently ‘In Evaluation’ for Common Criteria certification at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL)2+ (augmented for flaw remediation).

This is an important announcement on many levels. It represents the first major milestone since we announced our intent to pursue additional Common Criteria certifications in Nov. 2007. Beyond this, many U.S. federal government agencies and private-sector companies use Common Criteria evaluations as a benchmark to make informed security decisions when evaluating solutions. Why? Products are evaluated by independent labs under Common Criteria’s stringent and lengthy testing requirements, giving customers an impartial assessment of the product’s ability to meet specific security requirements. Outside of the U.S., dozens of nations now recognize Common Criteria certifications, agreeing that the evaluations “contribute significantly to confidence in the security of those products.” Because Common Criteria is a recognized international standard, it gives private-sector customers with worldwide operations confidence that the products they purchase will meet local security standards.
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At the recent Gartner IT ChannelVision: Government Edition event, Red Hat’s government team picked up two prestigious award nominations. One for best technology provider. And one for best federal channel strategy. The Best of IT ChannelVision: Government Edition Awards are voted on by attending system integrators and Red Hat was one of just four nominees in these categories.

Regular readers of our blog will notice that this is the third recognition this year for the government channel team. Red Hat’s director of Government Channel Sales, Mike Byrd, was recognized earlier this year by GovernmentVAR as one of the 25 Public Sector Channel Leaders and Washington Technology awarded Mike its prestigious Channel Leadership Award.
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As a follow-up to last year’s panel, Paul Smith, Red Hat’s vice president for Government Sales Operations, will again participate in an open source panel discussion on Federal News Radio’s monthly Federal Executive Forum, discussing 2007 in review. The “Open Source Computing – One Year in Review” program will discuss benefits, best practices and potential for open source in the federal government.
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Between common criteria certification (see here, and here), the naming of Hill Air Force Base as the first-ever Red Hat Innovator of the Year 2007 and our government channel success, 2007 has been a banner year for Red Hat’s government team. And next month’s Government Users and Developers Conference will continue the trend. The annual conference will be held on Nov. 1, 2007 from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. The information-packed, one-day conference features three specialized tracks, two special guest keynote sessions, three hands-on technical labs and much more.
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