A path to a standard desktop
Connecting state and local government leaders
Microsoft offers a way to help agencies meet OMB mandate.
Agencies seeking quick implementation of a standard desktop configuration for Microsoft Windows to meet requirements mandated by the Office of Management and Budget can get help from Microsoft Consulting Services.
The Microsoft Standard Desktop Solution, offered as a time-and-materials deal, can help guide federal managers through the planning process and produce a pilot-ready standard desktop, said Wes Anderson, general manager at Microsoft Federal Services.
'What we want to do is take all the experiences, best practices, lessons learned and tools, and package them' into a way to help agencies adopt the core OMB requirements, Anderson said. OMB requires agencies to migrate to a standard desktop configuration for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista by February 2008.
Microsoft's consulting unit has drawn on its experiences helping the Air Force develop a standard desktop configuration for both XP and Vista, and on initiatives with other agencies, Anderson said.
As organizations attempt to move to a standard desktop, information security and information technology operations employees often are not involved in the process from the beginning, he said. Microsoft's solution is designed to engage them early in the process.
The Standard Desktop Solution takes agencies through four phases to improve desktop security, said Shelly Bird, architect for governmentwide standard configurations with Microsoft Federal Services. The phases include:
- Assessment. This is the stage where priorities and expectations are set and the environment is assessed with free tools such as the Application Compatibility Toolkit. Agencies should have application and hardware inventory reports and project schedules finalized coming out of this phase.
- Planning. The goal here is to develop a complete list of configuration and security decisions in checklist format, which can be used to prove compliance with OMB requirements. Agencies should also develop a report to show where they might vary from the OMB security configuration and the reason for those changes.
- Building. This phase focuses on the building of a pilot-ready image to implement decisions made during the planning stage. In addition, employees must be trained to perform application compatibility testing and troubleshooting.
- Testing. This is where agencies prove the validity of the pilot image through testing with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Security Content Automation Protocol profiles and compliance tools. In addition, agencies will focus on solving any application compatibility issues at this stage.
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