VA Plans Government's Largest Tablet Computer Deployment

The Veterans Affairs Department plans to field up to 100,000 tablet computers, the largest such deployment in the government, VA disclosed last week in a request to industry for technical help. The department has developed a work around for federal wireless security standards that supports the devices' management in a vendor-operated cloud computing environment, according to the request.

VA plans to deploy Apple iPads as well as tablets that run on the Android and Windows operating systems. The Apple and Android operating systems currently are not compliant with Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2. VA has asked industry to provide it with mobile device management services. This security work around will allow for "enforcement of VA security, management and other applicable policies to the devices from an enterprise perspective," the request said...