Department of Education

Information Security (IS) Support

Quasars provided information security support to the Office of Management (OM). OM required demonstration of policy compliance with NIST and FISMA regulations, Certification and Accreditation (C&A) of applications and development of System Risk Assessments. Quasars developed System Risk Assessment Plans and prepared a full range of technical documentation for each supported application including System Security Plans, IT Contingency Plans and Configuration Management Plans. Quasars performed Disaster recovery and contingency testing to manage risk vs. threat levels.

Software Development

Quasars provided the Department of Education custom software development services including the design, development, maintenance and enhancement of ED IT systems and applications distributed across its intranet, EDNet. Quasars consolidated multiple paper-based and legacy IT systems into a single self-service and customer centric platform accessible by all ED employees available via the web.

We performed requirements analyses of the technical and functional specifications for the new suite of software. This analysis was based on legacy capabilities, ED enterprise architecture guidelines, and a gap analysis for desired features. Quasars designed, prototyped, and developed all applications. After developmental testing, Quasars migrated the applications to the staging environment for integration, performance, and stress testing. Following user acceptance, we assisted the Office of Management in integrating the system within the ED intranet and in deploying it in the production environment. Through the deployment of these upgraded applications, the Department of Education streamlined its operations and provided more effective support to its stakeholders.

Quasars has also performed Information Security Certification and Accreditation of all the applications of the Office of Management at the Department of Education. Based upon the results of these efforts, Quasars recommended enhanced security monitoring and metrics gathering techniques within the OCIO. Upon implementation, Quasars' customer received a department wide award for Information Security.