Federal Government
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers federal government agencies a secure, reliable, and cost-effective computing platform in the cloud. By using AWS products, government organizations can focus on meeting their mission-critical objectives, and spend less time procuring, developing, or managing IT resources.
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Recorded Webinar: Esri Applications in the AWS Cloud
Find out how your organization can leverage the scale of the Amazon Web Services Cloud to process Geographic Information Systems (GIS) jobs faster, lower costs, and deploy GIS applications in minutes. Agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS) are using the AWS Cloud to launch GIS applications in weeks and save up to 90% versus hosting on-premises. Esri is the global leader in GIS software and geodatabase management applications. For decades, Esri has provided powerful mapping solutions to governments, industry leaders, academics, and NGOs.
Hear from Shawn Kingsberry, CIO of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, AWS, and Esri to learn how a wide variety of public sector customers are benefiting by running their Esri applications in the cloud.
(2:13) Learn how Esri and AWS work together to help organizations that are running Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications.
Security
In order to provide end-to-end security and end-to-end privacy, AWS builds services in accordance with security best practices, provides appropriate security features in those services, and documents how to use those features. AWS’s compliance framework covers FISMA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (formerly SAS 70 Type II), and HIPAA.
Federal Government Customers
| Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board - The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB) was established when Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in February, 2009. To ensure public accountability for recovery spending the RATB was tasked with developing a Web site. The resulting award winning Web site, recovery.gov, utilizes Microsoft SharePoint, SAP BusinessObjects, Microsoft SQL Server, and ESRI software. AWS was selected due to its FISMA Low certification, cost-effectiveness, and reliability. |
| The US Department of the Treasury - The US Treasury re-designed the treasury.gov Web site to improve constituent engagement and internal collaboration. The Web site utilizes Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and "provides a robust workflow and collaboration capability that empowers over a hundred Treasury content owners to make updates at the individual office level as opposed to relying on a centralized departmental web team." In addition, the new Treasury.gov has the "modern capabilities expected in such a critical, public-facing Web channel and allows the agency to better communicate with the public in a more open and transparent manner." |
| National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the U.S. Department of Energy - In April 2010, the DOE launched the Open Energy Information Initiative website, a free, open source knowledge sharing platform created to accelerate the transition to clean energy systems. OpenEI.org is hosted on AWS and follows guidelines set by the White House’s Open Government Initiative, which focuses on transparency, collaboration, and participation. OpenEI chose AWS because of our flexibility, scalability, and availability. |
| U.S. Department of State - The United States Department of State and its prime contractor, MetroStar Systems, built an online video contest platform to encourage discussion and participation around cultural topics, and to promote membership in its ExchangesConnect network. The contest drew participants from more than 160 countries and took advantage of AWS’s scalability using Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, and Elastic Load Balancing. |
| U.S. Department of Agriculture - The Department's Food and Nutrition Service implemented an ESRI GIS (Geographic Information Systems) mapping solution to increase citizen engagement. Their website is designed to help recipients find local stores that welcome Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The tool helps SNAP recipients make informed decisions about where to shop, thus empowering healthy food choices. The department found that AWS provided a flexible, cost-effective platform that allows agencies to host complex solutions with minimal lead time. |
| NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) uses Amazon's cluster compute environment to process high resolution satellite images that provide guidance and situational awareness to its robots. To streamline processing, JPL relies on Amazon Cluster Compute Cloud Instances and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) to deploy massive computations with less effort. | European Space Agency - The Data User Elements Program collects data about the planet that is used by various agencies and organizations around the world. The program houses some of its data and end-user products in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). In addition, the program uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) to analyze its service usage statistics. |
Procuring Services
Federal customers can procure AWS products in multiple ways, including:
Purchase directly from http://aws.amazon.com using a Pcard or credit card.
GSA IaaS BPA – URS-Apptis’s GSA Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) BPA is also available for your AWS procurement requirements, http://fedcloud.com/gsa-iaas-bpa/.
Aquilent GSA Schedule 70 Contract – Aquilent provides AWS GovCloud (US) on the Aquilent GSA Schedule 70 Contract. Contact Aquilent at http://www.aquilent.com/cloud.
URS-Apptis GSA Schedule 70 Contract - URS-Apptis provides AWS solutions on its GSA Schedule 70 Contract. Contact URS-Apptis at http://fedcloud.com/contracts.
Prime Contractor – If within scope, you may procure AWS Services utilizing a Prime Contractor’s pre-competed contract.
Direct Purchase Order – Either via a contract award to AWS, or AWS’s unique product offering which may qualify for a sole source justification.
Purchase directly from http://aws.amazon.com using a Pcard or credit card.
GSA IaaS BPA – URS-Apptis’s GSA Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) BPA is also available for your AWS procurement requirements, http://fedcloud.com/gsa-iaas-bpa/.
Aquilent GSA Schedule 70 Contract – Aquilent provides AWS GovCloud (US) on the Aquilent GSA Schedule 70 Contract. Contact Aquilent at http://www.aquilent.com/cloud.
URS-Apptis GSA Schedule 70 Contract - URS-Apptis provides AWS solutions on its GSA Schedule 70 Contract. Contact URS-Apptis at http://fedcloud.com/contracts.
Prime Contractor – If within scope, you may procure AWS Services utilizing a Prime Contractor’s pre-competed contract.
Direct Purchase Order – Either via a contract award to AWS, or AWS’s unique product offering which may qualify for a sole source justification.
Getting Started
To gain hands-on experience with AWS please start with our Amazon EC2 Getting Started Guide. If you qualify for our Free Tier you can complete many tasks without charge.
Migrate Applications
Due to the benefits of cloud computing, Federal CIO Vivek Kundra instituted a "Cloud First" policy. A portion of this policy states that agencies must migrate three applications to the cloud within the next 18 months. AWS provides resources that will help agencies identify and successfully migrate applications to the cloud.
Public Sector Training and Events
Cloud Workshops
The AWS Federal team conducts two workshops on the second Wednesday of each month. The "Introductory Cloud Workshop" is a two hour course involving both one hour of presentations and one hour of demonstrations and tutorials using the AWS platform. The "Technical Cloud Workshop" takes a day and begins with in-depth briefings on AWS services, security in the cloud, migrating applications, and governance and oversight in the AWS environment. It then continues with a three hour hands-on tutorial in which participants use their own AWS accounts to design and deploy a highly-available web application. Both sessions end at the same time, and are followed by a joint reception where AWS Federal team members, customers, and partners can network and discuss ways to help each other benefit from the new opportunities created by cloud computing.
GovCloud Summit II
The AWS Public Sector team conducted our main Public Sector event "GovCloud Summit II" in October 2011. You can find the information about and key content, including presentations and videos from that event, at the event home page.
Future Public Sector Events
The AWS public sector team is planning some great new events and trainings for 2012. Please check this page periodically for the latest information on upcoming events.
Federal Government Resources
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