How the Mendix Low-Code Application Platform Helps the Public Sector Innovate Faster with AWS

By Roman Chanclor, Sales Executive for Public Sector – Mendix
By Christian Ramirez, Partner Solutions Architect – AWS

Siemens

The convergence of post-pandemic trends and technological advancements are fundamentally reshaping the distribution, provision, and access to e-government and digital-first services for the public sector.

A recent survey by the U.S.-based National Association of State CIOs describe a seismic shift in the pace of digitalization by state and local agencies that felt like “10 years’ worth of deployments in eight months.” However, the successful expansion of e-government services has raised expectations for government agility and responsiveness by administrators, constituents, policymakers, and regulators.

Research shows accelerating numbers of use cases—generated by increased demand for next-generation cloud-based computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), 5G connectivity, and hyper-automation—for federal, defense, state, and local agencies to digitalize their services and planning processes.

To navigate this perfect storm, a low-code software development platform with a robust ecosystem has proven invaluable for public sector agencies tasked with reinventing digital government for a new era. Mendix is a leading low-code application development platform that enables customers to deliver applications at speed and at scale.

In this post, we’ll describe how Mendix has enabled public sector customers to meet the rapid pace of innovation, and removed the barriers that come with traditional deployment models by using their low-code application development platform.

Mendix is a Siemens business and a global leader in enterprise low-code. Through its strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mendix is enabling organizations to accelerate their digital transformation. Learn more about Mendix in AWS Marketplace.

Customer Success Story: Mercury Systems

During the pandemic, Mendix public sector customers developed scalable, innovative digital solutions embraced by a range of policymakers and agencies. Public agencies are expected to make decisions at speed and deliver value in real-time. In our complex, volatile era, the public sector must leverage technology to collaborate across multiple jurisdictions and successfully engage with constituents.

On the national level, governments are aiding the call to modernize critical legacy applications to be more responsive in this changing landscape. In the U.S., for example, a bipartisan proposal moving through congress would prioritize replacing federal legacy IT systems with modern infrastructure.

Delivering a singular interface to connect and present data between business and engineering systems of record is an ideal future state for many organizations, and for Mercury Systems this is becoming a reality. Mercury Systems is responsible for delivering an array of mission-critical technologies, ranging from microelectronics to encrypted storage devices, to the aerospace and defense industry.

Like many organizations in highly regulated industries, Mercury Systems wanted to reap the benefits of new technologies and cloud transformation but had to do so in the confines of an on-premises environment.

“We conducted a thorough study of how to go live with this, and it could not have been with a traditional approach because speed was of prime importance,” said Anu Mishra, VP of Application Engineering at Mercury Systems. “That’s where we selected AWS GovCloud (US), which is FedRAMP-certified. Every one of our requirements was met there, and we still kept it within our network. We have access to all the technologies, but it’s still secured within our firewalls.”

Due to the cloud-native nature of Mendix, working and deploying seamlessly to AWS GovCloud (US) would allow Mercury to keep up technologically with their new development processes, such as working agile, establishing a DevSecOps capability, and a CI/CD pipeline.

Today, Mercury Systems has 20 live applications which are deployed within a containerized, microservices-based architecture.

Don’t Let Legacy Systems Hold You Back

Widespread support for public sector digitalization is driving the accelerated pace of legacy modernization. Local and regional governments are charting the impact of IoT and connected devices, AI, and 5G connectivity to achieve operational efficiencies across a range of services. This includes traffic and transportation flows, energy use and lighting, health monitoring of waste, water, and air quality, public works and safety, emergency services, and resource planning and allocation.

The ease of data integration across the digital ecosystem will determine progress or delay. An adaptable, flexible low-code platform that extends the technology stack in a malleable way allows service providers to stay current with changing technologies, partners, and services.

Mendix and AWS can help maximize the value of your existing cloud investments by providing modernized interfaces to legacy systems and seamless integration to your cloud-based workloads, enabling you to keep your core systems clean.

Have Confidence in the Security of Cloud-Native Apps

In today’s high-threat environment, enhanced cybersecurity, data protection, and trustful interactions across e-government’s digital ecosystem is top of mind for public sector managers. Even minor government transactions can potentially lead to financial and reputational exposure and loss if not adequately protected.

The public sector must vet potential software development platforms for governance, control, and monitoring of activity across the application landscape. They should seek out platform providers with the highest level of third-party certifications and accreditations, such as ISO, the benchmark of global compliance for information security.

Mendix Cloud for Government is optimized for federal government agencies to develop apps securely hosted on AWS GovCloud (US), which is designed to host sensitive data, regulate workloads, and address the most stringent U.S. government security and compliance requirements.

You can confidently start developing apps in a secure, compliant environment and deploy Mendix apps at scale with the added option to have direct connectivity to private networks.

The support from Siemens Government Technologies means you do not need a DevOps team to set up and manage your hosting. The infrastructure and operations are managed by a team of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. Further, AWS GovCloud (U.S.) is only accessible to U.S. entities and root account holders who pass a screening process.

Accelerate Your App Development

More than 70% of IT leaders across the globe view the cloud skills gap as an urgent concern. With the Mendix-supported connectors to AWS services, you can build Mendix applications with integrated AWS services without the need for highly specialist development skills. This helps address the challenge of skills shortages and enables developers to deliver rich functionality at scale and speed.

In addition to accelerated development, you can deploy your Mendix applications to your AWS cloud within minutes instead of hours with the Mendix on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) reference deployment.

This automates the basic setup of Mendix for Private Cloud in your AWS environment, so you can deploy Mendix apps there with a single click. This infrastructure as code (IaC) tool provisions Amazon EKS and 95 other AWS services in a streamlined, automated way, reducing setup time from 40 hours to 30 minutes.

Conclusion

Mendix enables public sector customers the ability to meet the rapid pace of innovation and digitalization that’s expected in the post-pandemic world. Customers can now accelerate their app development by easily integrating AWS services and enhancing their cybersecurity.

For customers with highly regulated workloads, Mendix Cloud for Government is hosted on AWS GovCloud (US).

You can also learn more about Mendix in AWS Marketplace.

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