AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofits Blog

Category: government

Cybersecurity Chat: A Conversation with DHS, CIA, & Congressman Connolly

How do we accelerate progress in federal IT and maintain the velocity that we currently have? That was the main question asked during a lively conversation at the recent FedTalks in Washington, D.C.

Just over a month after the White House appointed its first U.S. chief information security officer (CISO), Greg Touhill, cybersecurity took center stage at FedTalks. During the FedTalks Cybersecurity Chat, Steve Schmidt, VP & CISO at AWS, sat down with Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-Va), John Edwards, CIO of the CIA, and Luke McCormack, CIO of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to gather insights into how agencies can improve cybersecurity and create an actionable cyber strategy during a transition of power within the U.S. federal government.

With the focus on the future, the panelists shared what has worked for them and how cloud computing strategies will continue to contribute to a strong cybersecurity posture.

Watch the video of the full panel discussion to learn how agencies can use the cloud safely, securely, and at a lower cost to protect vital information.

A collaborative approach of sharing cybersecurity best practices between the public and private sectors raises the security protection bar to better defend against evolving cyber threats. We listen to our customers and innovate to deliver on the speed, agility, flexibility, and security they need. Amazon looks forward to continued collaboration with agencies.

Attending re:Invent? Make sure you reserve your seat in our public sector sessions here.

Honoring All Who Served on Veterans Day

Today and every day, we are grateful to the men and women who serve our country in the military. We are constantly looking for ways to engage the military community – through our hiring initiatives, partnerships to strengthen the skills of transitioning service members, and our community engagement efforts.

We have had the opportunity to work with and for veterans and the military community in a number of different ways, including:

Cyber Vets Virginia: Cyber Vets Virginia is a new initiative to provide veterans with access to cyber security training opportunities and resources to help veterans enter the Virginia cyber security workforce.  AWS is collaborating with the Commonwealth of Virginia and other private sector contributors to offer access to our existing web based training program around security fundamentals to transitioning service members and recent veterans who have foundational IT skills, and want to pursue a career in cyber security. For additional information on the Cyber Vets Virginia initiative, please visit: http://cybervets.virginia.gov/

Joining Forces: Amazon pledged to offer 10,000 service members, transitioning veterans, and military spouses over $7m in Amazon Web Services (AWS) trainings. Amazon is also committed to training 25 wounded warriors at AWS Boot Camps for functional roles in cloud computing and commercial companies operating in the tech space and hiring 25,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years. Learn more in the Amazon blog here.

AWS Educate for Veterans: As part of our Joining Forces pledge, we recently committed to training 10,000 veterans and military family members in cloud computing through AWS Educate. U.S. based veterans and their families are eligible to create an AWS Educate account, which gives them access to resources that can accelerate cloud-related learning endeavors to help power civilian career success. Get started today by visiting: www.awseducate.com/veterans

AWS Military Fellowship: We created the AWS Military Fellowship exchange program as part of the larger program across the Department of Defense (DoD), designed to expose active duty military to AWS’s technology and Amazon’s leadership principles. The programs build a unique cadre of officers who understand not only the profession of arms, but also the nature of the strategic problems facing the DoD, and the organizational and operational opportunities made possible by revolutionary changes in information and other technologies. Read the stories from our three fellows featuring Lieutenant Colonel (Promote-able) Maria Schneider (MS), U.S. Army Acquisition Officer, James Thomas (JT), U.S. Airforce Communications Officer, and Master Sergeant Kelly Butler (KB), U.S Army Acquisition Non-Commissioned Officer.

AWS Certification Exam Reimbursement for Veterans: US service members returning from active duty can face many challenges—including finding a new job or even a new career. To help veterans succeed, we’ve worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs to make AWS Certification exams eligible for VA reimbursement. Are you a US veteran? Find out more about AWS Certifications and how you can be reimbursed for AWS Certification exams on Jeff Barr’s original blog post here.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs:  From action to impact, the cloud allows the VA to create an environment for veterans that is more applicable to their needs, while meeting security requirements. “The fact is innovation and technology has allowed us to dream and innovate like nothing else in our lifetime,” said LaVerne H. Council, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer, Department of Veterans Affairs. “And so as we think about embracing new solutions, collaborating and engaging, we need to think about the people… we need to think about how a vet can receive the data and the information the way he/she needs, to enable the best healthcare they can get.” Watch the video of LaVerne Council speaking at the recent AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, DC, sharing how she is acting as a change agent within the VA, taking the agency from vision to reinvention to adoption to change.

To all veterans, thank you for your service!

AWS Educate Now Available to U.S. Veterans

Last May, Amazon pledged to offer 10,000 service members, transitioning military personnel, and military spouses free membership to AWS Educate as part of Joining Forces, the initiative that works hand in hand with the public and private sectors to ensure that service members, veterans, and their families have the tools they need to succeed throughout their lives. AWS Educate helps individuals learn the skills needed for in-demand cloud computing jobs through AWS service credits, online career pathways, provision of micro-credentials, and the AWS Educate Job Board.

Starting today, U.S. based veterans, transitioning military personnel, and their spouses are eligible to create an AWS Educate account to get access to the resources needed to accelerate cloud-related learning endeavors to help power civilian career success.  From the frontline to the classroom, AWS is committed to prepping the next generation of IT and cloud professionals.

With the recent launch of several new features in our AWS Educate program, including Cloud Career Pathways, AWS Educate Badges, and the AWS Educate Job Board, verified service members can begin their cloud career journey.

AWS Educate’s self-paced course modules are designed to build core skillsets across four job families that align to the AWS Educate Job Board, including: Cloud Architect, Software Developer, Operations-Support Engineer, Analytics and Big Data Specialist. Within these four job families are over 25 cloud career pathways, ranging from Cloud Support Associate to Associate Cloud Architect to Software Developer.

Thank you to all active and retired military members for your service. We look forward to working with you on your pathway into the cloud!

To be eligible for AWS Educate, military status will be verified by SheerID. Get started today by visiting: www.awseducate.com/veterans

Election Day: Examples of how the Cloud Scales to Meet Election Demand

Are you getting out to vote today? At AWS, we have supported election and voting-related projects with cloud computing services to scale for the influx of traffic these websites receive during the election period.  If you register to vote, donate to a candidate, look up information on where and how to vote, or carpool to the polls – you may be using the cloud.

With the eyes of the nation focused on the election, the organizations listed below (among others) use AWS for inexpensive and highly scalable infrastructure to build websites, host core systems, and manage outreach and fundraising.

Get out there and vote – and read how these organizations use the cloud to quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively meet their mission.

Pew Charitable Trusts Voting Information Project – The Voting Information Project (VIP) works with states to provide official information to voters about where to vote and what’s on their ballots. VIP uses an open format to make election data available and accessible, bringing cutting edge technology to ensure that all eligible Americans have the information they need to cast a ballot.

Rhode Island’s Voter Information Center – The Voter Information Center (VIC) handles requests for information such as polling place look-up, sample ballots, elected officials, overseas voter information, as well as many similar functions related to elections. The purpose of this project is to make our VIC highly available during periods of extremely high traffic, such as weeks leading up to and including Election Day.

The League of Women Voters – Since 1920, the nonpartisan political organization, League of Women Voters (LWV), has sought to improve US systems of government and impact public policies through education and advocacy. The LWV Education Fund (LWVEF) runs the website VOTE411.org, which provides nonpartisan election information to the public. As a website devoted to elections, VOTE411.org experiences surges in volume over the period leading up to Election Day during federal election years. The rest of the time, VOTE411.org has a relatively low volume of traffic. The hosting solution needed to serve as many as half a million unique visitors on Election Day, and then scale down after the polls closed. “The choice to move to the cloud was clear,” says Jeanette Senecal, Senior Director, LWVEF. “AWS was exactly what we needed: a hosting solution that scaled seamlessly,” Senecal says. Learn more about how the League of Women Voters uses the AWS Cloud here.

National Democratic Institute –  The National Democratic Institute (NDI), which works to ensure free and fair elections and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide, needed a flexible IT infrastructure that was secure and low-cost. By moving to AWS and scaling infrastructure appropriately, the organization reduced costs by 90% and improved security by using AWS security groups and features. Watch the video about how they leverage the AWS Cloud here.

Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation’s TrustTheVote™ Project – OSET is utilizing AWS to ensure that the democratic process is not threatened by archaic and obsolete systems. Often, these systems are no longer supported by manufacturers, and in the case of voting machinery, rely on proprietary software that’s difficult to inspect or audit. OSET chose to make its software available on AWS GovCloud (US), because it offers the security and compliance for sensitive data, while offering the scalability, agility, and cost savings of the cloud. And it can be quickly and easily delivered anywhere in the country. Cloud-based voter registration, ballot design, and election results reporting are ideal starting points to lowering costs and improving the public trust in our democracy.

Rock the Vote – Rock the Vote, one of the largest nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations in the United States driving the youth vote to the polls, hosts their registration platform and services on the AWS Cloud. Rock the Vote’s voter registration platform is a free, open source solution that makes voter registration easier for voters and partner organizations across the country. Moving Rock the Vote’s platform to the AWS Cloud allowed for increased scalability for an increasingly mobile society, with the same robust service and approach to security AWS delivers to all commercial and government customers worldwide. “Cloud technology combined with open data, open standards, and open source development can be a game-changer in election administration,” said Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services. “Leveraging the AWS Cloud’s highly scalable and secure infrastructure will help enable Rock the Vote to raise the bar on innovative voter registration services.”

Democratic National Committee –  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) assists local, state, and federal Democratic candidates. The organization moved from a traditional IT infrastructure to AWS to run its website and to gather, store, and deliver voter data to other political organizations. By using AWS, the DNC reduced its IT footprint, cut costs, and enabled scaling for its website to easily handle spikes in traffic. Watch this video on how the DNC runs its website and voter data collection on AWS here.

And as we say goodbye to President Barack Obama, read how the cloud helped the Obama for America 2012 campaign in this video.

While we wait to hear who will be the next president of the United States, continue to learn how AWS handles the heavy lifting of IT so organizations can focus their time and resources on their mission.

 

Your Questions Answered: The Internet of Things in Government

It’s safe to say the Internet of Things (IoT) has arrived. We know that the technology is here and that it can make an impact. But how do we move beyond just the surface implications of IoT? How do we put it to use in the public sector and derive real value from it?

At AWS, the answers to these problems have come in the form of connected solutions, said Sri Elaprolu, Global Lead for Public Sector IoT. By using a managed cloud platform, agencies can easily connect billions of devices, securely analyze the resulting data and do this cost effectively.

“The AWS IoT, a fully managed, scalable, and secure service from AWS for connected solutions, acts as the front door through which data comes in from devices, and customers have access to the broader AWS platform to be able to do data analytics, machine learning, and other types of information extraction processes,” Elaprolu said.

Check out the guide for answers to the following questions with insights from government and industry leaders that will help you get past these challenges and successfully implement IoT within your agency:

  1. What is the definition of IoT?
  2. How is IoT being regulated?
  3. How could IoT impact my life on a day-to-day basis?
  4. Who are the people and organizations involved in IoT?
  5. What do I need to know about security and safety of IoT?
  6. How could I get started at my agency with IoT?

We’re answering these questions and more in the GovLoop guide! Check it out here.

AWS Public Sector Month in Review – October

 

The AWS Public Sector Month in Review below features the content published for the education, government, and nonprofit communities in October.

Let’s take a look at what happened in October:

All – Government, Education, & Nonprofits

Education

Government

New Customer Success Stories

Latest YouTube Videos

Upcoming Events

Attend one of our upcoming events and meet with AWS experts to get all of your questions answered. Register for one of the events below:

Follow along on Twitter for all of the latest AWS news for government and education.

Automating Compliance: Architecting for FedRAMP High and NIST Workloads in AWS GovCloud (US)

We held our first NIST Workshop, titled “Architecting for FedRAMP High and NIST Workloads in AWS GovCloud (US),” where customers gained hands-on experience with our AWS Quick Start tools, learned how to automate compliance in AWS GovCloud (US), and discovered partner solutions from Telos and Trend Micro.

Through workshops and other AWS resources, you can become familiar with the tools to make your job easier while strengthening the security posture of your cloud computing environment. We want you to be confident in the security processes and technical approaches to creating secure and compliant computing systems in the cloud.

To get started, check out the resources below to deploy a compliant architecture featuring Trend Micro Deep Security.

This Quick Start sets up a standardized AWS Cloud environment that helps support compliance with:

  • NIST SP 800-53 (Rev. 4) high-impact security controls baseline
  • CNSS Instruction 1253
  • NIST SP 800-171
  • FedRAMP and TIC Overlay (pilot)
  • DoD Cloud Computing SRG

The Quick Start template automatically configures the AWS resources and deploys a multi-tier, Linux-based web application in a few simple steps, in about an hour. The Quick Start features Deep Security from Trend Micro for host-based protection. The security controls matrix shows how the Quick Start components map to security requirements.

Quick Start architecture for NIST high-impact controls on AWS

Deploy the Quick Start guide here.

And access other Quick Start guides below:

The IACP Recap: Technology’s Role in Transforming the Future of Policing (with the help of AWS Ninjas)

The amount of data being collected, stored and analyzed is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Cloud technology is uniquely positioned to help law enforcement solve this challenge.

Last week, AWS ninjas, cloud experts, and partners traveled to San Diego for the 123rd annual International Association of Chiefs of Police conference held in San Diego, CA.  The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is a worldwide organization for law enforcement leadership to communicate new ideas, share experiences, disseminate new information, and build relationships with other law enforcement entities.

The conference included sessions on trends in the law enforcement environment, new ideas, technology applications, real-world scenarios, policy discussions, vendor presentations and topics of interest (such as recent police involved shootings, the rise of drug-related crimes, and migrations/transitions to new crime reporting mechanisms).

Law enforcement has been faced with many significant challenges over the past year, and IACP recognizes the sacrifices that officers make every day. Through technologies like body cameras and policies and portals used to share datasets with the public, law enforcement agencies have the opportunity to collaborate with their communities and build trust.

Every session at IACP included references to the massive amounts of data that law enforcement agencies are collecting and will need to store moving forward.  Agencies understand that they are going to need new technologies to manage the increasing volume of data and that there is so much that can be done with their data to enable smarter policing, increase transparency, and strengthen community relationships.

Our partners like Motorola, Socrata, BodyWorn and Mark 43  provide public safety solutions that will help law enforcement transition to 21st century policing and ultimately increase transparency and strengthen community relationships. These powerful tools assist police by using analytics to derive critical insights, reduce crime, deploy resources more effectively, and arm officers with information they need to protect their citizens.

Watch the IACPtv video below that was shown at the conference to learn about technology’s role in transforming the future of policing.

Read the announcements from our partners coming out of the conference:

Continue to learn about the next generation technology that is ushering in a new era of policing here. And check out some of the photos of the AWS ninjas sharing cloud computing tips at IACP at @AWS_Gov.

Busting the Myths about Storing Data in the Cloud

Let’s talk about cloud security. Naturally, federal leaders are concerned about the implications of cloud for their applications and the data within them, so security is a top-of-mind issue. Compound that with compliance and regulatory pressures, and you have a recipe for federal IT stress.

Broadly, the phrase “cloud security” refers to the cloud versions of security controls generally available on premises. One of the greatest misunderstandings within government IT is that cloud security is less reliable than on-prem security, says Bill Murray, senior manager of security programs at AWS.

“The idea that cloud is less secure comes from a perceived loss of control,” he explains. “However, with AWS you actually gain more control over your data than you have in your own on-premises environment.”

Control is inevitably married to peace of mind when it comes to security, and Murray says the idea that cloud takes away a user’s control over their data is a total misconception – a myth.

From control to access, there are many myths surrounding cloud computing. Check out more myth-busting insights from Bill Murray, Senior manager of security programs at AWS, here.

Learn more about cloud security here.

The Future of Policing: Detect, Locate, and Alert on Gunfire in Under a Minute

For every gun-related homicide, there are 100 gunfire incidents that go unreported. But what if every incident was reported, and police departments could adjust and deploy resources based on real-time analytics and data delivery?

ShotSpotter delivers real-time gunshot notifications to law enforcement so they can dispatch to the precise location of the gunshot, engage with the community, look for evidence and occasionally help victims and make arrests. Their goal is to help drive down illegal gun use.

The ShotSpotter solution is an excellent example of the AWS Cloud enabling next generation technology for the public safety community. For a small business, ShotSpotter needed to cover a broad range of technologies spanning sensor hardware design and embedded software development, classification of gunshots through machine learning, development of algorithms for precisely locating gunshots in a challenging acoustic environment, sensor network management, API development, and front-end technologies for delivering gunshot notifications and analysis.

“When we started out on the development of our new front-end technologies around nine months ago, one of our primary goals was to host the backend in a commercial cloud, rather than continuing to invest in expansion of our private IT environment,” said Paul Ames, SVP of Products and Technology at ShotSpotter.

ShotSpotter started out with a core set of AWS services, including: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), and Amazon Route53 for on-premises and commercial cloud communication. As they continue to work with AWS, they will look to adopt Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing.

“Running a private IT environment, you spend a lot of cycles defending against intrusions and denial of service. There’s no glory in this work, and so anything that we can do to lessen the overhead on our staff while at the same time improving the quality of defenses is welcome,” said Paul.

The increasing acceptance of the value of ShotSpotter to public safety agencies is driving large increases in the number of square miles of coverage the company provides.  This kind of growth is beginning to become a challenge. “Provisioning new backend infrastructure as we grow is clearly a lot easier with a commercial cloud,” said Paul.

In addition to horizontal scaling, ShotSpotter has two very critical times a year when vertical scaling becomes a real issue: New Year’s Eve and July 4th. Its outdoor gunshot sensors are acoustic, and fireworks present a real challenge in terms of classification, especially since there is an increase in incidents detected by two orders of magnitude. What they need is to be able to scale up compute leading up to these celebrations and then scale back down again when everyone settles down.

“For an on-premises cloud, it’s ultimately cost prohibitive to own and maintain infrastructure sized for peak periods,” said Paul. “At this point in our evolution, with just the first phase of customer endpoints delivered via AWS, we’re dealing with a load that’s a lot more predictable and isn’t significantly peaky. We’re looking forward to deploying our detection, location and classification algorithms to AWS to solve our celebration challenge.”

“ShotSpotter’s solution demonstrates the value of making data available in real time to officers in the field,” said Michael Wagers, Global Public Safety Lead, Amazon Web Services. “It is our hope that by arming law enforcement with next generation tools and resources, like ShotSpotter, they will be able to respond to situations faster and ultimately keep our communities safer.”

Follow us on Twitter @AWS_Gov with #futureofpolicing. And watch our Periscope interviews with leading police chiefs from IACP 2016.