Category: Customer Solutions

In October 2018, the Florida panhandle was hit by Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm that set a new record for the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the area. Florida State University (FSU) already understood the need for a long-term continuity of operations plan, and the devastation Michael wrought on the surrounding areas solidified how critical a disaster recovery (DR) service is to their overall operations. Disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) is the business world’s advanced solution to unexpected disruption. Whether the threat comes from natural disaster, technical failure, human error, or malicious action, the result is still unplanned downtime and the need for recovery. Learn how FSU designed and launched their DRaaS solution on an accelerated timeline while optimizing costs.

At the AWS Public Sector Summit Online, Max Peterson, vice president of international sales for the public sector, spoke about our new reality responding to a global pandemic—and how customers who have taken steps to transform digitally are already benefiting from their progress. Through the lens of customers’ and partners’ experience, Max shared lessons learned and how to apply these lessons to your cloud journey. Those four key lessons? Move fast, have an agile platform, keep innovating, and think big. Read on for more.

Governments, like the state government of California, are in the midst of a transition to a new way of delivering vital information, services and programs using technology and the cloud. Government organizations are adopting approaches pioneered in the technology industry, including user-centered design, agile development, data science, modular contracting, and the use of modern technology platforms. Many of these governments, like the state of California, are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to respond quickly and scale to battle unprecedented challenges, like COVID-19, and help them quickly make decisions about how to protect their constituents.

This month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) celebrates 50 years of “science, service, and stewardship.” Over the past five decades, NOAA has demonstrated its ability to push the boundaries of technological innovation to collect and understand data, as well as share that knowledge and information with others. AWS supports NOAA’s mission, in particular by providing public access to the agency’s environmental datasets since 2015 through the Registry of Open Data on AWS.

Azavea believes in the power of geospatial technology to improve communities and the planet. Azavea has been exploring the power of this technology to help their clients to answer complex questions in a wide range of domains from urban ecosystems, infrastructure planning, and economic development to water, energy, and climate change. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), we invited Jessica Cahail, product manager at Azavea, to share how her organization is using AWS and open data to develop tools that help users address environmental challenges and deliver knowledge to support decision making.

Monitoring and tracking student and staff exposure to COVID-19 and reports of those experiencing known symptoms continues to be a critical part of school plans for remaining open this fall. Colleges and universities are creating and using mobile applications that can track users’ symptoms, record COVID-19 test results, get connected to medical resources, and help with contact tracing. Some of these mobile apps built by the university or an AWS Partner use the cloud to securely handle this vital information.

Governments at all levels rapidly addressed the rising challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadian governments  met citizens’ needs quickly by building secure, compliant solutions on AWS to deliver critical information and services. Working with partners and AWS, Canadian governments and agencies released multiple solutions for providing a modern, digital-first experience for all to interact with the government and receive the information and services they need.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, an annual campaign to increase awareness of the disease. This year, AWS and its employees are participating in the Tech Day of Pink on October 8, joining the Estée Lauder Companies’ (ELC) annual campaign to raise awareness and donations for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Several nonprofits devoted to the fight against breast cancer use the AWS Cloud to help meet their missions, including Breastcancer.org and Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance (PHDA). Learn more.

Efforts to prevent and combat homelessness are limited by the lack of comprehensive data about people experiencing homelessness. This makes it difficult for states to identify trends and emerging needs to respond and make data-driven decisions about the effective deployment of resources. The cloud can help bridge information silos. Read on for examples of how states use the cloud to bridge data silos and better serve the homeless.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, nonprofit organization PhysioQ launched a COVID-19 early-detection platform for families. Jordan Masys, co-founder of PhysioQ, describes how AWS allows PhysioQ to create and to scale a platform that not only helps detect signs of COVID-19 early, but also accelerates scientific research.