Category: Government

Today AWS announced it is expanding its collaboration with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to make environmental data easier to access and use. A new agreement with NOAA builds upon the work started when AWS first collaborated with NOAA on the Big Data Project in 2015. Users will now be able to access new, authoritative NOAA data within AWS without needing to download and store their own copies.

Almost three quarters of government information technology (IT) professionals and decision-makers say their agency holds onto their data centers for too long, and overvalues those data centers according to MeriTalk’s recently published report and infographic “Infrastructure Psychology: Overvaluing Outdated Data Centers.”

According to a survey of attendees at the AWS DC Public Sector Summit in 2019, 74% of government IT professionals believe their agencies hold onto data centers longer than they should. Monolithic methods of deployment impact speed, performance, and cost. With microservices, customers can break their monoliths into smaller business units, making it easier to migrate and manage systems in the cloud. This post outlines how customers can migrate from on-premises data centers to the cloud and break away from monolithic methods of deployment using microservices and containers.

The technological revolution allows cities to deliver citizen services more effectively. But sticking with the status quo and not modernizing IT systems can expose cities to cybercrimes including ransomware. A number of U.S. cities have been the targets of recent high-profile ransomware attacks such as Atlanta and Baltimore, with recovery costs running to hundreds of millions of dollars. At the 2019 CityLab Summit in Washington, D.C., the AWS Institute convened a roundtable with mayors, CIOs, and cybersecurity leaders from across the United States to share their experiences and lessons learned.

This year’s AWS Government Delegation Day at re:Invent in Las Vegas had a similar look and feel to last year’s inaugural program – but with a more global and expansive twist. The 2019 program welcomed a diverse crowd of international government executives from 40 countries, including from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Canada, and the Middle East. Over 300 government officials made the trip to Las Vegas for this customized talent development initiative focused on these key themes.

The Government of Canada (GC) signed a framework agreement with AWS to provide Commercially Available Cloud Services for workloads up to the level of Protected B/Medium Integrity/Medium Availability (PBMM). Having a contract vehicle with a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is a significant step forward in modernizing digital government for Canadians, and will further the Government of Canada’s Cloud and digital strategy. This contract is in addition to the procurement vehicle for unclassified data announced in 2018.

In 2019, Grand River Hospital turned to AWS to build the first AWS healthcare data lake in Canada. The data lake was built to house the hospital’s sensitive patient and administrative data while retiring its legacy hospital information systems, comprised of electronic patient record and other administrative systems. Grand River Hospital in Ontario, Canada is a 580-bed community hospital with a yearly operating budget of around $400 million CAD serving a community of 600,000-650,000 people.

Imagine: Transforming the patient and caregiver experience by streamlining health providers and administrative staff interactions and calculating risk score and clinical decision support systems to offer clinicians actionable insights at the point of care. Establishing healthcare data interoperability interfaces, like Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR), can help empower patients and improve their care.

This week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced two new AWS Cloud Innovation Centers (CICs) in Bahrain at the University of Bahrain (UoB) and at Bahrain Polytechnic (BP). Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, made the announcement at the annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. Both CICs will be supported by Tamkeen, a public authority in Bahrain focused on workforce development.

From a new podcast to challenge winners, read on for the government, education, and nonprofit highlights from the annual Amazon Web Services (AWS) Worldwide Public Sector Breakfast at re:Invent.