AWS Public Sector Blog

Cities relying on smart city solutions find value in core technologies, such as compute, storage, databases, and data warehouses; and advanced technologies like big data analytics, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence. A critical ingredient for any smart solution is data. It offers insight into the status of municipal processes, and the changes required to meet local government objectives.

One of the greatest advantages of cloud computing is enabling the government to use the latest innovations at a rapid pace. Cloud services can help government agencies deliver their mission more efficiently and modernize their infrastructure without a substantial upfront capital investment, allowing them to undertake more projects faster.

There are many arguments for building a serverless architecture. Chief among them, users only pay for the computing power they use. Organizations can begin by identifying and eliminating the bottlenecks in their workflow. For example, CSIRO Bioinformatics in Sydney, Australia, used AWS X-Ray to systematically evaluate their serverless architecture and, by doing so, improved their runtime by 80%.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) charted their path to the cloud back in 2012 with the cloud directive. Since then, they have made strides in accelerating the adoption of cloud computing throughout the department. Critical to the success of cloud adoption is training the warfighter on how to use the new technology. What better way to train soldiers in the cloud, than through a “born-in-the-cloud” startup. The Data Incubator is a growing startup and AWS Partner Network (APN) member who not only uses AWS, but also trains defense agencies on how to use AWS tools in the cloud across all data classification levels.

March was another active month for the public sector blog. Here is a look at the top five posts that resonated most with our readers.

If you have ever searched for directions, called an Uber, or looked up a trailhead, you have used DigitalGlobe’s imagery or information derived from it. DigitalGlobe went all-in on AWS to meet the growing demand for commercial geo-intelligence, migrating its entire 18-year imagery archive to the cloud. The company used AWS Snowmobile to move 100 petabytes of data to the cloud, allowing it to move away from large file-transfer protocols and delivery workflows.

We are excited to announce the first year of the Earth on AWS Fellowships and Internships program, a new program that works with customers to fund interns and fellows to conduct novel research of the use of geospatial data in the cloud. We are working with Azavea, Development Seed, Element84, Sinergise, and SkyWatch on this program.

We are excited to announce the addition of Public Sector Contract Vehicles as a new search option in the AWS Partner Solutions Finder. Public sector organizations can now quickly and easily identify AWS Partner Network (APN) partners who hold contract vehicles by adding a specific contract vehicle to their search using a keyword or by selecting one or more contracts from the drop-down list.

As part of Amazon’s $50M commitment to Computer Science (CS) Education, students now have access to Advanced Placement (AP) CS course offerings, scholarships, and early college internships through the Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) Pathway. With cloud computing ranked as the #1 LinkedIn skill for two years in a row and with millions of employment opportunities currently available in the cloud, the AFE Pathway provides students an opportunity to learn in-demand skills at a young age, setting the stage for a future cloud-enabled workforce.

Shared Services Canada (SSC) is the central IT service provider of the federal government of Canada. It delivers infrastructure services related to email, data centers, telecommunications, and workplace technology devices for 43 federal agencies. Currently, they operate approximately 700 data centers running roughly 14,000 applications. To meet the future needs of the government, SSC plans to drive efficiencies and augment their computing capacity through data center modernization and consolidation, and the adoption of cloud computing between 2017 and 2024.