Security, stability, and speed: Strategy essentials for your mission

At Amazon Web Services (AWS), our customers in government, nonprofit, healthcare, and education have an enduring mission: to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. The organizations responsible for those missions need technologies and solutions that solve challenges rapidly and securely.

Our customers and partners are focusing on advancing the way they deliver critical services, improve the customer experience, build resilience into how they operate, and respond to disruptive events. This is changing the way we engage as a society. With much progress made to date and with customers expecting the same digital experience and service as in other industries, expectations are only getting higher. Digital transformation is essential for success in the post-pandemic world.

So how can public sector organizations approach this new dynamic, and how can AWS support their missions?

Leverage the cloud to support modernization efforts

Moving to the cloud can help you work toward your modernization goals. Many of the biggest challenges for large organizations to move to the cloud aren’t technical—they’re about people and culture. The biggest differences between organizations that talk about moving to the cloud, and those that actually do it and have the most success, often comes down to planning and alignment.

To support a smooth transition, leaders can build a data curation plan, map out digital workflows, and build the knowledge of what they have in terms of legacy systems and triage them. These steps help senior leadership teams reach alignment, and help establish their commitment to move to the cloud. From there, they can set clear direction and expectations with the rest of the organization and all work towards the same goal. With this alignment, everyone in the organization can make the move a priority and build a culture for change.

Use partners to accelerate transformation

We work in a world where speed and security are paramount. AWS Partners can help. At AWS, we think, thrive, and grow through partnerships. Many public sector organizations rely on partners to upgrade and update their technology to advance their missions. AWS Partners have deep AWS expertise and are uniquely positioned to help organizations at any stage of their cloud adoption journey, to help accelerate migrations and modernize. AWS has more than 10,000 partners in over 150 countries.

Make security a priority in all stages of your transformation

When it comes to both citizen experiences and classified information, security comes first. There is a misconception that on-premise is more secure. But by using the AWS Cloud, customers can take advantage of our portfolio of continuously upgraded security tools. AWS also supports 98 security standards and compliance certifications, more than any other offering, helping satisfy compliance requirements for virtually every regulatory agency around the globe. And as more public sector organizations shift to hybrid work environments, making sure their systems remain up and running, and that their data is protected, is even more critical. Being resilient and maintaining continuity is vital—so that you can continue to serve your citizens and community. We launch new features regularly, including more than 500 features and services focused on security and compliance.

In addition, AWS Partners offer hundreds of tools and features to help customers meet their security objectives, ranging from network security, configuration management, access control, and data encryption.

Use the cloud to bring technology to the edge

Our customers’ missions are constantly expanding—both in scope and in reach. There’s a need for some of our customers to have access to technology, networks, and infrastructure across the globe, and in inhospitable environments—from the field to space. Wherever your mission takes you, AWS provides access to technologies and a resilient solution.

Recently, AWS collaborated with Axiom Space to send an AWS Snowcone SSD to the International Space Station (ISS). This helped eliminate the need to transmit the data generated in space down to earth for processing and then back up. Instead, Snowcone provides the ability to capture, catalogue, and analyze research data during the mission using edge computing workloads—bringing the power of cloud computing into space.

Equip your team with training and resources

Leaders in the public sector know people are their most valuable resource. It’s essential to give your workforce time to train and develop their skills. By leveraging no-cost training programs, and the low barrier to entry to get started with AWS, public sector organizations can create a pathway for greater adoption of new technologies while saving much-needed fiscal resources to put towards expanded programs and services for their constituents. AWS has a suite of training and certification programs, like AWS Educate, which offers hundreds of hours of self-paced training and resources for new-to-cloud learners. This includes hands-on labs, as well as the Executive Education Program in Digital Transformation for the Public Sector, which equips senior public sector leaders and elected officials with the confidence and expertise they need to lead successful digital transformation.

Not only AWS does manage the heavy lifting of data center operations and removes the operational burden of managing operating systems and applications with managed services, which allows you to focus on your customers and business projects rather than on IT infrastructure, but skilling your workforce provides even more opportunities. When you train your workforce in skills that introduce efficiencies and accelerate time to insights, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more, you can give your employees back hours to focus on the mission they were hired to support. Governments and public sector organizations can take advantage of digital innovation when they train more people and make the best use of their financial resources.
­­­­­­­­­­­­

Learn more

From my time in government, I worked with incredible people who demonstrated initiative and took risks to deliver results for their constituents. If you are a leader—whether in government, commercial, or otherwise—and you are concerned about launching as-yet-unproven cloud-based initiative for your organization, talk to AWS. With over 7,500 government agencies using AWS, we understand the requirements U.S. government agencies have to balance economy and agility with security, compliance, and reliability. Chances are, the AWS team can share a customer story that will reassure you on the potential for incredibly successful transformation.

Learn more about how governments use AWS to support their missions at the AWS for Governments main page.

Subscribe to the AWS Public Sector Blog newsletter to get the latest in AWS tools, solutions, and innovations from the public sector delivered to your inbox, or contact us.

Please take a few minutes to share insights regarding your experience with the AWS Public Sector Blog in this survey, and we’ll use feedback from the survey to create more content aligned with the preferences of our readers.