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Looking ahead to the future of federal cloud adoption and the steps government has already taken, John Hale, Chief of Cloud Services at Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), joined Doug VanDyke, Director of Federal Civilian and Nonprofits at Amazon Web Services (AWS), for a fireside chat at FCW’s recent Cloud Summit. They discussed how agencies have approached their cloud migrations and have taken advantage of the benefits the cloud brings.

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.

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.

AWS Marketplace helps governments and other public sector organizations deliver better services faster with cloud-based software through a curated digital catalog. Customers can find, buy, deploy, and immediately start using software and solutions offered by popular software vendors in the online store. With access to more than 4,200 software listings from more than 1,280 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), public sector customers are able to access both traditional technology and technology from small businesses to operate more efficiently and innovate faster.

National defense organizations have some of the most demanding software requirements in the world. Stringent security standards and complex environments make it challenging for developers to work efficiently. Because systems are deployed across large, proprietary government data centers, development teams find it challenging to create production-like environments for coding and testing. This, in turn, reduces the number of testing cycles that can be performed in a given amount of time.

In November, with the launch of the AWS Secret Region, we achieved a Provisional Authorization (PA) for Impact Level 6 (IL6) workloads from the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the IT combat support organization of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The PA was recently updated to add 11 new AWS services. A service catalog for the Region is available through your AWS Account Executive.

Government organizations use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to address their unique challenges, requirements, and missions. We listen to our customers then innovate and deliver technology that helps them solve problems faster, adapt to changing environments, deal with sudden demand, and adhere to the highest security standards. With AWS, government organizations can rapidly prototype, trying several architectures in parallel, allowing them to more quickly evaluate their options and move to full deployment for new programs and systems.

With defense agencies looking to quickly migrate legacy applications to a government-approved, commercial cloud environment of their choice, the Department of Defense (DoD) has entered into an agreement with REAN Cloud to provide a new streamlined and consultative process to procure cloud solutions.

For soldiers in remote or “disconnected” environments, video content must be delivered securely and it must be tailored based on roles, missions, and other factors. Previously, troops stationed around the world would struggle with distribution and network connectivity challenges that prevented them from accessing military command videos, training videos, entertainment, or even the ability to call home. With the launch of AWS Media Services, government and military agencies can bring connectivity to the edge.

When the United States Air Force was looking to automate IT risk management and security compliance of NIPRNet and SIPRNet environments across the enterprise, their search led them to Xacta 360, the risk management and compliance solution from AWS Partner Network (APN) partner Telos Corporation. Xacta 360 is helping the Air Force accelerate authorizations to operate (ATO) – leading to faster AWS cloud adoption – and to continuously monitor systems and workloads for security compliance.