Tag: federal government

It is essential for election campaigns and committees to have access to the latest security services so they can mitigate risks against security threats at minimal cost. To support this, AWS is collaborating with Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC) to offer more than 20 cybersecurity-related AWS services for low-to-no cost to all active and registered national party committees and federal candidate committees for the US House and US Senate midterm elections that are eligible in accordance with DDC and Federal Election Commission (FEC) criteria.

Modern applications built using microservices architectures improve customer experience by dramatically reducing the risk of failures in a web application. In this blog post, we present a sample AWS reference architecture of a microservices application built using an architecture framework based in AWS GovCloud (US), which can help support adherence to a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High Baseline.

In mid-February of 2022, the US federal government began planning the return-to-office after the COVID-19 pandemic. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Tax Division needed to quickly build and launch a telework authorization application by April 1, which would help their more than 500 attorneys, paralegals, and administrative personnel request a hybrid work arrangement—all while keeping sensitive information compliant and secure. To do this, the DOJ Tax Division worked with AWS to build an enterprise-level telework approval application in less than two months, before the Division’s re-entry in mid-April of 2022.

From September 12-15, AWS will hold AWS Federal Learning Days at our HQ2 location in Arlington, VA. Built for a range of federal customers, from mission owners to cloud technical experts to IT managers, AWS Federal Learning days can help you improve your cloud knowledge and learn new ways to achieve your mission outcomes. Whether you’re a cloud expert or just beginning your journey, the daily AWS training sessions at the AWS Federal Learning Days will cover a range of technical and mission-oriented topics to help hone your skills.

In July 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released a cloud native access point (CNAP) reference design that follows zero trust architecture (ZTA) principles and provides a new approach to access mission owner (MO) applications. The DoD’s reference design discusses four core capabilities of CNAP: authenticated and authorized entities (C1), authorized ingress (C2), authorized egress (C3), and security monitoring and compliance enforcement (C4). In this blog post, we walk through how to establish the C2 component via a virtual internet access point (vIAP) with AWS. The proposed architectures can reduce operational cost and management overhead, while improving the accessibility, resiliency, and security of mission owner applications.

This year, to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the Biden administration committed to making free COVID-19 test kits available to U.S. households through covidtests.gov. AWS is honored to support this initiative by working with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to make sure the website for test kit ordering meets nationwide demand.

The Uniformed Services University Health System (USUHS) is the nation’s federal health professions academy, offering a curriculum and educational experience that emphasizes military healthcare, leadership, readiness, and public health. Each year, USUHS holds a training exercise called Operation Gunpowder to help prepare third-year medical students for varying field-care challenges they may encounter during their service. Over the course of the eight weeks prior to the training exercise, AWS collaborated with Deloitte to deliver ancillary system and operational medicine telemedicine best practice training to the participating students. “This is the first time telemed has truly delivered,” reported attending experts in special operations medicine.

Whether filing taxes, applying for student financial aid, seeking healthcare coverage, or receiving disaster support, every interaction with the federal government is an opportunity to strengthen the customer experience with rich citizen engagement and direct lines of feedback. But legacy technology, siloed data, lack of digital skills, and a one-size-fits-all design approach can limit the ability of government to meet the demands of their constituents. Using cloud technology and AWS can improve customer understanding, create personalized interactions, and modernize constituent experiences.

On April 1, the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released the 1950 Census data to the general public. Census data is released 72 years after a census is conducted, and it has been 10 years since the last census data for the 1940 Census was publicly released. With the support of cloud technologies, this release marks a number of important firsts. AWS is honored to support the release of the 1950 Census and help make this data available to the public.

Increased digitalization is transforming the payments landscape. Over 85 countries, representing over 90% of global GDP, are researching the possibility of launching a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, as central banks evaluate the pros and cons of CBDCs, they are considering different approaches and designs to address the variety of needs and situations of each country. To advance understanding in this space, AWS worked with the Oliver Wyman Forum on a whitepaper which outlines a framework that can help support policymakers in evaluating the interdependencies between policy and technology choices. In this blog post, we summarize key principles outlined in the framework.