Tag: government

Since 1971, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has accumulated an Earth observation (EO) data archive in excess of two petabytes (PB). NRCan wanted to modernize its geospatial offerings at a faster pace, so they turned to the AWS Snow Family on AWS to migrate their large volume of data.

In a recent disaster response field testing exercise (FTX), the AWS Global Social Impact Solutions (GSI) team developed a prototype cloud architecture and tested it in a search and rescue (SAR) scenario simulating a missing responder crisis. This blog post walks through the SAR simulation and result, and provides an overview of the AWS services and technical architecture components the GSI team used to provide a hybrid edge/cloud COP solution that helped locate the missing team member in the simulated scenario within 20 minutes.

Before building in the cloud, government agencies need to determine how they want to allocate cloud costs in accordance with their jurisdictions’ transparency requirements and legislative oversight. A cloud cost allocation strategy–deciding how to distribute cloud costs to the users or beneficiaries of those incurred costs in a pre-defined way—is a foundational part of any agency’s cloud journey. Even though every organization’s cost allocation model may be unique, there are some common patterns, approaches, and best practices that you can leverage to design an effective strategy to meet your organization’s needs.

In this blog post, we explain how government agencies can accelerate their development workflows while maintaining strict application and operational security using the principles of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) and DevSecOps. We provide a solution to walk you through how you can quickly set up your own DevSecOps pipeline that incorporates AWS and third-party security tools to give you a fast, flexible, and secure software delivery process.

The theme of this year’s Earth Day is “Invest in our planet.” In celebration of this year’s theme, we want to highlight the important sustainability work featured in the AWS documentary series, Climate Next, which explores the ways organizations and communities in four distinct regions are investing in cloud-powered solutions to fight climate change.

When I worked in the UK government, I led the Government Digital Transformation Service (GDS) Transformation Program, where we used an Agile approach to modernize a range of services, from social care benefits to prison visit booking. Now, I work with the AWS Institute executive education program to teach public sector leaders how to accelerate and expand their impact for citizens with digital transformation. In this blog post, I share my experience using the Agile approach to transform government services, and offer some best practices for organizations who want to adopt a bias for Agile action to deliver successful modernization faster and at scale.

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.

In my time working for the UK government’s Digital Marketplace as the service manager, I saw first-hand the benefits of open source in government. Combined with transparent processes, using open source solutions helped streamline digital project execution, build trust with constituents and the global community, and save time and money. Now, as the senior manager of government services (GovServices) at AWS, and as a teacher for the AWS Institute Executive Education Program, I want to share best practices for government leaders looking to use open source solutions.

To drive innovation and optimise operations in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, UK public sector organizations need to transfer data quickly and safely, in accordance with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s guidance on how to configure, deploy, and use cloud services securely. The NCSC provides security guidance for protecting government systems, planning for cyber incidents, and more. In this post, we cover how you can configure AWS services—like AWS DataSync, AWS Storage Gateway, and AWS Transfer Family—to align your data transfer solution with the NCSC’s cloud security principles, as understanding these configurations is important to protect data and meet requirements for local force accreditation.

AWS plans to launch new AWS Local Zones across Latin America to contribute to the region’s economic diversification. The new locations include Bogotá, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Queretaro, Mexico; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Santiago, Chile. AWS is helping to develop more resilient economies that promote long-term economic growth. The low-latency offered by Local Zones can make new use cases possible for public sector organizations.