Tag: government

Last December, AWS announced the expansion of its collaboration with the U.S. NOAA to make environmental data easier to access and use through the Big Data Program. Users can now access new, authoritative NOAA data on AWS without needing to download and store their own copies. Researchers and entrepreneurs can deploy compute resources on-demand in the cloud, perform analysis quickly and efficiently, and save costs by letting researchers ask more questions and experiment more easily. One of the foundational datasets now available on AWS through this collaboration is Himawari-8, the Japan Meteorological Agency’s satellite dataset.

Far above the clouds, one of the fastest growing missions for the public sector is taking place. Technological advances and open data initiatives provide new paths to explore space, impacting our lives here on Earth. From satellites to rovers, cloud computing and cloud-enabled technologies help us find answers to our biggest questions.

Happy Earth Day! In April, the Fix This podcast focused on how the cloud can help people and organizations further understand human impact on the environment, and help them to achieve their sustainability goals. All episodes are available for streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, Overcast, iHeartRadio, and via RSS.

Finding IT budget to drive new initiatives can be a challenge, especially for public sector organizations. Most public sector organizations use IT funds for foundational initiatives such as disaster recovery, supporting critical applications, or delivering key collaboration tools. As new priorities emerge, organizations might not have the funds to adopt new workloads or advanced technologies that address urgent, new, or emerging needs. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides cost optimization tools, services, and guidance to help public sector organizations lower cloud costs so they can better serve their stakeholders and achieve their missions.

As the world grapples with COVID-19, researchers and scientists are united in an effort to understand the disease and find ways to detect and treat infections as quickly as possible. Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched CORD-19 Search, a new search website powered by machine learning that can help researchers quickly and easily search tens of thousands of research papers and documents using natural language questions.

In March 2020, the AWS Public Sector Blog covered stories on tools that support remote learning and teaching, cloud cost optimization, and achieving five nines in justice and public safety. Check out the top five blog posts of the month.

Data is an organization’s critical asset, which is why safeguarding it against ransomware attacks, natural disasters, emergencies, or technical failures is a top priority. Legacy data storage, such as tape, makes sharing and protecting data costly and time consuming. AWS released a series of educational webinars and whiteboarding videos that discuss how to raise the bar on data protection in the AWS Cloud.

Organizations around the world are making headlines after falling victim to ransomware attacks. Ransomware is malicious code designed to gain unauthorized access to systems and data and encrypt that data to block access by legitimate users. A newly released eBook, “Securing your AWS environments from ransomware,” shares who is at risk and why ransomware is effective, whether to pay or not pay the ransom, and how customers can automatically inherit certain security controls by building on AWS.

State government labor and workforce development agencies are wrestling with an unprecedented surge in demand for services. In one week, 6.6 million Americans filed for initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims, nearly double the previous week. Many states are straining to meet this increase for demand in services. The cloud can help labor and agencies quickly scale and shift to meet constituent needs.

From accelerating genomics research to addressing the teacher shortage to improving commutes, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are fueling digital transformation in the government, education, nonprofit, and healthcare sectors. Austin Tanney, head of AI at Kainos, shared his ML learnings and where he sees the technology going.