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Top 10��DevSecOps��Events for��Government��in 2026��

Posted on by Rich Savage

As Federal, State and Local agencies accelerate their modernization initiatives, DevSecOps has evolved from an emerging practice to a mission-critical capability. Integrating security at the speed of development is a foundational requirement for agencies seeking to deliver innovative services while maintaining rigorous compliance and protecting sensitive data. ̽��Ƶ., The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®, has been at the forefront of this transformation, serving as the central hub connecting Government agencies with the industry’s leading DevSecOps solutions, platforms and expertise. Through our extensive partner ecosystem and Government contract vehicles, we enable Public Sector organizations to operationalize secure software delivery at scale. The events below represent essential opportunities for Government IT leaders, developers, security professionals and acquisition teams to explore cutting-edge DevSecOps methodologies, connect with mission-focused innovators and gain actionable insights that can be immediately applied to their agency’s secure delivery transformation.

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March 23-26 | San Francisco, CA | In-Person Event

In 2026, the theme “The Power of Community” underscores that effective DevSecOps is a collaborative effort between people, processes and technology. As Government agencies work to meet modern mandates, integrating security at the speed of development is now a mission requirement. The RSA Conference provides a vital forum for Public Sector professionals to explore how automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and community-driven innovation can secure the software supply chain and accelerate digital transformation.

Sessions to look out for:

How to Secure Containerized Applications from Supply Chain Attacks

Chainloop: Inside Modern Software Factory: Why Bolted-On Security Fails in the AI Era

Techstrong Seminar: AI NativeDev and the Next Evolution of DevSecOps

̽��Ƶ serves as the central hub for the Public Sector community at RSA, beginning with the 13^th Annual RSA Public Sector Day on Monday, March 23^rd. Sessions will focus on FedRAMP cloud architectures, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) compliance and modernizing state cyber defenses. We invite our partners and Government customers to join us at this dedicated forum to discuss mission-specific challenges and network with the leaders shaping the future of Public Sector security. To facilitate cross-agency networking, ̽��Ƶ will host our signature Public Sector Reception on Tuesday evening, March 24^th, providing a dedicated venue for Federal, State and Local officials to connect with peers and explore tailored solutions for their specific mission requirements.

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April 8-10 | McLean, VA | In-Person Event

This event serves as a dedicated gathering for IT, DevSecOps, cloud and application delivery professionals in the Government community. Hosted by F5, the symposium brings together Public Sector leaders, solution architects, engineers and ecosystem partners to explore strategies for securing, scaling and optimizing modern applications, Application Programing Interfaces (APIs), hybrid networking and cloud environments. Attendees will experience hands-on labs, customer success stories and deep-dive sessions led by F5 experts that cover topics such as AI-driven application protection, hybrid multicloud networking, Zero Trust strategies and modernizing legacy systems. This symposium provides Government professionals with the opportunity to sharpen technical skills, engage with real-world use cases and connect with a community focused on advancing mission outcomes through secure, high-performing application infrastructure.

̽��Ƶ is proud to serve as the host sponsor of F5 Public Sector Symposium 2026, bringing together Government IT, DevSecOps, networking, cloud and application delivery professionals with the experts and technologies that enable mission success. As F5’s trusted Public Sector distributor and a long-standing partner, ̽��Ƶ connects Federal, State and Local agencies with F5 solutions that secure, scale and optimize application delivery across hybrid and multicloud environments. Attendees are encouraged to visit ̽��Ƶ and our ecosystem of partners on the symposium floor to explore Government-ready tools, engage with technical demonstrations and discuss how secure delivery practices can be operationalized within agency programs.

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May 5-7 | Anaheim, CA | In-Person Event

This conference brings together the global community of practitioners and leaders at the Anaheim Convention Center to explore the future of modern teamwork. For DevSecOps professionals, this conference is a vital touchpoint for learning how to bake security and compliance directly into the developer experience. As agencies scale their collaborative environments, this conference highlights the tools and methodologies needed to bridge the gap between building software and maintaining a rigorous security posture. Attendees can expect interactive learning sessions with hands-on guided exercises, demos, best practices and Q&A with Atlassian product experts designed to deepen practical knowledge on agile planning, workflow automation and modern delivery practices, as well as breakout sessions and panels on scalable teamwork exploring how teams solve real-world challenges with Atlassian tools.

̽��Ƶ serves as the primary Government aggregator for Atlassian‘s full suite of collaboration, agile and development tools, enabling Public Sector organizations to modernize teamwork and software delivery practices. Through our dedicated Atlassian team, ̽��Ƶ works closely with Federal, State and Local agencies to streamline access to Atlassian solutions via a wide range of Government contract vehicles, helping agencies maximize the value of their Atlassian investments highlighted at Team ’26.

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May 11-14 | Atlanta, GA | In-Person Event

Registration for Red Hat Summit 2026 is now live. The event will convene thought leaders, practitioners and IT pioneers to explore innovations in DevSecOps, AI, hybrid cloud, automation and emerging technologies. For Public Sector agencies, this event is the premier destination to learn how to operationalize DevSecOps through hybrid cloud and automation. The 2026 agenda is built around providing technical depth and “beyond the basics” insights to help agencies maximize their investments in secure, scalable infrastructure. Key areas of focus will include application of Red Hat Technologies, AI and emerging tech, community and team innovation and development best practices.

As a continued sponsor for 2026, ̽��Ƶ will host a 10×10 exhibit in the expo hall. Public Sector attendees can connect with ̽��Ƶ’s Red Hat team throughout the week to explore how open source, hybrid cloud and secure platforms are enabling modernization across their agencies. Planning to attend? Contact the Red Hat team at redhatmarketing@carahsoft.com for strategies to support your IT initiatives and make the most of your time onsite.

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May 14 | Washington, D.C. | In-Person Event

This symposium brings together Government leaders, technologists and mission-focused innovators to explore how emerging software capabilities can be securely delivered to the warfighter at speed and scale. Through expert-led discussions, real-world use cases and collaborative conversations, this symposium highlights how Government and industry can work together to accelerate outcomes while maintaining compliance, security and mission alignment. This event serves as a critical forum for defense and civilian agencies seeking to understand how modern DevSecOps practices can support national security objectives and operational readiness.

̽��Ƶ is proud to serve as a sponsor of this event, supporting meaningful collaboration between Government and industry to advance mission-ready software solutions for the Department of War (DoW) and Federal agencies. As a leading aggregator of innovative DevSecOps technologies for the Public Sector, ̽��Ƶ connects defense and civilian agencies with the platforms, tools and expertise needed to accelerate secure software delivery in mission-critical environments. We encourage Government attendees to engage with ̽��Ƶ representatives and our ecosystem of partners at the symposium to explore how our Government contract vehicles and technical expertise can help operationalize the secure delivery practices and emerging capabilities discussed throughout the event.

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June 1-5 | San Diego, CA | Hybrid Event

This premier global conference series brings together IT professionals, software engineers, cloud architects and DevSecOps practitioners to explore the forefront of modern software delivery. Attendees will gain deep insights into DevSecOps best practices, Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), cloud and Kubernetes adoption, platform engineering, observability and automation workflows through expert-led sessions, hands-on workshops, bootcamps and interactive learning experiences. With tracks covering DevSecOps and cloud security, CI/CD pipeline optimization, Kubernetes ecosystem advancements and leadership strategies for scaling DevOps in enterprise environments, this conference equips Public Sector and industry teams with the knowledge needed to accelerate secure software delivery and operational excellence.

Sessions to look out for:

From Perimeter Security to Continuous Trust: Practical DevSecOps for Cloud-Native Platforms

CI/CD Workshop: From Zero to Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery

AI-Driven Observability for Reliable Kubernetes Systems: From Incidents to Self-Healing Infrastructure

Through our deep relationships with DevSecOps technology partners and solutions providers that participate in DevOpsCon, ̽��Ƶ helps Public Sector agencies engage with the latest methodologies in CI/CD automation, Kubernetes orchestration, cloud-native security and platform engineering. Our extensive partner ecosystem and contract vehicles make it easier for Government IT leaders to adopt the innovations showcased at DevOpsCon and accelerate their secure delivery transformations.

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July 28 | Reston, VA | In-Person Event

̽��Ƶ is excited to announce the fourth annual DevSecOps Conference, an in-person forum dedicated to advancing secure software delivery across the Public Sector. As Government agencies continue to modernize their digital infrastructure, this event serves as a critical meeting point for Government leaders, systems integrators and industry thought leaders to discuss the latest updates in the evolving DevSecOps landscape. By bringing together diverse perspectives, this conference ensures that agencies are equipped to implement security and compliance at every stage of the development lifecycle. Attendees will benefit from a full day of keynote addresses, panel discussions, lightning rounds and networking opportunities focused on mission-critical DevSecOps topics, including secure automation pipelines, DevSecOps and AI integration, cloud security and compliance and cross-agency software delivery transformation. The program will feature a robust agenda of supporting panels and technical sessions designed to provide attendees with a comprehensive look at modern software development, from exploring cloud-native architectures to refining CI/CD pipelines.

̽��Ƶ proudly hosts the DevSecOps Conference 2026 as a signature event designed specifically for the Government DevSecOps community. As the premier Government IT solutions provider and trusted aggregator for DevSecOps technology partners, ̽��Ƶ convenes Public Sector leaders, industry specialists and integrators to share insights, explore innovations and advance secure software delivery practices. Through this conference, ̽��Ƶ showcases the breadth of capabilities available through our partner ecosystem and contract vehicles, helping agencies accelerate their DevSecOps journeys and operationalize secure, scalable software development across mission environments. Check out our event site closer to the date for more information. If you are a vendor interested in sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to us at DevSecOpsMarketing@̽��Ƶ.com.

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August 1-6 | Las Vegas, NV | In-Person Event

Black Hat USA 2026 remains the world’s leading stage for cutting-edge information security research and highly technical training. For DevSecOps professionals, this event is vital for maintaining the integrity of the Software Factory against emerging vulnerabilities. While many events focus on building and deploying applications, Black Hat offers a unique “hacker’s eye view,” enabling Public Sector attendees to identify better, understand and remediate risks across CI/CD pipelines and cloud-native environments before they can be exploited. Attendees can expect hands-on security trainings for developers and engineers, technical briefings on application, cloud and infrastructure security and Arsenal tool demonstrations.

Throughout Black Hat week, ̽��Ƶ brings together members of the Government community and industry partners to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing. A major highlight for the Government community is the ̽��Ƶ Public Sector Reception held on Wednesday, August 5^th. This exclusive event provides a dedicated venue for Federal, State and Local officials to network with industry peers and discuss how to apply the conference’s research findings to their specific mission requirements.

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October 15 | Online Event

Conf42 DevSecOps 2026 is a free, online conference dedicated to advancing secure software delivery practices. It brings together DevSecOps practitioners, engineers and security advocates from around the world to share practical insights and technical lessons learned across cloud security, automation, CI/CD pipeline practices, governance, identity management and vulnerability remediation. The event is designed for anyone involved in balancing speed and safety in modern DevSecOps workflows and emphasizes community-driven, thoughtful content over sales-focused presentations. Last year’s highlights included thoughtful DevSecOps keynotes and talks featuring expert insights on embedding security into development pipelines, practical technical content across tracks spanning AI, cloud, infrastructure, security and transformation and community and industry perspectives showcasing real-world examples from practitioners in diverse environments.

̽��Ƶ recognizes Conf42 DevSecOps 2026 as an accessible and valuable virtual forum for Government DevSecOps professionals to engage with a global community focused on secure software delivery at scale. Through our broad partner ecosystem, ̽��Ƶ enables Public Sector teams to connect with expert insights and community-led innovation showcased at Conf42. Government attendees can leverage these engagements and ̽��Ƶ’s Government contract offerings to adopt, implement and scale DevSecOps practices within their mission environments.

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October 19-22 | Orlando, FL | In-Person Event

The Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo is one of the most influential global conferences for Chief Information Officers (CIOs), senior IT executives and technology leaders shaping enterprise and Government IT strategy. The North America event convenes thousands of attendees each year to explore Gartner’s latest research, frameworks and guidance across digital transformation, cloud adoption, cybersecurity, AI, data and modern software delivery. For Public Sector DevSecOps leaders, this symposium provides strategic insight into how secure software development, platform engineering and cloud-native practices align with broader agency modernization goals. Attendees gain executive-level perspectives on scaling technology initiatives, managing risk and operationalizing innovation across complex environments, making the event particularly valuable for leaders responsible for Software Factories and enterprise DevSecOps programs.

̽��Ƶ highlights Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2026 as a strategic forum for Government technology and DevSecOps leaders to connect with research-driven insights and hands-on solution innovation. With a broad ecosystem of ̽��Ƶ partners sponsoring, exhibiting and presenting across the IT Xpo, Government attendees will have the opportunity to engage with technologies that support secure collaboration, cloud modernization, automation, threat-aware delivery and scalable software engineering. ̽��Ƶ’s Government contract vehicles and expert partner network make it easier for Public Sector agencies to adopt and operationalize the solutions and strategic guidance featured throughout the week.

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November 2-6 | San Francisco, CA | In-Person Event

OWASP Global AppSec USA 2026 is the flagship U.S. conference hosted by the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). This multi-day event brings together application security professionals, developers, researchers and DevSecOps practitioners to explore the latest strategies, tools and community-driven innovations that improve software safety and secure development practices. Attendees can engage with leading experts, participate in technical workshops, explore the latest open source security tools and collaborate with peers on addressing critical application security challenges.

̽��Ƶ highlights OWASP Global AppSec USA 2026 as a must-attend event for Government DevSecOps and secure development teams because it brings together the leading community, open source project maintainers and solution providers shaping modern application security practices. With an active roster of ̽��Ƶ partners sponsoring and exhibiting on the expo floor, Government attendees can explore hands-on demos, engage in technical discussions and discover tools that help integrate security throughout the software delivery lifecycle. Through ̽��Ƶ’s ecosystem and Government contract vehicles, agencies can more easily adopt and operationalize the innovative AppSec solutions and insights featured at Global AppSec.

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November 9-12 | Salt Lake City, UT | In-Person Event

This event remains the premier gathering for Kubernetes and cloud-native practitioners across the global open source ecosystem. Hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), this multi-day conference brings together thousands of developers, Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), platform engineers and DevSecOps professionals to share real-world learnings, explore emerging technologies and collaborate on advancing secure, scalable cloud-native application delivery and operations. Attendees will benefit from deep-dive technical talks, maintainer-led breakout sessions, lightning talks, co-located project days and hands-on workshops focused on Kubernetes, microservices, observability, CI/CD, automation and cloud-native security. Last year’s highlights included hands-on trainings and workshops providing practical, instructor-led learning opportunities focused on Kubernetes operations, technical breakouts and maintainer-led talks showcasing the latest advancements across the CNCF ecosystem and the Project Pavilion and Expo Hall serving as a central hub for collaboration.

̽��Ƶ encourages Government DevSecOps and cloud engineering teams to engage with our extensive ecosystem of cloud-native and DevSecOps partners exhibiting and sponsoring KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026. Across the expo floor, ̽��Ƶ partners will showcase solutions that support Kubernetes security, containerized application delivery, observability, CI/CD automation and platform engineering. By connecting with these partners onsite, Public Sector attendees can explore how trusted, Government-ready technologies within the CNCF ecosystem can help modernize and secure cloud-native environments.

As DevSecOps continues to mature across the Public Sector, these events represent essential opportunities for Government IT leaders, developers, security professionals and acquisition teams to stay at the forefront of secure software delivery innovation. From hands-on technical workshops to strategic executive briefings, each gathering offers unique value tailored to different aspects of the DevSecOps journey. Whether you are just beginning to build out your software factory, refining CI/CD pipelines or leading enterprise-wide DevSecOps transformation, these events provide the insights, connections and solutions needed to advance your agency’s mission. ̽��Ƶ is committed to supporting the Government DevSecOps community through our extensive partner ecosystem, Government contract vehicles and active participation at each of these events. We encourage you to attend, engage and leverage these opportunities to accelerate your secure delivery capabilities.

To learn more or get involved in any of the above events, please contact us at DevSecOpsMarketing@̽��Ƶ.com.

For more information on ̽��Ƶ and our industry-leading DevSecOps technology partners and events, visit our DevSecOps solutions portfolio.

Building Sustainable Automation: How Government Agencies Can Scale IT Operations for the AI Era

Posted on by Ash Davis and Francisco Ramirez

Despite investing in numerous automation tools, Government agencies still struggle to achieve true operational efficiency. The issue is not a lack of technology, but the need to better align organizational processes with automation strategies. Agencies often find that automation scattered across teams does not equate to automation at scale.

For State and Local Government agencies navigating budget constraints, workforce transitions and mounting pressure to adopt artificial intelligence (AI), understanding how to make automation sustainable is now mission critical.

Understanding the Foundation

The most effective automation transformations begin not with technology selection but with process evaluation. Agencies that achieve lasting results recognize that automation amplifies existing workflows, accelerating efficient processes while exposing areas in need of standardization. The key lies in establishing organizational readiness before scaling solutions.

Experience shows that technical excellence alone does not guarantee adoption. Many organizations implement advanced automation tools only to see them underutilized because processes were not standardized first. This pattern repeats across ticketing, project management and AI initiatives when solutions are deployed before process design. Sustainable change requires equal focus on culture, workflow and collaboration.

The distinction between organizational and technical capability becomes clear during initiatives like enterprise-wide patching. While patching might appear technically simple, it requires coordination across teams, standardized processes and consistent execution. When approached strategically, patching strengthens structures and communication across departments.

Moving Beyond Linear Scaling

Traditional methods for managing IT complexity have centered on workforce expansion, but modern infrastructure requires new thinking. As organizations add personnel to manage new systems, coordination overhead grows, reducing visibility and collaboration, which then drives additional staffing needs. This challenge extends beyond budgets. Larger teams face higher coordination demands, and IT professionals often overlook their time as an organizational resource until capacity constraints emerge. The question is not just about staffing; it is about designing systems that scale efficiently.

For Government agencies, this issue is especially pressing. Retirements and limited hiring flexibility leave positions unfilled, putting institutional knowledge at risk and resulting in expanding workloads for current employees. In this environment, automation becomes a strategic enabler for maintaining service levels and mission delivery. Manual processes scale linearly, while infrastructure complexity grows exponentially. Centralized automation helps break this cycle by handling routine operations, freeing staff to focus on work that demands human expertise.

Creating Connected Workflows

Sustainable automation strategies move beyond isolated, team-specific implementations toward centralized platforms that enable consistent workflows across the organization. Many agencies have distributed automation capabilities, where infrastructure teams automate provisioning, security teams automate compliance validation and network teams automate configuration, but these workflows often lack seamless integration.

Red Hat, Building Sustainable Automation blog, embedded image, 2025

A single application deployment spans multiple domains, such as provisioning, networking, security scanning, compliance validation and monitoring. When automation operates independently, staff must still coordinate manual handoffs between automated steps. According to Conway’s Law, organizations design systems that reflect their communication structures; fragmented communication results in fragmented architecture.

Centralized platforms address this by establishing shared, standardized automation for common tasks. Instead of multiple teams maintaining separate scripts, one validated and documented process can serve all. This approach enhances auditability, improves consistency, enables scalable growth and eliminates redundant development. Updates to shared workflows require modifying a single authoritative source rather than tracking changes across multiple implementations.

Importantly, centralization is as much about culture and process as technology. Success depends on clear communication of the value of standardization, demonstrating tangible benefits and building trust that centralized approaches will serve all teams effectively. When alignment is achieved, automation platforms reach their full potential, transforming disconnected efforts into unified, scalable operations.

Building the Foundation for Advanced Technologies

The growing interest in AI has created momentum for agencies to explore new solutions, but success requires careful groundwork. Agencies realize the greatest benefits from AI when they first established stable, standardized automation foundations. MIT research shows that 95% of enterprise AI solutions encounter challenges not because of model quality but due to integration difficulties and organizational readiness. Effective AI deployment depends on how well technology integrates within existing workflows.

Many agencies have expanded infrastructure incrementally, developing complex architectures held together by manual processes and specialized expertise. Deploying AI on such foundations is difficult. AI cannot effectively optimize systems when the underlying processes lack consistent automation. In practice, agencies deploying AI to optimize Customer Relationship Management (CRM) operations or automate incident response achieve better results when data and workflows are standardized. This consistency enables organizations to act confidently on AI-driven insights.

Building AI readiness involves working backward from AI’s requirements: integrated systems that share data reliably, standardized processes that AI can learn from and consistent execution that produces trustworthy patterns. Agencies that mature their automation capabilities create the foundation AI needs to succeed, significantly improving the likelihood of achieving meaningful results from AI investments.

Partnering for Success

Achieving sustainable automation is a progressive journey best supported by experienced partners. Leading strategies emphasize a “crawl, walk, run” approach:

Start with a manageable scope
Expand systematically
Build organizational capability over time

This measured progression ensures transformation occurs sustainably for the teams implementing and maintaining these systems.

Many agencies are undertaking comprehensive automation for the first time, making guidance from experienced organizations like Red Hat particularly valuable. Effective partnerships emphasize knowledge transfer over dependency, helping agencies build autonomous, capable teams rather than relying on long-term external support.

The results of this approach are measurable. Red Hat customers have achieved 50% faster networking provisioning, 65% reductions in certain provisioning activities and 67% improvements in other operational areas, freeing staff for innovation and strategic initiatives. These gains also reduce unplanned downtime and improve the overall quality of life for IT teams.

This journey addresses multiple organizational objectives simultaneously. Leadership achieves cost optimization and stronger security, while practitioners gain time, efficiency and better work-life balance. Sustainable automation delivers across these dimensions because the same standardization that drives efficiency also enhances security and empowers staff to focus on meaningful challenges.

Government agencies have reached a pivotal moment where growing infrastructure complexity demands a more evolved approach to IT operations. The path forward lies in fundamentally integrating automation into organizational processes and culture. By prioritizing standardization, embracing centralization and partnering for sustainable transformation, agencies can develop scalable automation strategies that prepare the organizations to leverage emerging technologies like AI.To discover proven strategies for building sustainable automation foundations that prepare your agency for advanced technology adoption, watch Red Hat’s webinar, “The Backbone of Modern Government: Sustainable Automation at Scale.”

̽��Ƶ. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator for our vendor partners, including Red Hat, we deliver solutions for Geospatial, Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Artificial Intelligence, Customer Experience and Engagement, Open Source and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. Explore the ̽��Ƶ Blog to learn more about the latest trends in Government technology markets and solutions, as well as ̽��Ƶ’s ecosystem of partner thought-leaders.

Innovation in Government: How to Change Things Up (and Make it Stick)

Posted on by Mike Adams

In government, we could say that innovation is invention that solves a problem or meets a need — in the community or within an organization undertaking the work. Big changes make government agencies more effective, prepared and useful, and they touch all aspects of agency operations — from IT to employee morale to digital services and more. In recent years, federal agencies such as the Census Bureau, General Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Office of Personnel Management have launched innovations labs, innovation libraries, and other innovation-focused resources and programs. Cities and states have as well, such as through Philadelphia’s Technology and Innovation group within the city’s Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT). Being innovative is not easy, of course: It requires a little bravery and lots of planning. But local and federal agencies are creating the space and resources to launch innovations that will, in the future, become standard operations. In this guide, we share case studies and best practices regarding some of government’s most pressing issues — workforce, customer experience and data use, to name a few — and we hear from government experts who know a thing or two about helping innovative initiatives succeed.��

Analytics Innovations Draw a Complete Data Picture��

“Spreadsheets are structured things: They have clearly defined lines, cleanly labelled columns, and rules that govern what goes where. Government analytic programs have become skilled at working within those parameters, even if it means spending hours manually manipulating data to fit. Spreadsheets are 30-year-old desktop technology. But other data exists, doesn’t it? The world is full of PDF documents, audio and video files, social media posts and other ‘messy’ data sources — the unstructured data that most agencies overlook. And most agency analytics programs are fragmented and overly manual. Recent innovations seek to change this.”

Read more insights from Alteryx’s Solutions Marketing Director for the Public Sector, Andy MacIsaac.��

Driving Innovation to the Edge

“Across government, innovation is happening at the edge. By leveraging cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and related technologies, agencies can deliver services more quickly and effectively at the far reaches of operations, whether that’s in the battlefield or on the International Space Station (ISS). At the Red Hat Government Symposium held in late 2022, government and industry leaders discussed how agencies were leveraging these technologies to accelerate mission delivery. Their discussions and examples help illuminate how agencies are adapting to make the most of modern technological opportunities.”

Read more insights from Red Hat’s Government Symposium.��

Build an Innovative Ecosystem Through Cloud Architecture��

“In data transformation and innovation, it helps to view things through a different lens. Within the data ecosystem are three core pillars for transformation: people, processes and technology. Simple, singular data platforms should work with an architecture that breaks down information silos rather than creates them. That facility comes through in qualities such as data mesh or a decentralized data architecture that’s organized by business domain and operates through self-service. The architectural design also must help strengthen system security. That’s enormously important for federal data.”

Read more insights from Snowflake’s Chief Technology Officer for the Global Public Sector, Winston Chang.��

Overcoming Challenges With Observability��

“As agencies take steps to innovate — such as expanding reliance on the cloud and adding new apps, integrations, and automations — their IT ecosystems become more complex. There are more places where things can go wrong and more pressure to fix them quickly. The task of monitoring these complex systems gets more complicated, too. ‘The question is, how do I know there’s an issue?’ said Brian Mikkelsen of Datadog. ‘Is it when the tickets start flowing, when complaints increase, when your leadership team asks why something isn’t working?’ None of those options are ideal. Datadog’s application performance management platform provides a real-time window into the digital environment, identifying performance and security issues quickly. Its ‘full stack’ hybrid infrastructure capability means everything from the back end to the front end is monitored and reported via infrastructure metrics, application performance traces, and correlated logs.”

Read more insights from Datadog’s Vice President and General Manager, Brian Mikkelsen.��

Download the full GovLoop Guide for more insights from these digital transformation leaders and additional government interviews, historical perspectives and industry research.��

Building a DevSecOps Culture

Posted on by Rich Savage

As software becomes more sophisticated, it plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of government operations. However, given the complexity and intertwined nature of modern software, any vulnerability could have wide-ranging consequences, which makes security of vital importance. The federal government has taken notice. A number of recent policy directives address issues related to the software supply chain, and key agencies are leading a governmentwide effort to promote secure software development, including the Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust and the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. Learn how you can implement DevSecOps to support your journey to secure, innovative software in ̽��Ƶ’s Innovation in Government® report.

The Mindset Shift that Enables DevSecOps

“In an ideal world, technology and processes support team members’ ability to deliver on their particular talents. Before agencies implement DevSecOps methodologies, they should identify where their processes are getting bottlenecked and forcing people to either work around them or fundamentally change their behavior. Instead, we want to make it easy for employees to do the right thing. The goal is to enable people to focus on what they do best — regardless of where they operate in the stack or the tools they are using — so that agencies can build and deploy secure, modern apps.”

Read more insights from Alex Barbato, Public Sector Solutions Engineer at VMware.

How Generative AI Improves Software Security ��

“Generative AI tools are becoming increasingly prevalent, providing interactive experiences that captivate the public’s imagination. These tools are accessible to anyone, offering a unique opportunity to engage and explore the creative possibilities enabled by AI technology. The technology doesn’t just train a model to recognize patterns. It can create things that are easy to understand: images, text, even videos. Sometimes the results are hilariously wrong, but other times the results are quite impressive, such as clear, concise answers to complex questions. Generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) technology, such as ChatGPT, has opened the doors for everyone to be an evaluator because the output is accessible and easy to critique.”

Read more insights from Robert Larkin, Senior Solutions Architect at Veracode.

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Open Source is at the Heart of Software Innovation

“Embedding security into applications from the start is essential for streamlining and strengthening the entire development life cycle. Securing the software supply chain is a related effort that is of vast importance to government operations. Beyond securing individual applications, the ultimate goal is to build security into the pipeline itself. At each step and every handoff, we must be able to verify who has touched the software and who did what to ensure that the end result is what we intended to build and that nothing malicious has been injected along the way.”

Read more insights from Chris Mays, Staff Specialist Solutions Architect at Red Hat.

DevSecOps Needs Tool Diversity and Collaboration

“As DevSecOps methodologies and software factories grow in prevalence, agencies are recognizing that software development is a team sport — inside the agency, across departments and with external stakeholders. It touches many different teams, but getting everyone on the same page with tooling can be difficult. Different teams prefer different tools, and that makes collaboration hard. Modern software development brings security practices forward in the timeline while reducing duplication of efforts and improving real-time accountability. Success hinges on removing blockers, creating visibility and making sure collaboration is happening at every stage. In addition, encouraging input from different areas of the organization from the beginning and throughout development is vital for innovation.”

Read more insights from Ben Straub, Head of Public Sector at Atlassian.

Observability Speeds Zero Trust and Application Security

“In response to increasing cyberthreats, the government is speeding up the move to zero trust. This security model assumes that every user, request, application and non-human entity is not to be trusted until its identity can be verified. Zero trust principles require a layered defense that is more effective when rooted in observability. To develop an architecture that validates and revalidates every entity on the network, it is necessary to know what those entities are, how they’re communicating and how they typically behave so we can recognize deviations. Zero trust and observability technologies work together to create a more secure and resilient network environment by assuming that all requests for access are untrusted and continuously monitoring the network to detect and respond to potential threats.”

Read more insights from Willie Hicks, Public Sector Chief Technologist at Dynatrace.

The Role of a Service Mesh in Zero Trust Success

“For large companies and government agencies, it’s safe to assume that a committed attacker is already inside their networks. Executive Order 14028 mandates that every federal agency develop a Zero Trust architecture because it is the most effective approach to mitigating what attackers can do once they’ve made their way inside. What does Zero Trust look like at runtime? One of the key considerations is identity-based segmentation, which involves conducting five policy checks for every request in the system: encrypted connection between service endpoints, service authentication, service-to-service authorization, end user authentication, and end user-to-resource authorization.”

Read more insights from Zack Butcher, Founding Engineer at Tetrate and co-author of the NIST SP 800-200 series and SP 800-207A.

AI and the Journey to Secure Software Development

“By automating and optimizing DevSecOps workflows, we can still shift security left while relieving developers from the burden of some complex remediation. It begins with a workflow that leverages fully automated security scanning to rapidly identify vulnerabilities as well as providing suggested remediation for vulnerabilities and on-demand remediation training to educate developers on what they are getting into. The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence is making new advances possible. The opportunities go well beyond AI-assisted code creation. AI features are being expanded across the entire software development life cycle. When it comes to security, having AI assist by making code functionality clear or explaining a vulnerability in detail reduces the time required to remediate risk.”

Read more insights from Joel Krooswyk, Federal CTO at GitLab.

Scaling App Development While Meeting Security Standards

“The dream for any software development team is constant, stable releases. The faster teams get the work they’ve created into production, the faster the agency can derive value from that work. When app development is stymied by cumbersome security reviews and stability testing and by the need to wait for a deployment window, innovation is stifled and the return on investment is delayed. If agencies want to have efficient, value-driving software development teams, those teams must be able to move with agility. A trustworthy, scalable DevOps pipeline that brings together testing and security in a seamless way allows teams to push out new apps and improvements quickly so government employees and citizens can have a seamless digital experience and the most up-to-date tools and information.”

Read more insights from Kyle Tobener, Head of Security and IT at Copado.

—an exciting day of exhibits, speaking sessions, and networking events. We look forward to showcasing new DevSecOps updates from our supporting panels featuring government, systems integrators, and industry thought leaders.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from DevSecOps thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

Partnerships for Public Sector Solutions

Posted on by Mike McCalip

Systems integrators have evolved to simplify and streamline the process of deploying complex solutions to complex agency challenges. SIs have years of experience working with agencies on the kinds of systems that have many moving parts. Therefore, they have a clear understanding of agency missions and know how to navigate the government’s procurement process. However, SIs don’t work alone. They thrive by partnering with companies that have transformative new approaches for addressing the government’s needs, such as providing innovative digital services, supporting a hybrid workforce and protecting government networks from cyberthreats. In a recent report, research firm Quadintel states that the global systems integration market was valued at $327 billion in 2021 “and is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than 13% over the forecast period 2022-2028.” SIs are well-suited to helping agencies make that shift in thinking. Learn how Sis can help your agency thrive by partnering with innovative companies in ̽��Ƶ’s Innovation in Government® report.

The Power of Embracing a Partner Mindset��

“Success for integrators and their partners is delivering secure solutions that provide meaningful and impactful mission outcomes. Leidos invests heavily in testing and building relevant solutions for public-sector customers to ensure that innovative technologies are cost-effective, resilient, compliant with government requirements and best positioned to solve mission problems. Investing in a continuous innovation cycle is critical. Leidos and Red Hat recognize that we are in the business of continuous modernization. When Red Hat and other key partners offer innovative new solutions, our partnerships enable us to move fast in testing and proving that the technology works and can scale to meet the government’s needs. Leidos leverages innovative technology to drive great mission outcomes in our Aviation Security Product business unit (Security Enterprise Solutions). By using cloud-native AI/ML modeling solutions, Leidos had been able to achieve significant performance gains in our process for developing algorithms for security detection products, ultimately improving travelers’ experiences at airports.”

Read more insights from Peter O’Donoghue, CTO of the Civil Group at Leidos, and Adam Clater, chief architect of the North America Public Sector at Red Hat.

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A Collaboration That Far Exceeds the Sum of its Parts

“In 2020 KMPG and ServiceNow recognized that a large and newly formed Defense Department agency was facing a number of challenges in its efforts to transform its business, consolidate systems and processes, and modernize its technology. We began having conversations with the executive leadership and department heads across different lines of business to gain a clear understanding of their mission, current challenges and desired outcomes. As the ServiceNow program was being established at the agency, the customer required a robust governance and platform team to ensure utilization of development best practices and policy generation, platform management activities (e.g., upgrades) and a secure, scalable, federated development model. This technical rigor and governance structure supported the creation of a stable environment in which application development teams could configure and deploy new, unique applications rapidly.”

Read more insights from Kyle McKendrick, senior enterprise account executive at ServiceNow, and Daniel Gruber specialist managing director at KPMG.

Driving Modernization with Deep Strategic Partnerships

“In response to the challenges agencies face, Leidos has been focused on building deep strategic partnerships that help us create at-scale solutions for our government customers. These partnerships are characterized by a commitment to open lines of communication and transparency in terms of strategy and investments. We also operate in what we describe as a badgeless environment in which experts from different companies work side-by-side to engineer new capabilities and solutions.”

Read more insights from Derrick Pledger, senior vice president and CIO at Leidos.

Why Success in Zero Trust Requires a Team Effort ��

“Zero trust focuses on the connection between users and the data, applications, networks and systems they want to access. In zero trust architectures, new administrative tools continually evaluate whether allowing an individual user to have a certain level of access privileges is the right thing to do. The approach gives agencies much more flexibility as they modernize because they can make decisions at a granular level that enable them to secure data and entire IT ecosystems.”

Read more insights from Meghan Good, vice president and director of the Cyber Accelerator at Leidos.

How Multi-Domain Operations Accelerate Modernization

“By design, multi-domain operations must involve a broad range of partners to achieve the desired mission outcomes, particularly as threats continue to rapidly evolve. Making such a shift allows military and civilian agencies to far more rapidly add new capabilities to individual systems. The approach also enhances agencies’ ability to partner with industry to harness the power of cross-domain, cross-agency and even cross-company digital synergies.”

Read more insights from Chad Haferbier, vice president of multi-domain operations solutions at Leidos.

Balancing Speed and Security with SecDevOps

“As one of the largest systems integrators, Leidos understands the government’s mission domain and individual agencies’ unique challenges. We also know where they are in their evolution. Some are still easing toward agile and SecDevOps, whereas others have fully embraced those approaches. Our partners in the commercial world are some of the fastest, most forward-leaning technologists.”

Read more insights from Paul Burnette, vice president and director of the Software Accelerator at Leidos.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from SI cloud thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

Higher Education All-In on Cloud-First

Posted on by Tim Boltz

Is digital transformation in higher education possible without the cloud? Not likely. When that transformation is viewed as a journey, not a destination, the essential role of cloud-based resources as enabling and empowering infrastructure comes sharply into focus. Institutional performance, operational efficiencies, student success — the primary goals of digital transformation in higher education today — are only possible with the agility and scalability of cloud-based computing and resources.

Without a clear strategy in place, digital transformation and cloud migration can start to look like a game of whack-a-mole. As teams weigh where cloud solutions will take them next, understanding and articulating the need to include data-intensive computing, security, reporting, and analysis is imperative. That’s all the more true as students increasingly demand a level of personalization and engagement that can only be delivered through a robust analytics and data infrastructure. Download the guide to learn how to grow beyond today’s analytics programs and to mature them for endemic management and strategy.

Cloud Budgets Keep Growing

“‘As higher education institutions continue to pivot toward continuous modernization practices, the SaaS segment of the cloud is likely to see the most investment,’ noted Damien Eversmann, Chief Architect for Education at Red Hat. ‘Cloud resources provide the agility and flexibility needed to support the culture of change that continuous modernization demands. As long as security practices are properly maintained, cloud adoption is one of the best tools for academic institutions to stay ahead of the curve.’ All cloud categories are expected to see growth in 2023, according to Gartner, with the most significant anticipated growth in Cloud Management and Security Services and Cloud Application Infrastructure Services (PaaS).”

Read more insights from Damien Eversmann, Chief Architect for Education at Red Hat.

Accelerate Agility and Integrate Data

“Today, higher education IT professionals refer to “the new normal” when discussing the many modes of learning, research, and other day-to-day hybrid work now possible thanks to cloud computing. The monumental movement and general acceptance of the cloud within higher education happened nearly overnight, after years of hesitance and reluctance on the part of higher ed leaders who sought greater on-site control over data and operations. That reluctance transformed to trust as cloud-based operations proved their mettle, and institutions by and large today embrace a new way of working through the ongoing and continuous change of digital transformation. “That’s probably the biggest change — that change is the constant,” said Bill Greeves, an industry advisor for SAP who supports the organization’s education customers. As a former CIO and deputy county manager for Wake County, N.C., Greeves saw firsthand the overnight transformation to cloud-based workloads to keep government and citizen services up and running at the onset and throughout the pandemic.”

Read more insights from Bill Greeves, Industry Advisor for SAP.

Essentials for Navigating Cloud Implementations

“While the mission of higher education has never changed, the means of fulfilling that mission continue to swiftly evolve, particularly as a result of cloud computing technology and the migration of workloads, applications, storage — pretty much everything — to the cloud. Higher education research, in particular, enjoys many benefits from the cloud, including rapid provisioning of data and applications, or abstraction, which ensures non-technical users can readily deploy cloud resources and quickly get back to the real task at hand: research. Cloud is at the heart of institutions’ ongoing march to digital transformation, but that’s not all: Prompted by the pandemic, many colleges and universities have also embraced the rapid adoption of cloud capabilities in support of remote work and collaboration.”

Read more insights from Hunter Ely, Security Strategist at Palo Alto Networks, and Mathew Lamb, Manager, Pre-Sales Cloud Native Solutions at Palo Alto Networks.

Download the full report for more insights from these from these higher ed Cloud leaders as well as additional perspectives and industry research.

Unpacking Digital Transformation

Posted on by Bethany Blackwell

At long last, Government agencies are getting some real support for their modernization and transformation initiatives. Through the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) and the American Rescue Plan (ARP), Congress is providing significant funding for updating or replacing legacy systems, with a focus on both improving the security of government systems and delivering better services. The opportunity, now, is to make those investments pay off. How can agencies cut delivery times and meet expected outcomes? Download the guide to access worksheets, step-by-step guidelines, government and industry insights, and other resources that can help agencies launch transformation initiatives—and deliver on them.

Supercharge Your Agency Service Management

“Using cloud solutions, organizations can automatically scale up their systems when constituent demand is high and down when demand is lighter. This enables agencies to be more responsive, efficient and constituent-friendly. Most federal agencies are going through a major digital modernization effort, replacing outdated/ legacy systems with cloud-based solutions, said Sandra Trumbull with Atlassian, a software-based company. And self-service — whether through guided prompts, artificial intelligence or other methods — is increasingly important because users are more empowered and typically obtain faster responses service teams have fewer headaches, agencies can lower their service costs, and everyone receives a better overall experience.”

Read more insights from Adaptavist’s Phill Fox, Principal Customer Success Advocate, and Atlassian’s Sandra Trumbull, Enterprise Solutions Advocate.

How Agencies Are Driving Innovation to the Edge

“Not so long ago, Air Force communications meant radios that transmitted information about where to go and what was happening. Now, digital input is being delivered directly into the cockpit. ‘We’re talking about a situation where edge capability expands the envelope of the missions that we can get accomplished and changes the ways in which we can accomplish them,’ said Winston Beauchamp, Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Air Force. Currently, the service uses edge computing in its Agile Combat Employment, a scheme of maneuvers aimed at increasing survivability while generating combat power. If warfighters are under threat at fixed bases, they must move to alternate locations quickly — and those might not have all the infrastructure of a traditional base. ‘Edge technologies enable you to deploy to that location that you need to accomplish that mission without a huge footprint,’ Beauchamp said.”

Read more insights from Red Hat’s Government Symposium.

Data, Data Everywhere, but Not a Byte to Eat

“The first element of intelligent data management is visibility: Where is agency data located? And directly associated, Breakiron said, is accessibility, knowing how the agency organizes and uses its information, and what the data’s condition is. ‘We often find, especially in the government, in excess of 50% of the data hasn’t been touched for as much as five years,’ he explained. ‘And we also find that about 20% of the data, you couldn’t talk to if you had to.’ Commvault calls that “orphan data,” and it’s akin to having a VHS tape but no VHS player with which to view it. An intelligent data management system creates a tiered storage approach that identifies long-ignored information, allowing an archival model for ‘pennies to the dollar vs. thousands of dollars in storage costs,’ he said.”

Read more insights from Commvault’s Richard Breakiron, Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives for the Federal Sector.

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Build a Functional Ecosystem Through Cloud Architecture

“While technology is at the core of a total agency transformation, Chang advised against having it ‘dragging process and then dragging people along.’ The process and the people need to move along with the technology instead of clinging to its shirttails. ‘One thing I would offer as a piece of advice, having done multiple transformations in the Federal Government, is invest in upskilling your people,’ said Chang. ‘If your people can’t use the technology — no matter how great the technology is — the organization as a whole does not move forward.’ For federal environments, he urged technology upskilling to improve employees’ data literacy, analytics awareness and coding abilities — or at least to provide a basic familiarity with those activities.”

Read more insights from Snowflake’s Winston Chang, Chief Technology Officer for the Global Public Sector.

How Open Source Database Technology Can Support Transformation

“Modernizing your applications and services without modernizing the underlying database is like buying a new car but installing your old engine. You’re just holding yourself back. That’s the experience of Enterprise DB (EDB), which provides tools and services to large organizations adopting PostgreSQL (Postgres), a relational database management system based on open source technology. Like other enterprise-grade, open source systems, Postgres helps organizations avoid the rising licensing costs and vendor lock-in that come with proprietary software, said Jeremy Wilson of EDB. But just as importantly, Postgres is rapidly replacing legacy, proprietary software as a platform for innovation.”

Read more insights from EDB’s Jeremy Wilson, CTO of North America Public Sector.

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Transforming With Visibility and Agility

“Staff working their way through a digital transformation, such as a cloud migration, will need new skillsets. They’re going to use new services and capabilities — and none of them will be the same, Shopp said. SolarWinds helps users build knowledge, intelligence, configuration smarts and cloud awareness, he explained. ‘Intelligence in a box,’ as Shopp called it, is codified into SolarWinds products and helps agency employees monitor workloads. ‘When it comes to understanding your infrastructure and your workloads, no matter where they reside — on premises, the cloud or hybrid — we’ve got you covered,’ Shopp said.”

Read more insights from SolarWinds’ Brandon Shopp, Group Vice President of Product.

Observability Made Simple

“The task of monitoring these complex systems gets more complicated, too. ‘The question is, how do I know there’s an issue?’ said Brian Mikkelsen of Datadog. ‘Is it when the tickets start flowing, when complaints increase, when your leadership team asks why something isn’t working?’ None of those options is ideal. Datadog’s application performance management platform provides a real-time window into the digital environment, identifying performance and security issues — quickly. Its ‘full stack’ hybrid infrastructure capability means everything from the back end to the front end is monitored and reported via infrastructure metrics, application performance traces, and correlated logs.”

Read more insights from DataDog’s Brian Mikkelsen, Vice President and General Manager.

Download the full GovLoop Guide for more insights from these digital transformation leaders and additional government interviews, historical perspectives and industry research.

Making the Most of MultiCloud

Posted on by Will Jones

Experts make a clear distinction between hybrid and multicloud environments. The General Services Administration’s MultiCloud and Hybrid Cloud Guide notes that a multicloud architecture reflects the deliberate integration of services from multiple cloud service providers. By contrast, a hybrid architecture integrates public cloud, private cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

In a recent pulse survey of FCW readers, 49% of respondents said their agencies rely on hybrid cloud environments that combine public and private clouds with on-premises systems, and 39% said their cloud environments were based on private clouds. Only 8% identified themselves as multicloud. Multicloud environments are the natural evolution of the government’s move to the cloud. As technologies become more targeted and sophisticated, it is clear that a single product cannot meet all agency needs. Multicloud represents a highly individualized, fluid approach to capitalizing on everything cloud has to offer. Regardless of where they are on their journeys, agencies continue to benefit from advances in cloud technology. That’s because the same spirit of innovation that gave rise to the cloud is giving rise to new solutions for securing and managing cloud environments. Learn how your agency can determine an optimal cloud strategy in ̽��Ƶ’s Innovation in Government® report.

How the Mission Drives MultiCloud Success

“For government agencies, security is a key consideration when adopting cloud technologies. The latest solutions can actually help agencies improve their security posture because of the specialized and deep focus that cloud providers bring to their mission of providing scalable and secure compute, network and storage infrastructure. At Google, we take a defense-in-depth approach to security and have over 1,000 professionals whose sole job is to ensure the security of our customers’ data and systems. They have made it their mission to prevent bad actors — whether people, companies or nation-states — from accessing customers’ data.”

Read more insights from Scott Frohman, Head of Defense Programs at Google Cloud.

Choosing the Right Cloud Tool for the Job ��

“Adding multicloud environments into an agency’s IT portfolio does come with challenges. In particular, it can create complexity for security teams that must protect the agency’s identities, devices, data, applications and infrastructure. Traditional cybersecurity tools weren’t designed for multicloud environments, and it can be difficult to transition from existing tools to platform-specific and cloud-native ones, but doing so is essential for taking full advantage of cloud’s market-leading security capabilities.”

Read more insights from Jason Payne, CTO at Microsoft Federal.

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Seamlessly Embracing a MultiCloud Environment

“Choosing the right cloud solutions can be a daunting task, but knowing what steps to take can significantly streamline the process. Agencies should begin by clearly identifying their business and functional requirements and considering their security needs. Doing so will make it possible to evaluate which cloud service provider (CSP) is positioned to offer the best capabilities for the best cost. Throughout the process, agencies should keep in mind that enterprise data is their single most important asset.”

Read more insights from James Donlon, Director of Solution Engineering for Government and Education at Oracle.

The Move to MultiCloud by Default ��

“Automation is essential for multicloud management. Agencies can begin by automating activities and sharpening their skills in their own data centers. Once government IT professionals work with a platform to automate activities in the data center, they can then automate deployments to various clouds and make the process as efficient as possible. When automation is done correctly, agencies also give themselves the ability to move workloads smoothly between environments, whether they want to bring a workload back into the data center or move it to another cloud. The fact that the workload was built on an automation platform means agencies are already a step ahead when it comes to getting that deployment done and reaping the benefits of a multicloud environment.”

Read more insights from Adam Clater, Chief Architect of the North America Public Sector at Red Hat.

A Smarter Approach to Cloud Adoption

“The cloud-smart strategy is to migrate then modernize most workloads because the speed of cloud adoption and the consolidation of operating constructs is crucial. Such an approach also reduces costs, migration manpower and training burdens. In fact, most workloads can move to the optimized cloud of choice as-is if the right abstraction and workload management capabilities are employed. Once applications are in the cloud, they are easier to modernize.”

Read more insights from Jeremiah Sanders, Senior Transformation Strategist at VMware.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these cloud thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

The Open Source Revolution in Government

Posted on by Natalie Gregory

Open source technology accounts for a significant portion of most modern applications, with some estimates going as high as 90%, and it is the foundation of many mainstream technologies. Its strength lies in the fact that a vibrant ecosystem of developers contribute to and continually improve the underlying code, which keeps the software dynamic and responsive to changing needs. Enterprise open source software further augments these community-driven projects by providing enterprise-grade support and scalability, while retaining the innovation and flexibility driven by the open source development model. By providing the best of both worlds, such solutions represent a powerful arsenal of tools for addressing government’s most pressing challenges. In a recent pulse survey of FCW readers, 93% of respondents said they were using open source technology. And more than half of respondents to FCW’s survey see open source as an integral resource for strengthening cybersecurity. That number reflects a positive trend toward a better understanding of open source software’s intrinsic approach to security. The power of enterprise open source technologies lies in a combination of collaboration, transparency and industry expertise. As agencies expand their use of such technologies, they maximize their ability to achieve mission success in the most secure, agile and innovative way possible. Learn how the combined power of community-driven innovation and industry-leading technical support is expanding the government’s capacity for transformation in ̽��Ƶ’s Innovation in Government® report.

Why Open Source is a Mission-Critical Foundation ��

“Open source transforms the way agencies manage hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The most critical technology in the cloud, across all providers, is Linux. Everything is built on top of that foundation — both the infrastructure of the cloud and cloud offerings. Given the right partner, the promise of Linux is that it provides a consistent technology layer for agencies across all footprints, including multiple cloud providers, on-premises data centers and edge environments. From that foundation, agencies and their partners can build portable architectures that leverage other open source technologies. Portability gives organizations the ability to use the same architectures, underlying technologies, monitoring and security solutions, and human skills to manage mission-critical capabilities across all footprints.”

Read more insights from Christopher Smith, Vice President and General Manager of the North America Public Sector at Red Hat.

How Open Source is Expanding its Mission Reach

“The real power of open source technologies was revealed when they cracked the code on being highly powered, mission-specific, distributed systems. That’s how we are able to get insights out of data by being able to hold it and query it. Today, open source innovation is being accelerated by the cloud, and the conversation is still changing, with people now demanding that their open source companies be cloud-first platforms. Along the way, the open source technologies that start in the community and then receive a boost of commercial innovation have matured. The most powerful ones are expanding their ability to address more of the government’s mission needs. They are staying interoperable and keeping the data interchange non-proprietary, which is important for government agencies.”

Read more insights from David Erickson, Senior Director of Solutions Architecture at Elastic.

The Open Source Community’s Commitment to Security ��

“A central tenet of software development is visibility and traceability from start to finish so that a developer can follow the code through development, testing, building and security compliance, and then into the final production environment. Along the way, there are some key activities that boost collaboration and positive outcomes, starting with early code previews, where developers can spin up an application for stakeholders to review. Other activities include documented code reviews by peers to ensure the code is well written and efficient. In addition, DevOps components such as open source, infrastructure as code, Kubernetes as a deployment mechanism, automated testing, and better platforms and capabilities have helped developers move away from building ecosystems and instead focus on innovation.”

Read more insights from Joel Krooswyk, Federal CTO at GitLab.

The Limitless Potential of an Open Source Database

“One of the most important elements of any database migration is ensuring that proper planning and due diligence have been performed to ensure a smooth and successful deployment. In addition, there are some key considerations agencies should keep in mind when moving to open source databases. It is essential to start with a clear understanding of the business case and objectives for adopting an open source approach. Agencies also need to decide how the database should function and what it should do to support their digital transformation. Then they must choose the optimal method to deploy the database.”

Read more insights from Jeremy A. Wilson, CTO of the North America Public Sector at EDB.

Modernizing Digital Services with Open Source

“A composable, open source digital experience platform (DXP) enables agencies to overcome those challenges. Open source technology is continuously contributed to by a community of developers to reflect a wide array of needs across organizations in varying industries and of varying sizes. A composable approach allows agencies to assemble a number of solutions for a fast, efficient system that is tailored to their needs. When agencies combine a composable DXP with open source technology, they have access to best-of-breed software and the ability to customize the assembly to suit their requirements. An enterprise DXP will enable agencies to achieve a 360-degree view of how constituents are engaging with their digital services and gain valuable data to understand how to enhance their experience. Finally, a composable, open source DXP provides a proactive approach to protecting against security and compliance vulnerabilities.”

Read more insights from Tami Pearlstein, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Acquia.

Creating Secure Open Source Repositories

“Protecting the software supply chain requires looking at every single thing that might come into an agency’s environment. To understand that level of visibility, I like to use the analogy of a refrigerator. All the ingredients necessary to make a cake or pie are in the refrigerator. We know they are of good quality, and other teams can use them instead of having to find their own. At Sonatype, our software equivalent of a refrigerator is the Nexus Repository Manager. A second aspect of our offering, called Lifecycle, allows us to evaluate the open source components in repositories at every stage of the software development life cycle. One piece of software can download a thousand other components. How do we know if one of those components is malicious?”

Read more insights from Maury Cupitt, Regional Vice President of Sales Engineering at Sonatype.

Better Data Flows for a Better Customer Experience

“A more responsive and personalized customer experience isn’t much different from the initial problem set that gave birth to Apache Kafka. When people interact with agencies, they want those agencies to know who they are and how they’ve interacted in the past. They don’t want to be asked for their Social Security number three times on the same phone call. They also expect that the information or service they receive will be the same whether they are accessing it over the phone, via a mobile app and on a website. To elevate the quality of their service, agencies must be able to stream information in a low-friction way so different systems are consistent with one another and up-to-date at all times, regardless of the communication channel an individual uses. President Joe Biden’s executive order about transforming the federal customer experience is based on this capability. The most successful companies across industries have figured out how to do it, and for the most part, they’ve done it with open source software.”

Read more insights from Jason Schick, General Manager of Confluent US Public Sector.

An Open Source Approach to Data Analytics

“For the past 40 years, agencies have used data warehouses to collect and analyze their data. Although those warehouses worked well, they were limited in what they could do. For instance, they could only handle structured data, but by some estimates, 90% of agencies’ data is unstructured and in the form of text, images, audio, video and the like. Furthermore, proprietary data warehouses can show agencies what has happened in the past but can’t predict what might happen in the future. To achieve the government’s goal of evidence-based decision-making, agencies need to be able to tap into all their data and predict what might come next.”

Read more insights from Howard Levenson, Regional Vice President at Databricks.

Download the full Innovation in Government® report for more insights from these open source thought leaders and additional industry research from FCW.

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