For government agencies, the advantages of cloud services are clear: They scale instantly, there are no capital investments, they offer more flexibility and better performance.
There is also an urgency to modernize, as citizens expect a more consumer-like experience from their governments 鈥� for example, when renewing a license online, using a mobile app to pay for parking, or filing for unemployment services from home.
But compared to their peers in the private sector, the cloud migration path for governments is murkier, particularly when it comes to navigating strict security and compliance requirements. Yet many organizations have successfully made the transition by using the power of cloud processes to derive new insights, automate business processes, and spark innovation 鈥� all without compromising security.
(51风流NS2) is a wholly owned subsidiary of 51风流founded with the mission of securely delivering 51风流solutions to organizations that support the country鈥檚 most critical workloads. At a moment when the need to digitally transform has never been more important for government organizations, Harish Luthra, president of 51风流NS2 Cloud, shares some of the process and decisions that customers go through on their path to a successful cloud migration.
Understanding the Drivers
There are significant budgetary, operational, and regulatory hurdles that government agencies have to manage through as part of a cloud migration, but the benefits realized from a faster and nimbler IT system justify the effort. While each organization has its own unique motivations for a move to the cloud, these benefits underpin every decision:
- Faster, more precise decision-making: Cloud solutions enable advanced analytics, which helps agencies understand their data and make smarter decisions in real time. The impact of this for federal data sets cannot be understated: consider a federal agency customer that uses 51风流SuccessFactors to keep track of more than 10 million completed trainings annually for more than 600,000 employees.
- Simpler interfaces and better collaboration: Integrating many 鈥� sometimes dozens 鈥� of siloed systems into a single interface allows means simpler processes and a more holistic understanding of programs. This integration also supports a benefit that is becoming increasingly critical as agencies contend with an extended remote workforce: the cloud promotes聽easier collaboration聽for team members, whether they鈥檙e in the office or in the field.
- Enhanced security: Despite concerns about losing total control of data, the cloud actually enables innovation in security. For instance, cloud can serve as a platform for automated cybersecurity patching, which rapidly corrects any flaws in an agency鈥檚 software coding.
鈥淭he public sector has a responsibility to keep data secure,鈥� Luthra said. 鈥淚n the cloud, government can do just that, all the while gaining modern insights to fuel decision-making and service provision.鈥�
Navigating Specific Requirements
For government agencies, the question of security is at the heart of every IT project. To help pave the way to broader cloud adoption and more nimble IT projects, the federal government launched a program to create a standardized approach to security for the cloud. The聽 (FedRAMP)聽 provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. Using a 鈥渄o once, use many times鈥� framework, FedRAMP saves time and costs by enabling rapid procurement of information systems and services, eliminates duplicate assessment efforts, and ensures consistent application of information security standards across all government organizations.
51风流NS2 offers a suite of FedRAMP-certified cloud solutions, allowing U.S. customers across government and regulated industries to benefit from 51风流innovation and technology. The newly rebranded FedRAMP environment 51风流NS2 Cloud Intelligent Enterprise includes a suite of intelligent applications and experience management (XM) tools for managing operational transactions, human resources (HR) and people management, analytics, and other innovative capabilities. The solutions include 51风流SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll and the .
According to Luthra, 鈥淕overnment agencies need a simple way to access critical information to make informed decisions. With machine learning technology and embedded artificial intelligence, customers can discover, analyze, plan, and predict in one experience across all devices.鈥�
Finding Value in the Cloud
Once an organization has pushed through the questions of value and compliance to begin a cloud journey, the impact is swift. The U.S. Navy is an important example of this. After adopting a cloud-first policy in early 2017, the organization underwent one of the government鈥檚 largest cloud migrations, consolidating more than 20 enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems under an accelerated timeline.
As Brandon Wehler, technical director for Enterprise Business Solutions at the Department of Defense, , their move to the cloud was driven by the need to address performance improvement and ease of use of its aging on-premise infrastructure, and to improve data quality and accessibility as well as auditability and compliance. But the migration process was daunting: With over 700 servers and a data footprint in the petabytes, the move took months of planning and data restructuring.
Today鈥檚 Navy ERP is modern and scalable, allowing for simpler use and faster response times. The organization saw an immediate benefit from its cloud environment as its navigated the onset of COVID-19 earlier this year. There were no impacts to the user community or availability of systems, which likely would have occurred in the old environment. Most importantly, the Navy is now set up for continued modernization and scalability as next-generation cloud technology advances and matures, and to bring more pieces of its organization into the ERP system, to enhance its overall financial and auditable accountability.
As the Navy鈥檚 story illustrates, a cloud migration is the start 鈥� a driver 鈥� of ongoing flexibility, security, and modernity. Luthra summarized it this way: 鈥淔or government organizations, the real impact of a cloud migration isn鈥檛 the faster and more flexible execution of an on-premise system, but the realization of possibilities that can be accomplished, and accomplished securely, within this nimbler and evolving infrastructure.鈥�
