The 12 Artificial Intelligence Events for Government in 2024

Posted on by Mike Adams

Last year set a landmark standard for innovation in artificial intelligence (AI). Federal, State, and Local Governments and Federal Systems Integrators are eager to learn how they can implement AI technology within their agencies. With the recent Presidential Executive Order for AI, many Public Sector-focused events in 2024 will explore AI modernizations, from accelerated computing in cloud to the data center, secure generative AI, cybersecurity, workforce planning and more.

We have compiled the top AI events for Government for 2024 that you will not want to miss.

1. AI for Government Summit

May 2, 2024, Reston, VA | In-Person Event

The AI for Government Summit is a half-day event designed to bring together Government officials, AI experts and industry leaders to explore the transformative potential of AI in the public sector. As Governments worldwide increasingly adopt AI technologies to enhance efficiency, improve services and address complex challenges, this summit will serve as a platform for collaboration, discussion and sharing knowledge on the latest advancements and best practices in AI deployment within Government organizations.

Sessions to look out for: Cybersecurity & AI – Safeguarding the Government and Generative AI Government Use Case Panel

Carahsoft is proud to host this inaugural event alongside FedInsider. Join us and over 100 of our AI & machine learning technology and solution providers as they speak towards AI adoption in our Public Sector and how they are using AI to solve our government’s most critical challenges. Attendees will also hear from top government decision-makers as they share unique insights into their current AI projects.

2. NVIDIA GTC

March 18 – 21, 2024, San Jose, CA | Hybrid Event

Come connect with a dream team of industry luminaries, developers, researchers, and business strategists helping shape what’s next in AI and accelerated computing. From the highly anticipated keynote by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to over 600 inspiring sessions, 200+ exhibits, and tons of unique networking events, GTC delivers something for every technical level and interest area. Whether you join us in person or virtually, you are in for an incredible experience at the conference for the era of AI.

Sessions to look out for: What’s Next in Generative AI and Robotics in the Age of Generative AI

Carahsoft serves as NVIDIA’s Master Aggregator working with resellers, systems integrators, and consultants. Our team provides NVIDIA products, services, and training through hundreds of contract vehicles.

Carahsoft is proud to be the host of the GTC Public Sector Reception on Tuesday, March 19^th.

Please visit Carahsoft and our partners at the following booths:

Government IT Solutions: Carahsoft (#1726), Government Acquisitions (#1820), World Wide Technology (#929)
AI/ML & Data Analytics: Anaconda (#1701), Dataiku (#1704), Datadog (#1033), DataRobot (#1603), Deepgram (#1719), Domino Data Labs (#1612), Gretel.AI (G130), H2O.AI (G124), HEAVY.AI (#1803), Kinetica (I132), Lilt (I123), Primer.AI (I126), Red Hat (#1605), Run:AI (#1408), Snowflake (#930), Weights & Biases (#1505 & G115)
AI Infrastructure: Dell (#1216), DDN (#1521), Edge Impulse (#434), Lambda Data Lab (#616), Lenovo (#1740), Liqid (#1525), Pure Storage (#1529), Rescale (#1804), Rendered.AI (#330), Supermicro (#1016), Weka (#1517)
Industry Leaders: AWS (#708), Google Cloud (#808), HPE (#408), Hitachi Vantara (#308), IBM (#1324), Microsoft (#1108), VAST Data (#1424), VMware (#1604)

3. 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit

March 21, 2024, Falls Church, VA | In-Person Event

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual AI Summit, where federal leaders and industry experts converge to explore the transformative power of artificial intelligence. Discover innovative AI advancements, engage in dynamic discussions, and forge strategic collaborations with key partners at this annual gathering of the movers and shakers in the AI field. Hosted by Executive Mosaic, this summit will be held in Falls Church, Virginia.

Sessions to look out for: Leveraging Collaboration to Accelerate AI Adoption in the DoD and Operationalizing AI in Government: Getting Things Done with Automation

Carahsoft is the master aggregator for Percipient AI, a Silver Sponsor, and Primer AI, the Platinum Sponsor. Mark Brunner, President of Federal at Primer AI, will also be speaking at the event.

4. INSA Spring Symposium: How AI is Transforming the IC

April, 4, 2024, Arlington, VA | In-Person Event

Join 300+ intelligence and national security professionals at INSA’s Spring Symposium, How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming the IC, on Thursday, April 4, from 8:00 am-4:30 pm at the INSA/NRECA Conference Center in Arlington, VA. Key leaders from government, academia, and industry will discuss cutting-edge AI innovations transforming intelligence analysis, top priorities and concerns from government stakeholders, developments in ethics and oversight, challenges and opportunities facing the public and private sector and more!

Session to look out for: AI Ready? Challenges from a Data-Centric Viewpoint

Meet with Carahsoft partners AWS, Google Cloud, Intel, and Primer.

5. Google Next ‘24

April 9 – 11, Las Vegas, NV | In-Person Event

Explore new horizons in AI at Google Cloud Next ’24 in Las Vegas, April 9–11 at Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Dive into AI use cases, learn how to stay ahead of cyberthreats with frontline intelligence and AI powered security and boost data and thrive in a new era of AI. Plus, see our latest in AI, productivity and collaboration, and security from Google Public Sector.

Carahsoft will be a sponsor of Google Next ‘24 with a significant public sector presence and plans to host a reception as well.

6. SC24

November 17 – 22, 2024, Atlanta, GA | Hybrid Event

Supercomputing (SC) is the longest running and largest high performance computing conference. SC is an unparalleled mix of thousands of scientists, engineers, researchers, educators, programmers, and developers. Hosted by The Association for Computing Machinery & IEEE Computer Society, SC24 is hosted in Atlanta, Georgia.

Carahsoft is proud to attend SC24 for a fourth year as the master aggregator serving the public sector. Carahsoft will be hosting an extensive partner pavilion showcasing daily demos of our technology and solution partners, demonstrating use-cases in AI and HPC intended for higher-ed organizations, research institutions, government agencies, and more.

Join us at our public sector reception for a night of networking with leading decision-makers and solution experts on November 20.

7. Elastic Public Sector Summit ‘24

March 13, 2024, Pentagon City, VA | In-Person Event

Join top Federal program executives and IT leaders to learn firsthand how advances in data management, search and analytics capabilities are helping agencies turn data into mission value faster and more productively for citizens and Government employees. Learn how agencies are leveraging these capabilities for cybersecurity, operational resilience, and preparing for the new era of generative AI. FedScoop, Elastic and Carahsoft will co-host this summit in Pentagon City, Virginia.

As a top-level sponsor of Elastic’s Public Sector Summit, Carahsoft will host a pavilion on the exhibit floor that features Elastic’s foremost technology partners for the hundreds of projected government attendees.

8. CDAO Government

September 17 – 19, 2024, Washington DC | In-Person Event

This event brings together the latest technological advancements and practical examples to apply key data-driven strategies to solve challenges in Government and greater society. Join a unique mix of academia, industry and Government thought leaders at the forefront of research and explore real-world case studies to discover the value of data and analytics. Located in Washington, D.C., CDAO Government will be hosted by Corinium Intelligence.

Carahsoft was proud to be a Premier Sponsor at the 2023 CDAO Government, involving numerous of our vendor partners, Cloudera, and HP, Alation, Informatica, Progress|MarkLogic, Snowflake, and Tyler Technologies, Alteryx, Coursera, DataRobot, Databricks, Elastic, Immuta, Primer AI, and Qlik.

Carahsoft looks forward to participating as a leading sponsor again at the 2024 CDAO Government.

9. OODACON

November 5 – 6, Reston, VA | In-Person Event

The world is at a transition point where technology is enabling rapid changes that can drive both positive and negative outcomes for humanity. It is also empowering many bad actors and poses new threats. The essence of OODAcon lies in its capacity to forge a robust community of leaders, experts, and practitioners that serve as a collective force that can propel us towards a brighter future.

Join us at the Carahsoft Conference and Collaboration Center to discuss how disruptive technology can solve the most pressing issues of today.

10. AWS Public Sector Summit

June 26-27, 2024, Washington DC | In-Person Event

Join Carahsoft and our partners for two days on innovation, collaboration and global representation. Designed to unite the global cloud computing community, AWS Summits are designed to educate customers about AWS products and services, providing them with the skills they’ll need in order to build, deploy, and operate their infrastructure and applications.

As a top-level sponsor of AWS’ Public Sector Summit, Carahsoft will host a pavilion on the exhibit floor that features AWS’ foremost technology partners for the thousands of projected government attendees.

Learn More About Previously Held Events

11. CDAO Advantage DoD24 Defense Data & AI Symposium

Carahsoft was at CDAO’s inaugural Advantage DoD 2024: Defense Data & AI Symposium from February 20th to 22nd at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. The symposium provided a platform for over 1000 government officials, industry leaders, academia, and partners to converge and explore the latest advancements in data, analytics, and artificial intelligence in support of the U.S. Department of Defense mission. Carahsoft had a small tabletop partner pavilion, featuring our vendor partners Alteryx, DataRobot, Collibra, Elastic, Databricks, PTFS, EDB, Weights & Biases, and Clarifai.

Throughout the symposium, attendees from diverse backgrounds, including technical programmers, policymakers, and human resources professionals, gained valuable insights into emerging technologies and best practices for integrating data-driven strategies into organizational frameworks. Attendees also enjoyed two networking receptions hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton and C3.ai.

The agenda featured compelling speaking sessions including topics such as:

Task Force Lima – The Way Forward (Goals and Progress)
LLMs and Cybersecurity: Practical Examples and a Look Ahead
DoD GenAI Use Cases and Acceptability Criterias

12. Using Generative AI & Machine Learning in the Enterprise

This intimate one-day 500-person conference curated data science sessions to bring industry leaders and specialists face-to-face to educate one another on innovative solutions in generative AI, machine learning, predictive analytics, and best practices. Attendees saw a mix of use-cases, technical talks, and workshops, and walked away with actionable insights from those working on the frontlines of machine learning in the enterprise. Hosted by Data Science Salon, the event was held in Austin, Texas.

Carahsoft partners NVIDIA and John Snow Labs were in attendance; two leading AI and Machine Learning solution providers. Carahsoft serves as the master aggregator for both NVIDIA and John Snow Labs to provide government agencies with solutions that fulfill mission needs from trustworthy technology and industry partners.

While the landscape of government events has always been in flux, the pace of change in 2024 feels downright dizzying. From navigating hybrid gatherings to crafting data-driven experiences, the pressure is on to connect, inform, and engage. This is where the power of AI steps in, not as a silver bullet, but as a toolbox brimming with innovative solutions. Carahsoft’s curated list of Top 12 AI for Government Events is just the starting point. So, do not let the future intimidate you; embrace it. Dive into the possibilities, explore these AI tools, and get ready to redefine what a government event can be. Your citizens—and your data—will thank you.

To learn more or get involved in any of the above events please contact us at AITeam@carahsoft.com. For more information on Carahsoft and our industry leading AI technology partners’ events, visit our AI solutions portfolio and events page.

Best of What’s New In Law Enforcement

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

In July, USA Today reported that the combination of pandemic-induced economic woes and the national movement to “defund the police” could lead to the biggest budget cuts for law enforcement agencies since the Great Recession of 2008. For police departments facing growing demands and tightening budgets, using technology to increase the impact of existing staff and resources will be a game changer. Luckily, autonomous technologies, better connectivity, and more sophisticated video and surveillance analytics tools are available to fill in the gaps. Read the latest insights from industry thought leaders in law enforcement in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government® report.

Managing Cyber Exposure in Law Enforcement

“A law enforcement agency can face a variety of issues. It may need to address issues related to who has access to what information based on their role. It may need to segment its network — for example, to separate CJIS lookups from other areas that are open to the public. Law enforcement organizations may also be connected to other municipal departments such as the Department of Public Works or even other departments outside the municipality. Addressing these potential attack vectors requires security expertise, which in many cases is not on the agency’s priority list or in its budget. As a result, these agencies become even more susceptible to attack.”

Read more insights Tenable’s Senior Director of Marketing, Michael Rothschild.

Using Blockchain Analysis to Fight Crime

“It comes down to having the right data and making it actionable. Specifically, law enforcement should be interested in a partner with data attributing services, which attribute addresses to the clusters — that is, the entities — that control them. In this case, that would be cluster associated with criminal activity and their cashout points. The historical data behind this capability is an important differentiator. Chainalysis is the only company that has systematically collected information that links real-world entities to blockchain transactions since 2014. This allows the software to accurately distinguish different clusters of entities and attribute more data than can be seen on the blockchain.”

Read more insights from Chainalysis’s Director of Market Development, Don Spies.

Cloud: The IT Force Multiplier

“Storing, managing and effectively using an ever-increasing volume of digital data presents multiple challenges. Buying and maintaining hardware for data storage is expensive and challenging and diverts resources from the core mission of public safety. Then, agencies must manage stored data so it is discoverable, retrievable and in compliance with legally mandated retention policies. Without a sound digital evidence management solution and automated life cycle retention solutions, data management is nearly impossible. Finally, because data is produced in multiple systems, integrating and normalizing that data so it can be searched, analyzed and shared is challenging. Without a strong data management approach and systems, agencies must access multiple systems to discover data that is in different formats, making it very difficult to integrate and gain insights from that information.”

Read more insights from Amazon Web Services’s Public Strategy Lead, Ryan Reynolds.

Supporting the Law Enforcement Community During COVID-19 and Beyond

“COVID-19 created an unprecedented urgency for state, county and municipal workers to operate remotely whenever possible. This caught many agencies by surprise. Although these organizations moved with commendable speed to equip staff to work from home, the needs of the public only increased. Law enforcement agencies had to quickly adapt to the dangers of a pandemic amid calls for police reforms. These officials had to balance protecting the public, themselves and their colleagues in an ever-changing environment. Many departments have come to appreciate how technology enabled them to address these critical priorities.”

Read more insights from the Director of the Law Enforcement Team at Carahsoft, Lacey Wean.

Technology is Key to More Efficient and Effective Law Enforcement

“The pandemic decreased proactive activities. There are fewer cases where an officer might stop you for speeding 10 mph over the speed limit, for example. Departments have to weigh whether it’s worth the risk to stop a car to issue a traffic ticket and potentially be exposed to COVID-19, or to reserve their exposure time for things that are a matter of life or death. The impact of that is reduced revenue generation. COVID-19 also impacted morale. More law enforcement personnel have died from COVID-19 this year than have died in the line of duty. That impacts a police department and its morale — people work longer shifts, and health often suffers.”

Read more insights from the former Senior Adviser for the U.S. State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance Program and Senior Law Enforcement Adviser for the 2012 Republican National Convention, Morgan Wright.

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

The State of Artificial Intelligence in Government

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

Government agencies have been discussing artificial intelligence (AI) for more than a decade, and as technology and legislation progress, the focus on public sector impacts is stronger than ever. A 2019 executive order highlights American leadership in AI as key to maintaining the economic and national security of the United States. The Trump administration has also issued regulatory guidance on AI, instructing all federal agencies to prioritize and allocate funding for AI programs that serve their individual missions. Numerous national agencies and even multinational partnerships have identified AI as a priority. AI’s similarity to human intelligence means it could potentially impact every corner of society, from cybersecurity to medicine. To learn more about how your agency can use AI to analyze data, recognize patterns and automate manual tasks, get up to date with The State of AI in Government, a guide created by GovLoop and Carahsoft featuring insights from the following technology and government AI thought leaders.

AI Requires a New Approach to High-Performance Computing

“High-performance computing (HPC) needs to evolve. The traditional HPC architecture, now decades old, worked well for previous generations of HPC applications. But today’s applications, driven by AI, require a new approach. The problem? The old systems were too static. That wasn’t a problem when applications had static performance requirements. But AI is different. When developing an AI system, the workload changes from one stage of the process to another.”

Read more insights from Liqid’s Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, Matt Demas, and Director of Sales, Eric Oberhofer.

Bring AI to the Edge

“Legacy computing structures always glued data scientists to data centers. The two were tethered together, meaning scientists couldn’t work where the data didn’t reside, much like how a lab scientist needs their lab chemicals and instruments. Data science, however, is not entirely like lab science, because endless inputs come outside of a controlled environment. AI models are most effective when exposed to open air. The solution is to bring software-based applications to the edge, except for massive data projects.”

Read more insights from HPE’s Defense Department Account Team Technologist, Jeff Winterich, and Red Hat’s Public Sector Staff Solutions Architect, Ryan Kraus.

3 Ways Cloud Improves AI

“Cloud-based AI can help agencies move faster. During the pandemic, it has. One example is automating document workflows so that AI replaces manual data entry and extracts metadata to enhance search capabilities. As a result, AI speeds up timelines for constituents. Without having to wait on employees to manually enter data or respond to simple queries, citizens receive the front-facing information and services they need faster. Agencies can build AI faster in the cloud, too. Developers access capabilities through simple application programming channels, so they don’t have to build or integrate models from scratch. Cloud services like Amazon SageMaker remove the busywork and infrastructure so that data science teams are more productive and efficient when rolling out [machine learning].”

Read more insights from AWS’s Tech Business Development Manager of AI and ML for the Worldwide Public Sector, Joe Pringle.

How AI Demands a New Vision of the Data Center

“Technology originally developed to improve PC-based gaming and multimedia applications nearly 30 years ago is now driving advances in the field of artificial intelligence. In the early 1990s, when PC gaming was beginning to take off, the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) was invented by NVIDIA to render an image by breaking it up into multiple tasks that could be executed in parallel. Today, the same approach accelerates processing for a wide range of applications, not just on PCs but also on the world’s fastest computers.”

Read more insights from NVIDIA’s Vice President of the GPU Data Center Architect, Curt Smith.

DoD’s Battle Against COVID-19, With AI at the Helm

“When you’re talking about a domestic threat like COVID-19, for us to, for instance, predict how COVID-19 is going to be affecting a certain military installation, you might need data from things that would be nontraditional DoD data. So, you might need data from CDC, [or] from Department of Labor when it comes to unemployment. So, these sorts of datasets I think are really hard for the DoD to have, because they’re not traditional military data. But at the same time, for us to do accurate modeling, we do need datasets like that. So, this project had a lot more sort of rigorous policy review for data, more so than a project like predictive maintenance, for instance.”

Read more insights from Chief of Policy at the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Sunmin Kim.

Using AI to Improve Veteran Care and Save Lives

“It’s been an amazing journey from a veterans’ experience perspective. The Veterans Experience Office came out of the crisis of Phoenix, when there were the issues with the lists of appointments and veterans were not getting timely appointments – and the data was showing things differently. We did not have the customer datasets. We had a lot of operational data, we had a lot of financial data, but we did not have necessarily the data for [customers]. And I think that from the customer perspective, I think that’s a key aspect with AI. You can’t have AI if you don’t have the right data in place … and that’s something the VA has been very diligently working on.”

Read more insights from Department of Veterans’ Affairs Chief of Staff at the time of the interview, Lee Becker; Director of Enterprise Measurement, Anil Tilbe; and Acting Executive Director of Multichannel Technologies, Laura Prietula.

Improving Public Health Through AI

“Traditionally, public health plays the role of a data aggregator. We’re collecting large volumes of information because we’re interested in understanding how often illnesses or injuries occur, not just at an individual level, but across entire communities or entire populations as a country at large. And we use that information to try to understand why those diseases or injuries occur, and then we use that to take action that will allow us to address really significant threats to the public health at their source. AI can play a role at many different places in that information chain.”

Read more insights from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Entrepreneur in Residence, Paula Braun.

Download the full GovLoop Guide for more insights from these artificial intelligence thought leaders and additional interviews, historical perspectives and industry research on the future of AI.

Streamlining FedRAMP Compliance With Automation

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

When it comes to using cloud computing, federal agencies turn to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) to certify that their cloud-based solutions are secure and compliant with federal regulations. In order for their products to be used in the federal space, cloud service providers and software vendors must ensure that they are FedRAMP compliant—a notoriously in-depth process that can cost millions of dollars and take up to 24 months to complete.

The government has continued adopting cloud technology at a rapid pace, which has only expanded with the need for remote work capabilities during the pandemic. Agencies are turning to third-party solutions that don’t run on government infrastructure, and in turn, more cloud and software organizations are undertaking the FedRAMP compliance process in order to expand into the federal market.

Building and deploying a secure cloud environment is slow and costly, but it’s also ripe for automation. Cloud security and compliance automation companies are partnering up with cloud service providers to significantly reduce the time it takes to become FedRAMP compliant—in some cases, from two years to 90 days. By building the entire program on a pre-engineered security platform that automates configuration, documentation, and deployment tasks, these types of solutions automate the most complex, error-prone, and critical components of cloud-based software. This enables cloud software vendors to eliminate security and compliance barriers and dramatically accelerate time-to-market.

Taking on FedRAMP with Automation

FedRAMP compliance requirements have been in place since 2014, and while the process is complex it is also repetitive, making it a prime contender for security and compliance automation. This pre-engineered approach means that an organization’s internal teams don’t have to be FedRAMP experts and can instead focus on onboarding, training, and building out templates and security applications for the federal client. This type of purpose-built architecture—security and compliance as a platform—is designed with best practices in mind and uses proven third-party technologies to reduce the number of required add-ons.

This approach allows an organization’s applications to be seamlessly migrated into the compliance platform, which powers it through automation and ensures that crucial components like security architecture can operate seamlessly. Combining a cloud software service provider’s application with an established automation platform allows each to focus on their core competencies while remaining autonomous from each other, which is critical for security.

Tackling Compliance Challenges

FedRAMP-compliant access control and identity management is often complex—involving account management, role-based and remote access, data flow enforcement, session locking capabilities, and more. Pre-engineered and standardized technology can streamline all of these components, ensuring that they are secure and compliant. Similarly, internal encryption such as data segregation, boundary protection, encryption, Domain Name System (DNS) and more can be addressed through an established platform geared towards FedRAMP compliance.

Such an automated platform can implement FedRAMP best practices at a programmatic level, ensuring that the application is set up correctly from the start. From there, though, the cloud provider can utilize a library of automation tools to automate security components, documentation, DevOps, and deployment alike—taking full advantage of the platform’s capabilities to eliminate security and compliance impediments.

Streamlining Documentation and Testing

Auditing and documentation are crucial components of FedRAMP compliance and can also be conducted quickly and accurately through automation. FedRAMP’s System Security Plan (SSP) is a document full of variables that can be identified and automated. Completed SSPs can expand to 1,000 pages and are assessed closely, requiring clear, concise, consistent, and complete documentation. Conducting manual documentation increases the risks of introducing errors or other issues—even inconsistent terminology throughout the SSP can be problematic for FedRAMP compliance.

This is also where a third-party assessment organization (3PAO) can come into play—they serve as a bridge between the government and the cloud service provider, acting as a trusted third-party agent that recommends FedRAMP-compliant solutions. 3PAOs can conduct security testing on systems and report the results of the exercise, as well as the strength of the application’s security, to the government.

View the full Carahsoft webinar featuring experts from AWS, Anitian, and A-LIGN to learn more about the ways third-party organizations can help cloud service providers streamline the FedRAMP process.

Best of What’s New in Cloud Computing

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

This may be a make-or-break moment for jurisdictions newly converted to the cloud. As state and local governments scrambled to respond to new COVID-driven requirements, cloud-based contact center platforms, chatbots and web portals helped multiple states and localities quickly scale capacity for unemployment insurance and social services programs. In addition, cloud-hosted video collaboration platforms helped agencies shift employees to remote work on the fly and virtualize public meetings. IT leaders must now evaluate and rationalize the multiple cloud solutions they adopted so quickly. Now is also the time to look at cost optimization for cloud solutions. The COVID response has showcased real-world benefits of the cloud — and that experience is likely to accelerate a trend that was already underway as governments focus more attention on modernizing old systems and applications in the wake of the pandemic. Read the latest insights from industry thought leaders in cloud in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government^® report.

Cloud Migration as a Path to Modernization

“While there may be an increase in initial costs associated with modernizing legacy technology, the economics strongly indicate that maintaining dated infrastructure is more expensive in the long term. The biggest hurdle organizations face when migrating to the cloud is unpredictable costs. The cloud offers tools and resources to optimize investments and plan for the costs associated with migration. In addition, properly planning your move to the cloud helps agencies accurately budget for such a transition. When they do this correctly with the guidance of a strong partner, state and local governments see significant cost savings.”

Read more insights from the Partner Development Manager for Carahsoft’s AWS Team, Sehar Wahla, and the Sales Director for Carahsoft’s AWS Team, Tina Chiao.

How Does Evolving Cloud Adoption Impact Security?

“One approach is to standardize processes — think NIST or MITRE — so you have a common framework and language for measuring things like risk and attacks. That helps normalize the differences between cloud and traditional security so security teams can better understand what a risk actually means in a cloud environment. On the technology side, traditional threat profiling needs to move beyond the viruses and ransomware conversation and move toward user and entity behavior management, which looks at how users normally access and use an application. Organizations also need to articulate how separate applications securely exchange data for things like enterprise analytics. This is a nascent use case, but it has implications for critical systems where data integrity is important.”

Read more insights from McAfee’s Chief Technology Strategist, Sumit Sehgal.

“The biggest challenges include security, cost, having the technical expertise to successfully migrate into these hybrid environments and understanding which applications are best suited to run there. Organizations often spend a lot of time and money and introduce security vulnerabilities because they try to move applications that are not designed to run in a cloud environment. With the pandemic, organizations are under pressure to rapidly move their workforce into cloud environments. There can be a tendency to cut corners to save time, but these sacrifices can also create vulnerabilities.”

Read more insights from SAP NS2’s EVP of Software Development, Bryce Petty.

Paving the Way with Open Source

“There’s a realization that the cloud isn’t a silver bullet and that to be successful, organizations need to look at cloud adoption holistically. They need to take best practices into account when it comes to securing the environment, training and enabling staff, and even engaging in the procurement process. Open source supports a cloud smart strategy by helping eliminate vendor lock-in risk and technical debt. By using open source technology and an open source cultural process — where there’s transparency, collaboration and the ability to iterate quickly — organizations can solve their business problems and adapt their requirements based on emerging best practices. They’re not beholden to proprietary systems that may create friction for innovation and are potentially costly to replace, upgrade or move to the cloud.”

Read more insights from Red Hat’s Emerging Technology Lead, Frank DiMuzio.

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

The Rise of Edge Computing

Posted on by The Carahsoft Team

The proliferation of internet-of-things (IoT) sensors and an increasingly mobile workforce were dispersing government IT operations farther from the data center long before the coronavirus struck. But the pandemic has spotlighted agency employees’ increasing need for robust, secure capabilities in the field — or at home, in the case of remote work — and decision-makers need fast access to data analytics in a wide variety of situations. All those factors are driving interest in computing at the network edge, or processing data at the site of generation rather than storage. Edge computing has profound implications for a wide range of government missions across local, state, and Federal government, and with the emergence of 5G networks, it is becoming easier to incorporate. And if implemented thoughtfully, the benefits can be immense – reduced network stress, increased cybersecurity and savings in cost, time and storage. Read the latest insights from industry thought leaders in edge computing in Carahsoft’s Innovation in Government^® report.

Streamlining the Adoption of Edge Computing

“Open source is a necessary component of edge computing for two main reasons. First, open source is much more secure than its proprietary counterparts due to the increased transparency. For edge deployments with hundreds or even thousands of sites, initially securing and maintaining them are solved through Red Hat open source. Second, open source supports a level of innovation most proprietary systems simply can’t match. When thousands of people work on a technology, that gives it a substantial advantage in terms of new ideas and accelerated innovation.”

Read more insights from Red Hat’s Practice Lead of OpenShift Virtualization, Storage and Hyperconverged Infrastructure in the North American Public Sector, Garrett Clark.

A Unified Approach to Edge Computing

“To avoid piecemeal implementation, edge computing must be part of an agency’s overall IT infrastructure. When done well, it will empower agencies to make more efficient and faster decisions because they’ll be able to harness more data from across the entire landscape. It will also give end users better and faster access to data in the field so they can take advantage of those insights in real time. Edge devices will not replace existing IT but instead will expand on what’s already in place. By incorporating edge computing into enterprise modernization, agencies can also start applying machine learning and other emerging technologies to harness the power of data. However, with edge devices and data now outside agencies’ firewalls, security must be embedded into edge computing. Important tools include automated security and centralized management, perhaps via the cloud.”

Read more insights from Nutanix’s Senior Director of Public Sector Systems Engineers, Dan Fallon.

How to Unleash the Power of Edge Computing

“Edge computing holds a great deal of promise as a stand-alone capability, but when paired with technologies such as advanced connectivity and enterprise data platforms, edge computing can fuel new customer and employee experiences at scale. When agencies combine edge computing with advanced connectivity, for example, they can empower rich, personalized experiences for customers as well as employees. Imagine moving from a 2D world of video consumption to a 3D world with immersive experiences personalized at scale for the individual. Edge computing coupled with advanced connectivity and SAP’s data platform can serve as the foundation to bring these new experiences to life. To help fuel this innovation, advanced connectivity such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6 play an integral role.”

Read more insights from SAP’s Vice President, Global Center of Excellence, Frank Wilde.

Accelerating Mission Success at the Edge

“Sometimes an agency will want to be in a cloud environment, sometimes it will choose an edge computing environment, and often, it will need both. In that situation, some quick analytics can happen at the edge, but then the data can move to the cloud for a deeper evaluation that will draw out more predictive insights and analytics. There are three key considerations agencies should keep in mind when moving to edge computing. First, they should think about it as part of a larger continuum alongside their core technologies, including cloud. Second, agencies should design for consistency in management and orchestration. Regardless of where a workload is running, a consistent approach helps agencies manage IT resources and costs and allows the organizations to scale and expand. The third consideration is more far reaching, but I encourage agency leaders to think about the opportunities that edge computing opens up.”

Read more insights from Dell’s Global Marketing Director of Edge and IoT Solutions, Kirsten Billhardt.

Beyond the Data Center and the Cloud

“We expect the number of connected devices to reach nearly 45 billion by 2025, gathering close to 80 zettabytes. Unfortunately, sending that growing amount of data to the cloud for processing is not always the best option due to bandwidth limitations and cost concerns. Many government systems are also not connected to the cloud and need to process data locally. Edge technology evolved to meet those challenges by bringing the advantages of cloud closer to the edge. Business applications enabled by edge computing include autonomous delivery, machine control, environmental monitoring, fleet vehicle diagnostics, vision-based analytics and defect detection. Edge computing is particularly beneficial in two situations: when a great deal of data needs to be migrated to the cloud for storage but there is little or no bandwidth and when data needs to be collected and acted on quickly at the edge (e.g., autonomous vehicles and drones).”

Read more insights from AWS’s Principal Technical Business Development Leader for IoT in the Worldwide Public Sector, Lorraine Bassett.

Edge: The Next Paradigm Shift in IT

“Agencies can protect their data and applications across any cloud strategy (including on-premises, private, hybrid, multi-cloud or edge computing) with a cloud-agnostic, edge-based Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) solution. A globally distributed WAAP will protect websites, applications and APIs from downtime and data theft due to web attacks and distributed denial-of service (DDoS) attacks. All network-layer DDoS attacks, including those by large IoT botnets, are instantly dropped at the edge because a WAAP functions as a reverse proxy and only accepts traffic via ports 80 and 443. Any application-layer DDoS or web attack will be automatically inspected and stopped at the edge without disrupting access for legitimate users. Additionally, modern application architectures are shifting toward greater use of microservices and away from monolithic pieces of software. Small, independent microservices are assembled into more complex applications so they can leverage fully functional and distributed processes from third-party APIs.”

Read more insights from Akamai’s Senior Vice President of Web Performance, Lelah Manz.

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