While state government IT leaders say that cloud computing is a priority, the vast majority are still reliant on mainframe computing.

For many organizations, moving to the cloud can be such an intimidating effort that they don’t even know where to start. Federal, state, and local government cloud experts recommend that organizations stop worrying about where to start, and to “just do something” to move themselves along on their cloud journey.

With the increased adoption of cloud services by governments and organizations of all sizes, there’s a new kid on the block for the state and local government market that is looking for consistent approaches on cybersecurity standards from cloud providers that they want to do business with.

“What would you do if you lost everything?” a poster for World Backup Day 2021 asks. State and local governments (SLGs) are developing backup practices to hope they never find out.

MeriTalk recently connected with Rob Forbes, Okta’s senior cloud architect, to explore the potential impact of improved campus IT infrastructure modernization for higher education institutions. 

Scalability, flexibility, efficiency, and innovation – more than mere buzzwords, they are requirements for state agencies grappling with unprecedented technology demand. In one of the largest U.S. states, the IT department provides a full spectrum of technology services to nearly 30 state agencies, but as time and technology advanced, department leaders realized its single-vendor contract limited agencies’ ability to access best-of-breed technology and expertise.

According to a new report, Minnesota, California, and Florida are leading the way when it comes to preparedness for both cybersecurity and civic tech challenges.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, both the public and private sector are turning to telework to help stem the spread of the virus. This reliance on telework has increased investment in cloud computing services, which will cause the cloud market to grow 18.4 percent in 2021, according to a Nov. 17 report from Gartner.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York was one of the areas hardest hit with more than 300,000 known cases by late May. To support the COVID-19 response efforts, the New York State Department of Health faced a major data challenge, collating clinical data being received from six separate healthcare information exchanges (HIEs), referred to as qualified entities (QEs), across the state. From this challenge, came a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Consulting Partner Cloudticity, to create the nation’s first COVID-19 registry.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $10 million in grant funding to the cloud computing testbed Chameleon, which enables systems and networking innovations by “providing thousands of computer scientists with the bare metal access they need to conceptualize, assemble, and test new cloud computing approaches.”