Page 12 - FCW, September/October 2020

IT MODERNIZATION
The future of digital
transformation
The increase in remote work is intensifying the government’s push for IT modernization
Steve Septoff
Vice President of Federal Sales, Dell Technologies
leverages both public and private clouds gives agencies the flexibility they want and the enhanced security they need. The ability to quickly move to these environments with an approach tailored to individual mission needs allowed agencies to keep running remotely.
Moving forward, the goal should be to adopt secure cloud innovation and digital transformation that reach across compute, storage, networking and data protection. With such an approach, the government can build a user environment that not only keeps employees operational but enables them
to be efficient and effective in their jobs, creating a highly productive workforce 2.0.
Giving federal workers the
tools for success
It’s essential to provide all employees with the technology tools to achieve
their missions, backed with the right infrastructure. This means offering access to the resources best suited to individual user needs, making technology easy to use and maintaining security from end to end.
Taking inventory of an agency’s current technology footprint and what users need to be effective is an important first step. When introducing new technology, making it easy to use enhances productivity. This includes providing necessary digital resources like virtual desktops and applications and, when possible, pre-installing apps and settings.
Finally, security needs to protect the full stack — including infrastructure, virtual desktops and applications — in a way that’s resilient and automated. End-to-end security extends to decisions about the appropriate cloud environment for each workload.
IN THE RAPID move to government telework this spring, technology has become more central than ever to
federal missions. There’s no question that government’s future success depends
on its investment in a long-term digital transformation strategy.
Under normal circumstances, digital transformation is a multi-year journey, but agencies transitioned practically overnight when work became a technology-powered activity rather than a place.
Realizing that digital transformation is achievable, government reimagined the workplace and is preparing for a future
where working from home is normal. Some will still head in to the office, but agencies will adjust IT infrastructure, workspaces and security to enable productive telework.
The need for an innovative cloud operating model
As telework accelerates digital transformation, the necessity of operating in multiple cloud environments is becoming clear. Agencies are looking at cloud as an operating model that spans edge computing and private and public clouds — one that offers consistency in infrastructure and operations. A hybrid cloud approach that
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