Page 20 - FCW, September/October 2020

IT MODERNIZATION
Building a
future-ready IT
infrastructure
Modernization efforts are gaining momentum as the pandemic spurs progress in key areas
Michael Houlihan
Senior Director, DOD Sales Team, VMware
modern applications that are cloud native, rapidly created and updated, and extremely secure.
In one of the most notable projects, DOD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center plans to build a cloud platform as a service that DOD organizations can use to create their own AI and ML tools and software.
Understanding the value
of modernization
Cybersecurity needs to be front and center in any modernization strategy. Agencies can no longer afford to buy bolt-on security tools or niche solutions for a unique
THE SHUTDOWN OF
government offices and the
reprogramming of funds in response to the coronavirus pandemic have helped jump-start many IT modernization efforts that had been lagging. Now agencies are harnessing new capabilities and expanding existing ones to speed
the way they achieve their missions and deliver services to the public and other constituents.
The government’s goal should be to build an IT infrastructure that is future- proof, flexible, scalable and adaptable. That infrastructure must bridge private data centers and public clouds and scale up
and down for different classification levels, specifically within the Defense Department and the intelligence community.
Telework, modern apps and artificial intelligence
Agencies are making progress in several
key modernization areas, most recently in workforce mobility. Teleworking accelerated tremendously due to the pandemic. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs increased the number of mobile devices for clinicians from
about 80,000 to 220,000 in March, when the pandemic began to have an impact. Also in March, a combatant command with strict security requirements was able to shift thousands of onsite workers to remote work almost overnight.
In addition to mobile devices, agency users need
modern apps that are designed to run on any cloud. Many agencies are creating software factories so they can build their own applications based on containers and microservices. That approach gives agencies a tremendous amount of flexibility to add features and change their applications almost in real time — rather than the
weeks, months or even years it takes to update agencies’ traditional, monolithic applications.
Ultimately, agencies need to be able
to put data into the hands of mission owners, which is why many are developing artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives. Those initiatives must run on
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