Two Areas of Growth for Cloud Solutions in FY21

By Jessica Parks, Analyst

With the federal government on track to invest $7.1B in cloud technologies by the end of FY20 (according to Bloomberg), the cloud migration train is chugging right along with no signs of stopping. While it may seem like there is endless opportunity in the federal market for PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS-related solutions, you will still want to maintain a strategic and targeted approach. As always, you will want to have at least a baseline idea of where your customers are at in their cloud journey, but you will also want to keep an eye on the following two areas where agencies will be looking for your assistance in FY21.

Data Management and Sharing

With the ever-increasing flow of information, how to manage, secure and transfer that data – especially the associated costs – continues to be a major concern for agencies. Chezian Sivagnanam, Chief Enterprise Architect at the National Science Foundation, stated in a Federal News Network webinar back in March that in the future, IT teams will be “focused on moving data, not servers.” 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is a hot spot, with several large data-centric systems moving to the cloud – such as the Federally Facilitated Marketplace, the ESRD Quality Reporting System and the Hospital Quality Reporting System. Cloud-native analytics and secure sharing tools are of interest here. With an organization like CMS, which has already realized significant cost savings from cloud technology, you want to be sure you carry that theme of continued savings forward in your conversations.

Cybersecurity Tools

Considering the growth of not just “as a service” cloud technologies but also hybrid and multi-cloud environments, it’s plain to see that today’s computing environment requires a different set of tools to manage risk and secure applications. At the FCW Cloud Security workshop in February, John Hale from the DISA Cloud Portfolio Office stated that “Cloud-native apps are where it’s at,” and this is true across both DOD and the federal civilian community.

The Department of Interior is one agency that, according to CISO Jack Donnelly, is still working out how to apply the recent TIC 3.0 guidance and figuring out which security and network solutions will work for them in the cloud. As agencies move to cloud, you can expect similar approaches elsewhere. There will likely be increased interest in cloud-access security brokers, or CASBs, but also in cloud-native security tools in general as tech teams look for solutions that will fit as neatly into their modern infrastructures.

Conclusion

Remember that throughout your customer’s entire cloud journey, you can act as your customer’s trusted advisor and help them navigate the waters of data management and security. Your customers possessing the right tools in their arsenal will ensure maximum efficiency and the best possible user experience with their cloud computing environment as they continue to pursue their mission.

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