FedScoop Radio

As employees across government work from home, collaboration tools are increasingly critical to maintaining productivity. However, when enabling both productivity and efficiency, there are boundaries to how much you can really gain, and the boundaries are finite, says Smartsheet's Chris Aherne in this podcast. He cites a study from Deloitte showing that digital transformation is “a game of diminishing returns, even as labor productivity is rising.” He discusses a new form of enterprise collaboration tools called collaborative work management tools — or CWM — to help teams get more visibility into how work is getting executed across the enterprise. Sponsored by Smartsheet and AWS. Guest: Chris Aherne, Regional Vice President, Federal Sales, Smartsheet Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

As agencies at all levels of government look to offer citizens tailored experiences similar to what they get in the private sector, predictive analytics are becoming an increasingly important part of that interaction. In the private sector, consumers now expect a personalized experience in the first minutes or hours after interacting with an entity and public sector organizations should be no different. “Really, if you think about it, agencies from public health, to post offices or similar constituent service organizations, really should be thinking about how the expectations of their constituents can be met,” says Google Cloud's Quinn Chasan in this podcast. Sponsored by Google Cloud. Guest: Quinn Chasan, Head of Customer Analytics, Public Sector, Google Cloud Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Open source solutions are becoming an increasingly important part of enterprise systems. And in many cases, they’re giving federal agencies a superior and more secure alternative to using proprietary applications. There are hundreds of thousands of open source projects out there today, and demand for enterprise open source solutions continues to grow, according to Alan Clark, who works in SUSE’s CTO Office focusing on emerging technologies and open source. One reason, he says, stems from the evolution within the open source community to adopt emerging technology solutions including containerization, microservices and artificial intelligence. The community also has been instrumental in helping to quickly spot and fix security flaws. As a result, open source solutions are actually more secure than many proprietary applications, where the coding often remains hidden “in a black box.” Sponsored by SUSE. Guest: Alan Clark, CTO Office, SUSE Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Recent advances in microprocessor architecture and performance are giving federal agencies reasons to take a second look at upgrading their legacy infrastructure, rather than just moving their operations to the cloud. “One of the things that we think is really changing is [the need to] erase old technical debt … and drive digital transformation and security transformation,” says Heath Muchmore. Today’s faster, more flexible and efficient microprocessor offerings enable the new workloads of AI, machine learning, artificial and augmented reality on premises in ways that matches the speed and performance of the cloud. Sponsored by Dell Technologies and AMD. Guest (left to right): Rick Indyke, Public Sector Business Development Manager, AMD and Heath Muchmore, Chief Architect, Office of the Chief Technology Officer, Dell Federal Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Doing business with the Department of Defense has never been easy. But it’s about to get more complicated for tens of thousands of defense contractors and suppliers who must now prove they can meet a complex set of cybersecurity requirements as part of the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program. CMMC is DoD’s latest attempt to stem the tide of intellectual property loss and data exfiltration within its complex supply chain. “The United States is losing between $600 billion and $1 trillion in intellectual property to foreign powers each year,” much of it from within the Defense Industrial Base, says Ryan Bonner. Sponsored by Cisco. Guests (left to right): Ryan Bonner, Independent Compliance Consultant focused on Cybersecurity Regulations for Defense Contractors and Andy Stewart, Senior Federal Strategist, Cisco Systems Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Department of Defense (DOD) agencies and their partners want to capitalize on the speed, scale and analytic power of the cloud to tackle artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads. However, elevated security requirements, timing and budgets tend to limit which projects can actually move to the cloud — or whether they get done at all. The good news is that milCloud 2.0 — operated in partnership with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and GDIT — is helping defense agencies overcome those obstacles and even fast-track the use of AI and ML applications. Sponsored by GDIT and Intel Corp. Guest: Jeffrey Phelan, milCloud 2.0 Cloud Services Portfolio Lead, GDIT Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

The pandemic and subsequent shift to support remote workers has put renewed focus on the limitations of relying on virtual private networks — and why zero-trust access controls offer greater long-term security. “There are a lot of challenges around scaling VPNs. Agencies that have adopted zero trust earlier were able to get [their remote workforce] up and running quite simply,” says Jose Padin. Padin discusses use cases that show zero trust’s value over traditional VPNs and how agencies benefit, by being able to reduce operating costs and scale access quickly to meet workforce demands. He also touches on ways agencies can establish quick wins with zero trust. Sponsored by Zscaler. Guest: Jose Padin, Federal Director of Sales Engineering, Public Sector, Zscaler Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the whole notion of going into a government office to interact with an agency came to a stand-still, forcing agency leaders to establish alternative solutions to quickly deliver services to constituents. Fortunately, the availability of open source solutions and a global community of developers have helped IT leaders implement fast and agile cloud solutions. Implementing these solutions has been helped along by the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA Act), which laid the foundation for federal agencies to deliver the kinds of web and customer service experiences that consumers typically expect when they are interacting with the private sector, says Peter Durand. Sponsored by Acquia. Guest: Peter Durand, Vice President, Federal Business, Acquia Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

When it comes to IT modernization, federal agencies commonly face three central challenges: integrating a myriad of systems, rationalizing applications and winning over each system owner to support agencywide infrastructure changes. Those challenges often come to a head when trying to cultivate an agile and secure DevSecOps process. One agency that has demonstrated surprising success in overcoming those challenges — in the face of daunting deadlines — is the U.S. Census Bureau. This was this the first time the Census Bureau attempted to collect responses via the internet. That endeavor added to the size and complexity of the internal IT modernization project, as well to the number of developers, security and operations stakeholders and vendors brought on board for this initiative. Sponsored by T-Rex Solutions. Guest: Jason Keplinger, Chief Technology Officer, T-Rex Solutions. Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Zero-trust security architecture is changing the way IT leaders think about access to federal agency networks and resources. That includes how to meet the needs of employees and contractors for whom physical personal identity verification (PIV) credentials and Common Access Cards (CAC) have been the primary method for authenticating access to federal IT systems. The rapid surge in telework during the current pandemic has made clear, physical authentication controls present a significant obstacle to those who need to access agency resources remotely. At the same time, the continuing theft of usernames and passwords is forcing IT leaders to look for better ways to authenticate users, says Yves Massard. Sponsored by HID Global. Guest: Yves Massard, Product Marketing Director, IAM solutions, HID Global Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen