FedScoop Radio

Cohesive and consistent messaging from the federal government is an important part of the push for agencies to implement zero trust architecture. Making sure the new processes are easy and accessible is just as important, says Peter Romness, cybersecurity programs lead, U.S. public sector, Cisco Systems. “Users are seeing the need for more security, so they're willing to do things like multi-factor authentication, but also industry has made multi-factor authentication much easier,” says Romness. This podcast is sponsored by Cisco Systems and underwritten by FedScoop. Guest: Peter Romness, Cybersecurity Programs Lead, U.S. Public Sector Host: Francis Rose, VP, Multimedia Solutions, Scoop News Group Listen to The Daily Scoop Podcast in full on www.fedscoop.com/the-daily-scoop-podcast/

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shifted expectations of how and where federal employees work at most federal agencies. But what agency leaders may not have fully considered, warns a government network expert, is how agencies can ensure their employees have reliable connections from various hybrid locations, including their homes. “In an office situation, if an employee's internet connection went down, they would be able to call the help desk and resolve the problem fairly quickly. But with home networks as the primary connection [for federal employees working remotely], organizations are now at the mercy of private service providers, and their ability to respond to internet issues,” says Tony Bardo. This podcast is sponsored by Hughes. Guest: Tony Bardo, Assistant VP, Government Solutions, Hughes Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

As government agencies continue to implement and adjust return to office plans, it is clear that remote work and hybrid work postures will continue to be part of day-to-day operations. With many factors remaining uncertain, it is important for organizations to remain willing and able to adjust when handling their workforce, says Stephen Ellis. 
“There's so many intertwined elements in [return to office planning], I think that the key word to solving this knot is flexibility. Ultimately, that's the only way we're going to find some symbiotic place where things can work and work well,” says Ellis. This podcast is sponsored by Zoom. Guest: Stephen Ellis, Government Solutions Lead, Zoom Video Communications Host: Francis Rose, VP, Multimedia Solutions, Scoop News Group Listen to The Daily Scoop Podcast in full on https://www.fedscoop.com/the-daily-scoop-podcast/

As agencies continue to embrace cloud solutions, the need to integrate systems has taken on new importance. At the same time, finding the right talent to help with cloud integration remains a challenge. That’s where a low-code, no-code integration platform-as-a-service model is becoming increasingly beneficial for agencies, says Public Sector Chief Technology Officer Joseph Flynn at Dell Boomi. “Part of what makes [cloud integration] difficult is the explosive growth in [agencies’] applications and data. It challenges not only technical decision-making, but also business decisions, budgets and contracts,” says Flynn. This podcast is sponsored by Boomi. Guest: Joseph Flynn, Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, Boomi Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Government agencies at the federal agencies have almost universally seen their long-term plans for IT upgrades put on a fast-track this past year in response to surges in demands to support remote workers and fulfill public services. One factor that helped make that possible — and in many ways, has put agencies in a stronger position to modernize moving forward — was the increasing reliance on open architecture and hybrid cloud environments, according to IBM's Dan Chenok. “What we saw in the last year was the introduction of changes that were predicted to occur over the next five to 10 years — in terms of networks, enabling distance work, teams coming together across multiple locations at the same time and the associated bandwidth and network capacity and cybersecurity steps that needed to be taken — and enable (those changes) to occur very quickly,” he says in a new podcast. Sponsored by IBM. Guest: Dan Chenok, Executive Director at the IBM Center for the Business of Government Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Any natural disaster — be it hurricane, fire, earthquake of flood — has the potential to l disrupt communications. But for federal agencies and their field offices, it’s critical that they keep their lines of communication open so that they can serve their constituents. The challenge, according to Tony Bardo, assistant vice president for government solutions at Hughes, is that “most agency networks are not built with as much redundancy and resiliency as they need to be to survive a disaster.” Bardo explains that though critical sites, like data centers and office headquarters, are designed with alternate network paths, those pathways are most often terrestrial. This podcast is sponsored by Hughes. Guest: Tony Bardo, Assistant Vice President for Government Solutions, Hughes Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

The sharp uptick in successful cyber attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a stark reminder to government leaders that their existing security strategies still leave adversaries plenty of vulnerabilities to exploit. According to former White House security advisor Dan Prieto, cyber attackers continue to find new ways to capitalize on weak points in legacy infrastructure and virtual private networks (VPN), compromise email and insert malicious code into software supply chains. The increased pace and boldness of these attacks raises critical questions “about the metrics of what constitutes successful cyber security,” says Prieto. Sponsored by Google Cloud. Guest: Dan Prieto, head of cybersecurity strategy for Google Cloud Public Sector. Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Security in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

As agencies look to improve network performance and security, one approach that often gets overlooked involves converging the tools and data belonging to agency NOCs and SOCs — network operations centers and security operations centers. Years of entrenched operating practices, budgeting and acquisition authorities, and cultural dispositions have tended to drive network and security operations teams down separate, albeit closely related, technology lanes. That has often led agency NOCs and SOCs to acquire similar data analytic tools and generate similar data but for different purposes. Agencies would be better served — by being able to improve both network performance and security — if they converged those resources, say two industry chief technology officers. Sponsored by Riverbed. Guests: Marlin McFate, CTO, Public Sector and Vincent Berk, CTO and Chief Security Architect, Riverbed Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen

Google Cloud’s Gary Danoff shares the benefits agencies reap when they embrace virtual collaboration platforms and best-practices for those implementing hybrid-work strategies. Agencies adopted a variety of collaboration platforms over the last year, creating new connections between humans and technology that allow them to shift seamlessly between working virtually and working in-person. “I think government leaders should acknowledge that people are going to feel a little awkward about being able to come back to the office,” Gary Danoff explains. He says employees are looking for workplace structure that can help them return to a consistent way of collaborating with their team and virtual collaboration tools have a lot to offer. This podcast was produced by Scoop News Group and underwritten by Google Cloud. Guest: Gary Danoff, Global Head of Google Workspace, 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 and www.statescoop.com/listen

Federal, state and local governments are still adapting to the consequences of COVID-19. But what many of them have discovered is that in the face of growing citizen demands, shifting administration priorities and budget uncertainties, it’s still possible to adopt new technologies relatively quickly to deliver digital services. For Andrew Fairbanks, who leads a public sector team of more than 3,000 professionals for IBM Global Services, the ability for agencies to shift to new technologies was both remarkable and a testament to why agencies still need to modernize. “I think there are really three principal drivers that I see in this acceleration,” he says in this podcast, where he discusses the drivers behind agencies' IT modernization goals today. Guest: Andrew Fairbanks, Vice President, General Manager, IBM Services - Federal Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP, Content Strategy, Scoop News Group Look for more coverage of “IT Modernization in Government” on www.fedscoop.com/listen