The Government Technology Insider Podcast

Defense and intelligence agencies are demystifying Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) and developing an understanding of what it is and how to integrate it within their organizations. With recent government mandates, it is important to understand the key principles of Zero Trust so that agencies can meet the mandates. By educating the workforce, the warfighters, and collaborating with other agencies, the defense and intelligence communities can be better prepared to deploy Zero Trust infrastructures. A key challenge is gaining clarity around how Zero Trust is different from older Defense in Depth strategies and using repeatable Zero Trust capability models for ongoing adoption. These were the key insights of a recent episode of the Government Technology Insider on Zero Trust and the federal government. In this episode on “Demystifying Zero Trust for the DoD and IC,” Wes Withrow, Public Sector Solutions Executive with Verizon; and Patrick Perry, Senior Director Strategic Initiatives DoD and IC Focused at Zscaler take the time to unpack the term and identify its central tenets.

Severe storms inflict widespread damage on everything in their path. From pinpoint damage done to homes and structures to large-scale disruptions caused by downed powerlines, the aftermath of a storm leaves communities with the monumental task of picking up the pieces. Making the process harder are many disaster response communication challenges, which require significant effort to overcome.Thankfully, the growing number of communities affected by server storms and other natural disasters are not alone. When dark clouds gather on the horizon, teams of emergency responders are waiting in the wings to help restore power and communications as soon as possible. However, those teams cannot rely on the regular communications infrastructure as they are repairing it. Disaster response is a collaborative effort between federal, state, and local governments and private sector partners.In the most recent installment of the Government Technology Insider Podcast, our team heard from Verizon Frontline Response Manager Tetoya Gibson and Client Partner Manager, Nieama Booker about the communications challenges first responders face and shared best practices for overcoming them. Both Tetoya and Niema play a crucial role in helping government organizations respond to disasters and bring a sense of normalcy back to the citizens in affected areas.

Through secure access and targeted slicing, the Department of Defense (DoD) can leverage private 4G/5G/CBRS wireless networks to support many different mission-critical use cases. These use cases can potentially include AR/VR surgical solutions for the Department of Veterans Affairs, foreign object detection at military airbases, flight line telemetry, as well as base perimeter security. Along these lines, the Defense Innovation Unit is undertaking a new prototyping project using private wireless networks for first responders in California, as well as for the California National Guard.As these use cases highlight, private networks can provide connectivity through a network owned and controlled by the organization that built it. In general, wireless offers more flexibility and can provide connectivity when agencies need high speed, reliability, and security within a base perimeter or on the battlefield.These are some of the key insights of the new podcast on Government Technology Insider. In this new episode – Supporting the Department of Defense’s Evolving Missions with Private Wireless Networks – Bryan Schromsky, Managing Partner, 5G Public Sector with Verizon, and Steve Vogelsang, CTO Nokia Federal, discuss what private networks are and the ways it can help improve mission readiness for the DoD.

Everyone will likely need to access a government website at some point in their life. The ability to ask for and receive essential government benefits and services online is convenient. However, to prevent identity theft and protect the personal information of constituents, agencies need a way to ensure that the users requesting access are actually who they say they are.Government agencies have implemented various methods to identify individuals to grant access to online information and services, which often hinge on matching personally identifiable information (PII) to information held by data brokers and credit bureaus. These methods have secured PII to some extent, but have come at a cost: sometimes, an identity cannot be verified, keeping someone from accessing the information and services they need.With an estimated 26 million credit-invisible Americans, and countless more whose information is recorded incorrectly, barriers to identity verification have an enormous impact on both affected individuals and the agencies that serve them. Even something as simple as a name change after marriage or a missed number in a birth date can keep someone from accessing healthcare, unemployment benefits, and other critical services.These were the key insights of the first part of Government Technology Insider’s “No Identity Left Behind” podcast with Wes Turbeville, Senior Vice President of Federal, and Mere Work, Director of SLED Sales at ID.me, who joined us to discuss why security and access in identify verification is so important and what barriers some users currently face.

At the recent 2022 Rocky Mountain Cyberspace Symposium (RMCS22), leaders from the Air Force met with industry to discuss how to support the nation’s airborne fighting force in an increasingly complex threat environment. Regardless of where the threat to U.S. national interests comes from, it is essential that the future for the Air Force remains agile and resilient at the network edge.The tactical-edge cloud will also play a significant role in achieving resilience for the Air Force. Other key technical investments for enhancing digital transformation will revolve around software-defined networking, Zero Trust, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, and much more.These were the key insights of the Government Technology Insider “The Future for the Air Force Depends on Agility and Resilience at the Edge” podcast with Heather Lacroix, President of Chronos Operations and General Manager of Chenega Technical Innovations; and David Reaves, Managing Client Partner, Department of Defense at Verizon.

A little over two years ago, many Americans went home on a regular Friday evening and shared with their family that they would likely need to make some space for a temporary home office. Little did many of them know that this transition to a remote workstation would last for nearly 800 days and counting. This fundamental change in how people work has created an entirely new cyber ecosystem that many in the IT industry have sought to empower. First came the remote desktop and teleconferencing solutions, then came the cloud and hybrid work, and now the industry is standing on the edge of the next great innovation: the multi-cloud.As a solution, multi-cloud provides choice, speed, and control to organizations and agencies that need to deliver applications wherever they are needed. But what exactly is the multi-cloud? What do federal agencies need to know about them? What role can they play in federal IT as it adapts to new executive orders, a disparate workforce, and tightening budgets?Government Technology Insider sought the answers to these questions and more from Trevor Patch, Enterprise Architect for Presidio Federal. Patch’s experience in the federal IT space has included work with many leading-edge products and solutions, including Dell Technologies, and has allowed him to see the evolution of the cloud firsthand.

Network as a Service (NaaS) makes government networks more agile and adaptable to changing circumstances at speed. In order to bring NaaS to life for government, there is a four step process, which is mapped out in this new three part podcast. For step three in the NaaS journey, the new management network systems will become flexible, reliable, secure, and cloud-centric in the final stages of an agency’s transformation journey. This shift allows for application performance monitoring and full IT service management. Finally, the agency will progress to a full integration of automation and end-to-end experience monitoring. The real-time innovation at the fourth stage enables agencies to act more proactively and less reactive. With complete versatility and full incorporation of wireless technology at scale, there will be a heightened focus on end-user experience enabled by IoT, AI, and ML. Managed network partners also help guide agencies along their NaaS transformation journey and to modernize their networks.In the third and final installment of this Government Technology Insider podcast series, Brett Barganz, Product Manager at Verizon, and Scott Andersen, Distinguished Solution Architect Verizon, discuss how agencies can go from step three to step four in their NaaS journeys.

Network as a Service (NaaS) makes government networks more agile and adaptable to changing circumstances at speed. In order to bring NaaS to life for government, there is a four-step process, which is mapped out in this new three-part podcast series. The second stage of the NaaS journey is about creating a roadmap for the progress that will come. Now that the systems are running as intended, the agency continues to increase its progress with greater visibility and automation. As such, agencies can move to a more dynamic, smarter partner-managed system that enables IT through an integrated approach to security. Here, organizations can gain visibility insight into network traffic analysis and API-based incident communication, provisioning and policy management. This will play into the third step, which will be to continue to focus on the managed network environment and what opportunities it will bring. In the second installment of this Government Technology Insider podcast series, Brett Barganz, Product Manager at Verizon, and Scott Andersen, Distinguished Solution Architect Verizon, discuss how agencies can go from step two to step three in their NaaS journeys.

Network as a Service (NaaS) makes government networks more agile and adaptable to changing circumstances at speed. In order to bring NaaS to life for government, there is a four-step process, which is mapped out in this new three-part podcast series. In the first stage of an agency’s transformation journey with NaaS, the networks are centralized and on-premises with rigid and physical resource-intensive networks. At step one in the transformation, the goal is to reduce the strain on IT staff and amplify IT management. This will help the network to perform efficiently and securely. Next, the agency will begin to progress towards greater visibility and automation.In the first installment of this Government Technology Insider podcast series, Brett Barganz, Product Manager at Verizon, and Scott Andersen, Distinguished Solution Architect Verizon, discuss how agencies can go from step one to step two in their NaaS journeys.

Modern data management systems and embracing a digital-first government are bolstering data security for federal agencies. The Biden Administration released an Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity last year with Zero Trust being a fundamental component. Agencies are discerning ways to implement Zero Trust throughout their current network infrastructure. With a data management system overseeing the network, agencies can secure their data against the many changing and evolving threats facing government IT. These were the key themes in the third part of our “Thinking with a Data-First Mentality in a Digital-First Government” podcast series, hosted on Government Technology Insider, where Dan Carroll, Field CTO for Cybersecurity at Dell Technologies US Federal – Office of the CTO, discussed this topic of bolstering data security and modern data management further.