Technically Speaking

Federal agencies are developing and releasing software and apps at a rapid speed. This haste comes at a price. Verizon reports that nearly 70% of the data breaches it investigated in 2019 were due to attackers targeting vulnerabilities in public-facing web applications. It also introduces compliance risk.

Cloud native is transforming how the public sector builds and runs applications bringing agility, flexibility, scalability, and decreased downtime and cost. The de facto foundation of cloud native application development is Kubernetes. But getting started with Kubernetes isn’t as simple as it appears. While it’s relatively uncomplicated to spin up a cluster in the cloud, getting from there to production is a bit more daunting.

With the general election approximately 113 days away, there are mounting concerns about what will occur on Nov 3rd, 2020! Election officials face an extensive array of new cybersecurity threats arising from voting remotely to election officials working from home on unsecured systems leaving delicate data exposed to hackers. Before this health crisis, Congress approved $380 million in grant funds through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

In my blog earlier this year, I sat down with Ben Chicoski from CloudBees to discuss the importance of their technology in the federal government, the work they’re doing in the SDLC, and the role they play in DLT’s Secure Software Factory.  Today, I am very excited to share a conversation I recently had with Larry Johnsen, VP of Sales for the Military/Aerospace/Government Solutions verticals at Parasoft.

In previous years you would have ventured to our nation’s Capital to take part in the AWS Public Sector Summit. This year’s event – as you could imagine – was a virtual experience. Although I and my fellow DLT colleagues wished we could have been there in person, we really enjoyed our time at this year’s Summit. Much like what has been the theme of 2020, AWS had to adapt and innovate to these unprecedented times. They certainly rose to the occasion and put together a unique and valuable experience for their attendees.

Before reading this month's Thought Light interview, we invite you to read about BMC's multi/hybrid cloud initiatives for federal government, click here.    What is BMC and how does it help the public sector?