Category: Thought Leadership

Serverless applications are typically discreet pieces of code that customers can use to manage security-related processes or stitch together multiple AWS services to solve a larger problem. They allow customers to build and run applications and services without dealing with infrastructure management tasks such as server or cluster provisioning, patching, operating system maintenance, and capacity provisioning. In this blog, I explain the serverless computing model, the Serverless Application Repository (SAR), solution constructs and implementations, why they matter to our government customers, and how they can use them to solve common problems.

We’re in the midst of the information age and the Internet of Things (IoT) is at the center. What is IoT? It describes the billions of devices around the world that are connected to the internet, devices that can capture and analyze data and then perform an action based on that analysis. Whether it is an emerging IoT device, an innovative solution pivot, or a tried-and-true IoT application, a few things remain constant: we can look to leading examples from smart cities and healthcare to understand current and future uses and securely deploying and managing devices is an absolute must.

Innovative healthcare technology puts patients at the center of care. Solutions that let patients stay in control of their care are transforming and defining modern healthcare. Let’s look at three health technology organizations who have built patient-centric, cloud solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS), paving a new way for healthcare to be delivered.

From speeding the time to science to accelerating the delivery of critical citizen services, our customers are migrating to the AWS Cloud to successfully deliver on their missions. Our current environment has pushed us all into new ways of learning, working, and even socializing. And the cloud has made these recent changes and innovations possible. These customer examples can offer a playbook and inspiration for how organizations can leverage the cloud to innovate quickly and deliver on behalf of citizens.

Due to COVID-19, schools quickly shifted to remote education to meet students’ needs and wrap up the school year. But with a new school year upon us and social distancing measures still in place, many classes will not gather in traditional classroom settings. Millions of students are now learning in their homes. And public sector leaders are creating new models to ensure learning is sustainable and accessible to all. These changes certainly carry their own set of challenges, but they also open new possibilities for the coming school year. Check out examples of how the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred important solutions to existing problems from primary school to higher education, and how the cloud has opened up new possibilities for educators and students as they start the new school year.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the National Science Foundation. It engages in large-scale Earth system science research projects in collaboration with the broader university community. NCAR hosts visitors from around the world, develops community models including the Community Earth System Model and the Weather Research and Forecasting Model, and maintains supercomputers, observational systems, and aircraft to support further study on the how the planet works. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative, we invited Dr. David John Gagne, machine learning (ML) scientist at NCAR, to share how open data and machine learning on AWS are impacting the way we predict and understand extreme weather.

You’ve made the decision to migrate to the cloud and are ready to initiate the adoption process, but where do you begin? What foundational elements are necessary to ensure your cloud adoption is successful and sustainable? These are important questions to consider as state and local governments are increasingly turning to the cloud amid tighter IT budgets and shrinking revenues. However, cloud adoption is more than simply shifting from one technology to another. It involves transforming an entire business into a more agile, responsive, and innovative organization. There are many physical, environmental, and human elements that need to be considered and aligned to pave the way for real innovation. Take these steps to start building the foundation needed for successful and transformational cloud adoption.

Research computing has come a long way from the mainframes of the 1960s. At the recent Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) conference, I noted four emerging themes that underscore how the field continues to evolve.

Novel challenges require novel solutions. To address the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector organizations are holding virtual hackathons to solve problems that arise from the virus and its effects on society. Hackathons #WirVsVirus in Germany, Hack the Crisis in Sweden, and #EUvsVirus brought together thousands of stakeholders to brainstorm and create innovative solutions using technology and cloud computing to address the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. Attendees at these virtual events worked to find solutions for problems like faster diagnosis of COVID-19 and connecting food with those in need. From technical mentorship to AWS Promotional Credit and providing access to technologies like AI, AWS supported these hackathons, their participants, and their solutions.

Governments are sharing their technology solutions with other governments through open source tools. These tools are helping state, local, and federal governments respond quicker, and at the scale needed, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one of the challenges governments face is finding out what open source tools are available. To help public sector customers use open source tools better, AWS launched Open Government Solutions, which aggregates open source projects and assets from public sector entities around the globe for governments at all levels to find, adapt, and reuse. During a panel conversation around the launch, government leaders outlined five key reasons why governments are choosing open source technologies to deliver citizen services.