The entire public sector has been affected by technology’s rapid advancement over the past few years, a fact hard for anyone to deny. From the immediate switch to remote work in March 2020 to the addition of a wide array of innovative products and services to address cybersecurity and evolving needs, federal agencies are streamlining dated processes, breaking down silos, and increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Even though the pace at which IT has developed has been exciting and beneficial, some organizations are struggling to keep up. The fast pace of change is providing the impetus for IT leaders to focus on how they can help their users adapt to new tools and mitigate the crushing costs of constant advancement.
With the arrival of new technologies bringing better solutions and contributing to mission success, agencies need to either replace old technologies or incorporate new ones into the current network. Because IT tends to be siloed in public sector organizations, agencies need to purchase multiple licenses for each entity. In a recent interview, Arthur Bradway, solutions architect at SolarWinds, explained how an agency with multiple base locations might require various licenses for each system location within the network. The cost and complexity of adding several licenses to the technology is prohibitive when budgets are tight and employees are working at capacity.
Just as technology has evolved, the way organizations can purchase tech has changed, too. For example, flexible licensing can help organizations manage the costs and complexity of deploying new technology.
“Flexible licensing means you can have one group of licenses with a thousand nodes and break those up into individual, separate instances without having to buy each respective instance,” Kevin Davalos, technical solutions engineer for SolarWinds, explained during the same interview with Bradway. With flexible licensing, organizations can purchase one bulk license they can divide up however they like to manage and track licenses more effectively. This method alleviates problems for agencies, making it easier to manage contracts, renew contracts, and secure applications.
Flexible licensing enables organizations and agencies to better manage their networks and stacks, and IT management is essential to securing critical data. The implementation of technologies incurs costs and complications, but once they’re implemented, agencies also struggle with monitoring their various IT infrastructures.
As hybrid cloud rapidly replaces single-cloud infrastructure, agencies seek new tools and resources to monitor data dispersed in multi-cloud atmospheres. Some agencies are turning to hybrid cloud observability, which is built to give them a holistic view of their network and monitor all of it within one platform. In the past, a system with multiple entities would have difficulty monitoring its vast IT network. Now, it’s feasible to have eyes on everything—as well as alerts when issues are detected—with the adoption of single platforms providing a complete view.
Technology advances in recent years have reshaped how agencies and organizations work and what’s needed to support them in a hyperconnected world. In addition to the immediate benefits, flexible licensing also creates a new baseline for adopting and integrating new technology like 5G. The evolution of technology doesn’t appear to be slowing any time soon, as better services and processes continue to be demanded. To succeed and grow in today’s fast-paced environment, flexibility is the key.
Learn more about some of the new solutions benefiting agencies and organizations here.
