When the world’s leading business and government leaders met in Davos, Switzerland, in January for the annual World Economic Forum, two topics of great interest to the federal government’s IT sector were among the most hotly discussed – the speed with which technological change is rippling through society, changing citizen-government interactions, and the need for stronger data security, to protect citizens and governments alike from malicious actors.
Paul Appleby, executive vice president for worldwide sales and marketing with BMC, told the audience at the BMC Exchange Federal conference that Davos attendees believe “this industrial revolution is having a far greater impact than the previous [ones]. We have to shift to a new mode of thinking.”
Appleby said that it’s much more than just creating mobile apps; governments need to think about how to apply technology to change their operations in fundamental ways.
First, the government’s mindset has to change. “It’s how we think about the mission … how we think about delivering services,” to create new platforms for missions the government never could undertake before, he said. It also requires a fundamental shift in government systems and data architecture, to help harness the power of Big Data.
But there are roadblocks. Appleby said that 64% of agencies say they don’t have enough resources to maintain their current systems and develop or incorporate new digital services at the same time. Another 49% don’t have a comprehensive IT platform, he added.
This new approach has to be intuitive, because self-service is a key attribute; it has operate in real time; because of the hyperscale of data, it has to be automated; and it has to be trusted, robust, and secure, Appleby said.
A fundamental rethinking of government services that makes use of all that technology now has to offer leads to concerns about cybersecurity. Appleby said cybersecurity was a big topic of conversation at Davos.
He cited a joint survey of C-suite executives by BMC and Forbes in January which found that 44% of security breaches occur even though the exploited vulnerabilities – and how to remediate them – had already been identified. One-third of the executives said these problems persist in part because security and operations teams’ priorities are not in agreement.
“The number of devices being used in government agencies is also skyrocketing, which makes it impossible for administrators to effectively monitor the activity in their environment without network automation tools,” said Mav Turner, director of strategy, SolarWinds. “It is critical to implement real-time, automated network monitoring solutions that will alert and automatically response to potential problems when they arise so that vulnerabilities are taken care of immediately no matter what team is responsible.”
Additionally, automating patch management is crucial to address these and related shortcomings. “Because of the hyperscale and hyperspeed [of networks], the automation has to sit at the center” of operations, Appleby said.
