Government systems must be sustainable, secure and cost effective for mission achievement

Government services are more than a utility—they help citizens better manage their lives and thrive in a modern society. The key to delivering high-quality citizen services is continuous innovation, unhindered by legacy technology challenges linked to cost, time and efficiency loss. According to NASCIO, 63 percent of state chief information officers noted a challenge in implementing and delivering digital services to citizens.

The combination of data growth, changes in application types, new technologies, and the need to move faster is driving a critical need for agility across federal, state and local agencies. Yet organizations continue to face pressure to get more done with less energy, less time and reduced costs.

As agencies look to drive continuous innovation that enhances citizen services, reduces overall data center footprint and operating costs, and strengthens security for personal citizen data with advanced analytics, they can benefit from implementing a comprehensive data protection strategy.

By implementing customized, agile storage solutions, agencies can tackle the growth of unstructured data without compromising performance and cost savings. A unified approach to IT modernization backed by powerful machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) security capabilities can future-proof agility and resilience.

Making sustainable investments
Government agencies at all levels are facing increasing pressure to make technology choices with sustainability in mind—being more thoughtful about their energy use and impact on the environment. Eighty-four percent of state and local government leaders noted their organization has some sort of sustainability goal, and 67 percent said digitization will play a key role in meeting it, according to new research.

Although often overlooked, data storage represents a significant source of potential savings. Data centers currently account for one percent of global electricity consumption today. The World Economic Forum estimates that digitization generated four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 alone, however, if brought to scale, digital technologies could reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2050.

Eighty-six percent of sustainability program managers agree they cannot reach sustainability goals without significantly reducing their technology infrastructure energy usage. Data centers are just one example where progress is critical. As the nation’s largest energy consumer, the government must elevate the energy performance of data centers in the march toward zero-carbon goals.

By investing in systems that prioritize energy savings and sustainability, agencies can reduce power and space, lower operational costs and lessen e-waste—all on the way to net-zero carbon emissions. Advanced IT systems can provide agencies with premier, cost-effective plans, and eliminate inefficient power usage without storage trade-offs.

Looming ransomware threats
The growing complexity and sophistication of the current threat landscape has made cybersecurity incidents a matter of when, not if. According to IDC, more than 90 percent of organizations acknowledge being attacked by malware, and of those, 87 percent were attacked successfully.

As cybercriminals continue to mature in their technical prowess, including the use of cutting-edge advancements in AI, agencies require the ability to control uncertainty to truly mitigate the risk and impact of a ransomware incident, but not at the cost of continuous innovation.

Federal, state and local agencies are doing mission-critical work that demands powerful solutions that are easy to upgrade without disruption or downtime. Agencies must select systems that include a comprehensive data protection strategy backed by a guaranteed recovery environment and powerful AI- and ML-based security capabilities, to not only future-proof agility and resilience but to speed recovery after an attack.

Prioritizing cost effectiveness
While it’s essential for agencies at all levels to invest in solutions that prioritize sustainability and ransomware protection, they should not have to sacrifice cost to access such resources.

Government data continues to grow at a monumental rate. It is unsustainable for large-capacity, price-sensitive workloads leveraging legacy and disk-based storage solutions that are ill-equipped to manage growing demand while maintaining competitive cost structures.

As inflation and interest rates rise, IT budgets shrink, and it can be difficult to invest in future improvements when the present is caught up in capital expenses. New advancements in federal, state and local technology solutions prioritize efficiency, performance and security, which will allow agencies to unlock even more value and scalability while driving ongoing savings with unified, efficient management.

The most advantageous data platforms allow agencies to optimize investments by being able to closely match expenses to resource use. Agencies should invest in storage solutions with the flexibility to help them control budgets as needs grow and change.

Investing in personalized solutions
An agency’s mission is to deliver high-quality, time-sensitive and secure services. Investing in customized systems can help agencies drive sustainability initiatives, protect against ransomware and implement cost savings.

Agencies can transform citizen services by investing in innovative and sustainable solutions; simplifying data management to improve time to value and total cost of ownership; and modernizing for improved performance, scalability, reliability and security. The result is citizen services that run faster, more reliably and more securely than ever, and that continue to improve each day.

Michael Wiseman is the vice president, public sector, Pure Storage, leading the sales team responsible for state, local and education customers in the United States. In his current role, Wiseman is responsible for developing a team to enable the transformation of how public sector customers protect, serve and educate their constituents by leveraging technology to connect, innovate and lead. Prior to joining Pure Storage, Wiseman spent 17 years at Cisco.