Intro 0:03
This podcast is brought to you by Presidio Federal and produced in collaboration with VMware and GovExec Studio 2G. The government workforce of the future is hybrid, and that means agencies need the latest technology to support their staff as they work to make the world better. Presidio Federal enables you with VMware’s cloud solutions and other advanced technologies built to meet your mission it needs. To find out more at www.presidiofederal.com.

Camille Tuutti 0:31
We’re in the midst of a large scale transformation in government, evolving needs driven by the pandemic, and a laundry list of other national and global events have put more pressure than ever for agencies to modernize their it. Today cloud is a tool that empowers transformation innovation, especially as as agencies optimize their hybrid workspaces in a post COVID world. But what will this cloud driven future actually look like? Introducing The Federal Cloud Forecast a podcast produced by GovExec in collaboration with VMware and Presidio Federal. It’s here we found out how cloud will impact the government of the future. I’m your host, Camille Tuutti. Joining me to discuss cloud adoption, IT modernization and the changing hybrid workforce is Robert Riegle. He’s the senior director of solutions engineering and sales at VMware. We’ll be delving into how agencies can overcome hurdles to cloud adoption and what tools and services can help them do so. Rob, thanks for being here.

Robert Riegle 0:31
Good morning, Camille, thank you for having me.

Camille Tuutti 1:44
Let’s begin by taking stock of the federal cloud landscape. Agencies have been working to adopt cloud for several years now. How far have they come? And how have the past two years changed the pace of adoption?

Robert Riegle 1:58
It’s a great place to start. Really, I don’t think anyone would have anticipated what the last two years would look like for any of us both personally, or certainly professionally. First, I would say the government is fully committed. And absolutely leaning in, in most cases, quite frankly, and some is leading a lot of cloud adoption efforts based on a lot of our customer conversations, executive briefings, and work we’re doing with our partner ecosystem, really, cloud and cloud services are a key cornerstone to many of the whole of government efforts, that agencies are making. Efforts to serve citizens better, be more globally collaborative, and finally, be very competitive with world events that are currently happening. I would say finally, that many agencies have moved on from the notion of just cloud as infrastructure. And now we’re looking at other services like desktop as a services, data services like artificial intelligence, machine learning, certainly zero trust principles. And of course, the remote worker security capabilities that have been needed much of the last two years,

Camille Tuutti 3:10
what challenges do agencies come up against as they seek to quickly move to the cloud while ensuring they’re appropriately mitigating risk?

Robert Riegle 3:19
I think what agencies have done, frankly, has taken a nice job of taking a step back, and much to the chagrin of industry where it might have taken a little longer, I think, the government has done a really nice job of looking at the principal tendencies that are needed to make cloud and cloud successful. Things like, again, the underlying zero trust principles, data labeling, and many of the efforts to upgrade bandwidth in some cases, so that services are available across their ecosystem. Where we’re seeing government agencies continue to evolve, and work on are, first of all, the acquisition side with contracts and the ability for agencies to consume services, linking business processes and cultural changes, so that the workforce, and many of the government historical processes and applications that are in use today can take advantage of the new services available by many of the cloud providers. And then finally, you’re really talking about a corporation the size and scale of which are really relatively uncomparable with many of the other large banks or what retailers. So size and scale is incredibly important for any of the agencies undertaking cloud opportunities. They need to be tested thoroughly and ensure they can be adopted by potentially millions of people.

Camille Tuutti 4:41
Let’s focus on multi-cloud specifically, what are the benefits and pitfalls there?

Robert Riegle 4:47
Well, I think we are evolving from this notion of multiple clouds to multi-cloud and there is a difference right. Multiple clouds meaning that you have multiple operational centers, operating those clouds. Multi-cloud means that there’s consistency in some clouds and cloud services. And I think the benefits inherently are just tremendous innovation and services available by many of the ecosystem cloud providers. I think services that would take anyone in business or government for many years to build and develop can now be consumed at a relatively quick pace. There’s also this notion of an evolving cost structure, where you would pay as you grow or pay as you use, which allows the taxpayers to get a better return on their investment in government. I think you’ll see just tremendous opportunity for competitive differentiation in the global landscape. And if you look at some of the world events taking place, today, we’re seeing how cloud and cloud technology can help provide not only government, but citizens access to the latest news and information, along with many other services that are really becoming key requirements for our daily lives. And then finally, we’re seeing that application diversity is driving cloud adoption and cloud choice. And so each of the cloud providers has done a really good job of building out an ecosystem and a marketplace that they can serve agencies with. And so agencies are looking at how can they utilize or consume those diverse applications. Some of the pitfalls that I think, Camille, we talked about, or that we’ve at least talk with agencies about, it’s really just still understanding the security footprint that exists and how to ensure consistent security policies and operational tactics. There are inconsistencies in the cloud, and how the cloud providers operate. And those operational inconsistencies can take agencies a long time to overcome. And then finally, there is a real worker skill gap. And that’s where I think agencies are still heavily relying on industry, like many of our partners like Presidio Federal, and others to help augment and provide the resources necessary to overcome those challenges. I think we’re seeing that evolution in VMware has kind of come out and really call our shot early on with this notion of multi-cloud, where you have multiple cloud providers in your ecosystem today. And I think that’s going to continue for many, many years as Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, IBM, they all have tremendous innovation that agencies and businesses want to take advantage of.

Camille Tuutti 7:35
As we continue to move towards a fully digital government, what should agencies consider when it comes to cloud adoption?

Robert Riegle 7:42
I think it’s important to realize that the government as a whole has done a really nice job of not just rushing in adopting something. And they’ve been very planful in things like, again, zero trust principles, data, labeling, the cultural pieces of how this is going to change, Citizen Services, and how we interact with other countries globally. And so I think those principles, it’s important that we build on those. And so some things agencies should consider that will help evolve. That effort, I think, is something like a common cloud abstraction layer. I think that’ll help speed up adoption, and enhance some of the zero trust capabilities that they’re already building in. Much like we’ve seen traditionally, in enterprise data centers with virtualization layer, that cloud abstraction layer can really help drive some of that operational consistency amongst clouds, I think we’re going to continue to see an agency’s consider continuing to evolve its hybrid cloud strategy, to really build the operational muscle required with different contract vehicles and how programs are built. But we’re going to think, for some time now see a combination or a hybrid approach to delivering services from the cloud and traditionally on premises. And that’s because of how the government operates today, with many of its military customers and intelligence community being disconnected or in a traditional tactical state. Finally, to really address this worker skill gap shortage, and I think that’s where you need to look at how does the government evolve some of its jobs program? Even things like military job code, right? Are we hiring our next generation of servicemen and women into technical fields like cybersecurity, and certainly cloud, multi-cloud cloud services to help, right the whole of government again, continuing to evolve.

Camille Tuutti 9:37
There’s no shortage of cloud providers. How is VMware uniquely positioned to help agencies take control of the cloud?

Robert Riegle 9:45
Thank you for the question. So first of all, I think VMware’s cloud platform offers a consistent approach across the cloud providers that enables agencies and government as a whole to really speed up the adoption of many of its cloud infrastructure applications and services that they need to again drive this digital government evolution. They’re working with many of our diverse set of ecosystem partners like the cloud providers, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, IBM, our traditional partners like Presidio Federal, Carahsoft, and many of the others. VMware is not only helping agencies, build, run, operate and prioritize the strategies, we’re also helping drive outcomes. And those outcomes are being tightly linked to cost savings, mission outcomes and deliverables. And then finally, building on sort of the next generation of hybrid cloud as the government evolves.

Camille Tuutti 10:44
I’m curious, what will that next generation cloud look like?

Robert Riegle 10:48
A few things that stand out. So first of all, I think I go back to what is cloud today, right cloud has evolved from being just a common set of enterprise or datacenter services into this tightly coupled linked set of rich applications and ecosystem partnerships that are enabling digital services like desktop as a service, artificial intelligence, many of the different zero trust principles that we’ve talked about, because workers are moving from home to their office, or they’re on the road or depending on the different cities they’re in. And I think cloud will enable those principles to continue. And whether you’re in the United States military, and you happen to be deployed overseas, in a tactical situation, or traditional Garrison situation, like one of your camps, posting stations here in the United States, those services, and the ability of the services to be available at any time, is critical to achieving the outcome. So I think the future of the cloud will be multi-cloud, I think it’ll have some type of operational consistency where you have the different cloud providers giving their services. And then you’ll have standards that evolve for things like, again, the software abstraction layer security. And actually, if you just take a quick step back from a security perspective, a decade ago, we were talking about many things like IP services, DNS DHCP snooping,d man in the middle attacks, right. And so the evolution of cyber and the cyber attacks, the sophistication that we’re seeing now using the application programmable interfaces, that’s going to evolve as well. And so the ability of the cloud to defend itself and to really be able to heal itself, self-healing, those tendencies are going to continue to evolve as we enrich the services the clouds provide.

Camille Tuutti 12:50
Thank you, Rob, for joining me and for your valuable insights. And thank you to our listeners of the Federal Cloud Forecast. This podcast is a production of GovExec in collaboration with VMware and Presidio Federal. If you liked this episode, you can find others like it on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, or Gospic sec.com/podcasts

Outro 13:12
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Federal Cloud Forecast brought to you by Presidio Federal in collaboration with VMware and GovExec Studio 2G. Today’s government is tasked with addressing an ever evolving set of challenges. Make sure your agency is equipped with the technology to keep up. Learn more about how Presidio federal can help you find the right technology for your agency at www.presidiofederal.com.