Modernization within the federal government is not an easily outlined set of instructions or a checklist that can be neatly completed. Rather, modernization is a mindset, says Google Public Sector’s Managing Director of Technology Aaron Weis, and government leaders must shift their perspectives in order to achieve it.
“I think up until now the government has been looking at cloud as an enabler in cloud capability. They viewed the cloud capability, though, through their legacy lens,” said Weis, a four-time Wash100 Award winner, in an exclusive video interview with Executive Mosaic.
“And what I mean when I say that is, the government asked for GovCloud, which is an air-gapped, separate cloud capability that different cloud service providers would stand up to give the government equivalent cloud capability, but not have it touch their commercial capability,” Weis explained.
“That’s a way of thinking about it that is sort of rooted in that legacy view, which is a way of thinking that says computing power is in data centers on servers and racks and computers and hard drives. That is, over the long term, a limiter for the government,” he added.
Zero trust has emerged in the last decade as a new way of thinking about cybersecurity that goes beyond the traditional model and provides better real-time security of devices, systems and networks. Weis noted that zero trust is giving the government an opportunity to rethink the way it secures data, applications and networks in the face of growing cyber threats.
“It no longer implies that they need to sort of live in a castle behind a moat of GovCloud, and now they get the advantage of using all of the massive compute and capability that exists commercially for cloud providers,” Weis said. “It’s a shift for the government in terms of the way that they think about that. It will be an enabler for the government in order to realize that zero trust dream.”
For more insights from Aaron Weis, watch his full video interview here. Want to know why Aaron is a Potomac Officers Club member? Watch what he has to say about his POC membership experience here.
