Government Solutions Forum: Intelligent Automation for the Cloud

Today I will be live blogging at the Cisco Government Solutions Forum.

I just attended my third session of the day, titled, the Intelligent Automation for the Cloud, which was part of the Unified Data Center & the Cloud track. Sidney Morgan, Distinguished Engineer, Cisco, gave a remarkable presentation about cloud technology. Data centers have been a hot topic in government, based on the current administrations “cloud first” strategy. One interesting point made by Sidney is that the number of data centers you need depends on your business model. Sidney asked a question that everyone in government is challenged with – how do you continue to be innovative with limited and decreasing funding? It was interesting to listen to Sidney’s presentation, as he was talking more about the internal strategy at Cisco for cloud. There were many parallels that could be made to government.

Sidney also talked about the need for the workforce to adopt and deploy cloud; this is critical because once this happens- employees understand the value that IT can bring. Sidney mentioned that much of the move towards virtualization was made due to capacity. Resiliency was another motivation to move to the cloud environment. A final point that Sidney presented is the need for integration through business processes. A challenge that Sidney mentioned that is similar to government is that many applications where not developed to for a cloud environment.

Sidney gave a really interesting presentation, and I was impressed by his knowledge on everything cloud related. There are dozens of really interesting applications for the cloud in government. One that stands out is the movement away from siloed information, importance of sharing knowledge, cost structures for cloud and data center consolidation are complex, standardization is key for government.

Key Take-Aways from Session:

• Cisco been working to virtualize data centers for years
• Cisco has about 90 data centers, looking to save costs, optimize
• Costs are in operations when you move to the cloud
• IT Challenges – funding, impact on business, pressure towards innovation and growth
• As you automate, silo environment does not work anymore
• Sidney predicts that apps are going to be demanded anywhere, anytime by consumers – and need the proper security measures
• Standardization is critical to IT
• Self service is really important to the success of data centers and virtualization
• Still lots of work to be done, but moving in the right track for virtualization

Sidney gave a lot of interesting examples of how Cisco has moved to the cloud and how it is impacting business processes within Cisco. Sidney also gave a great overview of Cisco CITEIS and related key features.

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The Government Solutions Forum is set up to be educational and interactive for participants. At GSF, Cisco and industry leaders will identify best practices how public sector agencies are effectively leveraging technology to improve operational efficiency, enable workforce productivity, and deliver measurable results. As we know, these three elements are something that public sector professionals are challenged with daily, and technology can be used to help combat the related operational and institutional hurdles that public agencies face.

Throughout the event, you can follow on Twitter and get program updates by searching #ciscogsf.

The Government Solutions Forum has four tracks:

• Mobile Collaboration
• Unified Data Center & The Cloud
• Cutting Cost of Government
• Managing Risk in a Dynamic Network Environment

For more than 25 years, governments around the world have partnered with Cisco to address challenges and achieve strategic objectives. By working closely with government leaders like you, we glean insights that cultivate thought leadership and help us design, execute, and test solutions based on best practices and our partner ecosystem. These ongoing relationships have forged thousands of proven implementations across a variety of public sector organizations, providing continuous innovation in how communities are managed and renewed.. Check out the Technology Sub-Community of which they are a council member.