The power of collaboration to improve federal data accessibility in the cloud

While the cloud promises a lot in terms of cost savings, scalability, high security and ability, government agencies may not feel like they are getting the full value of those benefits for their mission. One of the key challenges that large federal agencies face is making data accessible to a wide variety of authorized users so that they can aggregate that data in different ways.

In a recent panel discussion, AWS enterprise strategist Zak Kelly and Ventech Solutions CTO Steve Veneruso discuss how working together is helping to facilitate federal agencies’ implementation of modern capabilities like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mesh to federate and democratize data to authorized users.

Veneruso mentions Ventech’s work with one of the primary centers at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) to replace original network design and third-party vendors with native AWS services and better leverage these modern capabilities in addition to bringing significant cost savings for the agency.

Veneruso explains that even though the company has high-end network architects and engineers, AWS brings a different level of technical expertise to certain cloud projects given their deep level of experience on the platform. Being able to lean on AWS experts during key periods of a project “is how a transition could go off seamlessly and be extremely valuable to capture those savings much more quickly,” says Veneruso.

Kelly further explains how Ventech is leveraging an AWS machine learning technology — called Amazon SageMaker — to build the algorithms that solve real health sciences problems. That work is supported through a carefully constructed and intentional partnership with AWS to ensure all stakeholders get the most from their cloud environment.

Kelly says, “AWS makes sure that [our] contractor partner is empowered and has the most skills to do the best for their customer using AWS technologies. So partners are very important to help federal customers get the most from cloud, and help federal customers have the best choice of partners.”

Watch the full panel to hear more about improve data and image analysis with cloud. You can also hear more from other government leaders about driving cloud-first strategies in the public sector.

This video panel discussion was produced by Scoop News Group and FedScoop and underwritten by AWS.