Why the FCC’s journey to the cloud is a model for modernization

In less than 20 months, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) successfully migrated 94% of its data center operations to cloud platforms. This ambitious undertaking, which also involved decommissioning and consolidating nearly 300 servers, highlights the federal government’s ongoing push to shed aging legacy systems in favor of more agile and secure cloud environments.

“Refreshing hardware wasn’t going to solve our deeper technology challenges,” FCC  Deputy CIO Don Tweedie explained in a recent FedScoop video interview panel, underwritten by AWS. The decision to pursue a full-scale cloud migration stemmed from a holistic assessment of the agency’s needs and weighing factors such as cost-effectiveness, scalability, and alignment with security controls and zero-trust architecture.

Another factor driving the FCC’s decision was the pervasive issue of “technical debt” within government agencies. Tweedie said that the FCC grappled with decade-old systems that were costly to maintain and increasingly challenging to secure.

Migrating to the cloud has allowed the FCC to consolidate and centralize systems, improve efficiency through cloud-native tools and foster agility for rapid innovation, he added.

“Instead of continuing to invest in the technology debt and have it reoccur with the physical infrastructure, which is very CapEx-heavy, we saw cloud as a more flexible and cost-efficient model,” said Tweedie. In addition, he says the cloud’s continuously updated security framework aligns seamlessly with federal compliance standards like FedRAMP.

Three aspects of the FCC’s migration journey distinguished it from similar cloud migrations, according to Mickey Iqbal, Director of Worldwide Public Sector Technologists at AWS: an aggressive timeline in dealing with complex legacy systems, a methodical approach to addressing technical debt and exemplary organization-wide change management. “The FCC’s ability to earn trust from application owners and stakeholders was really remarkable,” says Iqbal. “They very effectively communicated the benefits and managed concerns, which had a positive impact on this transition.”

Tweedie elaborated on the FCC’s planning process, which involved “opening up all the closet doors” to understand hidden dependencies and fragile workarounds within their legacy systems. He stressed the importance of repeated application rationalization. “We needed to understand the business services, and the technology and inflection points, and also the logic that went behind it,” says Tweedie. “That gave us the blueprint to move forward in a standardized fashion for delivery.”

As the FCC nears completion of its migration, Tweedie noted a significant shift in internal operations: the IT team has transitioned from a reactive support function to a proactive, strategic enabler.

Looking ahead, both Tweedie and Iqbal offered key lessons for other agencies. Tweedie advised starting small and delivering quick wins to build momentum for larger cloud initiatives. Meanwhile, Iqbal emphasized the importance of establishing cloud governance early, implementing clear security policies and embracing cloud-native operations quickly by leveraging tools like auto-scaling and DevSecOps practices. “The key takeaways for federal IT leaders listening to this are to plan thoroughly but also be prepared to adapt quickly to fully leverage cloud data capabilities,” says Iqbal.

Learn how AWS helps government agencies modernize and optimize mission delivery with cloud technology.

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