Federal agencies looking to accelerate modernization of their information technology systems should not overlook a seemingly basic step. “The first thing that you...
Federal agencies looking to accelerate modernization of their information technology systems should not overlook a seemingly basic step.
“The first thing that you should do is look at your portfolio, specifically your application portfolio, and rationalize it,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst for the online publications SiliconANGLE and theCube. “One of the big problems that most IT organizations have, whether it’s commercial or government, is they never get rid of stuff.” Old applications and other IT detritus add friction to modernizing, and it all contributes to technical debt, he added.
Vellante said a good way to approach application rationalizing starts with identifying the keepers, “those applications that are driving value to the organization.” An obvious indication of value is simply how widely the application is used. Conversely, you can ask, what would happen “if [an application] disappeared tomorrow? How bad would that be?”
Obvious as app rationalization might seem, it requires bold leadership, said John Furrier, the founder and editor in chief of SiliconANGLE and theCube. That leadership must “identify the big bets that need to be made,” Furrier said. “As technology shifts, you’ve got to balance existing legacy technology, and then refactor for a future platform.”
Those “bets” include how to use of multiple commercial cloud computing services while consolidating other suppliers of technology components, such as development environments and databases.
“A lot of organizations are looking at how they can consolidate those redundant capabilities, and how they can potentially standardize on a single vendor that can do multiple things,” Vellante said. Doing so takes strong governance. And, “you’ve got to have a developer environment that can potentially work across multiple clouds,” he said.
He added that open application programming interfaces (APIs) “can allow for better integration across an ecosystem, and open entries into and exits from a particular platform.” Such a capability can help “futureproof” an agency’s systems.
Data presents a recurring challenge for agencies trying to modernize their applications, if only because data generated by a retired application might still be needed by its replacement or another application altogether in the digital services era.
“Data now is the linchpin of all technology operations,” Furrier said. “If you don’t have a good data strategy, or a data strategy at all, then you’re going to be behind.”
He said such a strategy is inescapable.
“The big thing for the agencies that minimize their operational risk while expanding the innovation strategy,” Furrier said, “is mission critical data, application data, all data that they would need for developers.” Future applications will run on data and compute infrastructures marked by what he called higher-level cloud services like containers and Kubernetes.
Vellante added that while organizations will want to break down the so-called silos of data associated with each application, they won’t necessarily want to establish a single data platform.
“Different types of data platforms are better for certain things,” he said. “And you don’t want to try to stretch your data platform too thin. You want to architect the data strategy.” Think of data sets, he added, as “accessible nodes on a mesh, versus thinking about shoving everything into a giant, single data platform.”
With respect to modernization, government sometimes gets knocked for being slow to adopt new technology. Vellante pointed out one area in which the military is ahead of industry in capability. He named artificial intelligence “inferencing at the edge, where you don’t necessarily have internet connectivity” and with limited compute power.
“I think there’s a huge opportunity for disruption at the edge,” he said.
But Vellante cautioned agencies, “You really want to understand how your cloud partner and the associated data partners that you might be working with and technology partners, how they’re approaching the edge,” Vellante said. “You don’t want to create yet another silo at the edge.” Instead, ensure replication of the operational experience whether in the cloud, in an agency facility, or in an edge facility.
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Founder, co-CEO and Editor-in-Chief, SiliconANGLE and theCube
Chief Analyst, SiliconANGLE and theCUBE
Host, The Federal Drive, Federal News Network
Founder, co-CEO and Editor-in-Chief, SiliconANGLE and theCube
John Furrier is founder, co-CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of SiliconANGLE Media, a new media company covering the intersection of computer science and social science. Furrier's vision is of a future that uses technology and data to create quality content and user experiences while creating and growing quality communities. Simply put: To extract the signal from the noise! Our motto: we cover everything "where Computer Science meets Social Science". Furrier lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife and four children.
Chief Analyst, SiliconANGLE and theCUBE
David Vellante is co-CEO of SiliconANGLE Media, as well as co-founder and Chief Analyst of The Wikibon Project, the world’s leading open source IT research community. Dave is a long-time tech industry analyst, entrepreneur, writer and speaker. He is co-host of theCUBE – “The ESPN of Tech.” He is also a co-founder of Crowdspots, an angel funded startup based in Palo Alto using big data techniques to extract business value from social data. Prior to these exploits Dave ran a CIO consultancy and spent a decade growing and managing IDC’s largest business unit. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and four children where he serves as the President of his town’s local “Kiddie Sports” association. Dave holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Union College.
Host, The Federal Drive, Federal News Network
Tom Temin has been the host of the Federal Drive since 2006 and has been reporting on technology markets for more than 30 years. Prior to joining Federal News Network, Tom was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines. Tom also contributes a regular column on government information technology.