Page 71 - Cyber Defense eMagazine December 2023

Replacing Aging IT Systems

Government agencies are under immense pressure to deliver on their missions regardless of today's
increasingly challenging cyber environment. Agency IT systems are experiencing more strain than ever,
and events such as changing federal regulations and the looming threat of a ransomware attack, often
require new tools and data storage and management solutions to support and protect mission-critical
functions.

To address the impact of aging legacy systems, agencies must focus on implementing the proper IT
modernization systems and migrate to modern, interoperable IT infrastructures. As IT leaders make these
shifts, they should seek technology solutions that best meet the needs of their agencies and stakeholders.
With many different solutions on the market, those that offer agile and flexible consumption models are
the most efficient and cost-effective as they allow agencies to scale up or down without massive
disruptions.

Consolidating Operations
Agencies often operate with a lean staff and need solutions that maximize productivity without
compromising cost and security. Federal IT leaders continue to look for the best ways to equip employees
with the right tools and technologies, but staffing issues persist, further deterring the push toward
modernization. Agencies should look to solutions that require less maintenance and can free up staff for
other mission-driving activities, along with continuing education and professional development.

One of the important ways IT teams can be more efficient in developing and delivering applications in
private and hybrid cloud environments is by consolidating a larger number of applications on fewer
storage systems. The ability to do this type of application consolidation and unlock its many benefits
means less management and maintenance with a faster return on investment.

By consolidating applications into a cloud-centric platform, agencies can reduce costs, lower risk, and
support a more integrated and interoperable infrastructure.

Investing in Cloud Services

With the pace of digital transformation, governments must streamline and accelerate technologies to
deploy integrated cloud, hybrid, and multicloud architectures and upgrade the legacy applications that
they rely on.

As technologies continue to evolve, agencies must ensure that they implement the most advanced IT
systems, including container-based applications, as they provide agencies with a complete data storage
infrastructure solution capable of delivering premier citizen services. Container applications give IT
development teams the tools to modernize their applications, as they can gain speed, agility, and scale,
while offering easy backup and restore and enhanced disaster recovery. This protects the entire
application, including data, application configuration, and container-based objects.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – December 2023 Edition 71
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