Best Practices for Cloud, IT and Digital Infrastructure Programs Across Government Agencies

Federal governments globally are evolving from a cloud-first policy to cloud-smart. This shift in approach allowed organizations to mature in their cloud journey, which increased the importance and need for the centralized IT cloud infrastructure program. A centralized cloud IT infrastructure program is a common operating model in federal public sector agencies and their service provides agencies and departments with crucial services in the broader cloud adoption and cloud operating journey. Serving agencies and departments as a technology partner is key from an infrastructure perspective, but there is a continued opportunity to serve as a business partner through the advisory lens. When measuring cloud IT infrastructure services, performance indicators and measures should be leveraged and monitored on an ongoing basis. The excellent or poor performance of a cloud IT infrastructure service directly impacts agencies and departments. Such cloud programs in the public sector position governments to be early adopters of innovations like AI, IoT, edge computing, and advanced data analytics. These innovations are almost always tied to clouds, data centers and AI foundational pillars as part of an organization’s digital business technology platform. As agencies embrace digital technologies and increase connectivity, both internally and externally, new vulnerabilities arise, exposing them to cyber threats. To mitigate these risks, cloud IT infrastructure programs must evolve alongside cloud adoption, implementing advanced security measures to stay ahead of emerging threats.