If I asked you which cloud provider had the most experience running Microsoft applications, would you know the answer? You might be surprised. Customers have been running Microsoft Workloads on AWS since 2008 – two years before Microsoft Azure became commercially available. We work in an industry that can sometimes become clouded with competitive statements that can confuse customers and introduce doubt into the decision-making process, but the facts are clear: Windows is truly a first-class citizen on AWS. 

Earlier this month, we sat down with Larry Bowles, chief of cloud platforms at Red River to discuss how Red River is helping the public sector accelerate their cloud transformation with multi- and hybrid-cloud solutions. Delivering cloud-agnostic solutions, Red River can help public sector organizations transition to the cloud no matter where they are in the transformation. Read the interview to learn more about how Larry and Red River are helping the public sector—and even learn about their five cloud superpowers! 

In previous years you would have ventured to our nation’s Capital to take part in the AWS Public Sector Summit. This year’s event – as you could imagine – was a virtual experience. Although I and my fellow DLT colleagues wished we could have been there in person, we really enjoyed our time at this year’s Summit. Much like what has been the theme of 2020, AWS had to adapt and innovate to these unprecedented times. They certainly rose to the occasion and put together a unique and valuable experience for their attendees.

The delivery of technology, solutions, and services through the cloud brings a wealth of opportunities for the public sector. But for many of our channel partners, helping their government customers achieve their mission objectives via cloud services can be complex and challenging. And this can compromise business growth and profitability.

That’s why we created DLT Cloud Navigator™.

In less than two weeks the DLT team will be attending the annual AWS Public Sector Summit. Like other high-profile gatherings forced to adapt to the ongoing remote lifestyle, this year’s summit will be virtual. Even as a digital experience, I don’t expect this year’s event to be any less impactful.

It has been 10 years since the U.S. government began warming to cloud computing, beginning with the federal Cloud First initiative in 2010 leading to today’s Cloud Smart strategy – a game plan for bringing processes and applications into a new hardware environment.

But to take advantage full advantage of a cloud-driven ecosystem, the government must have more than just a cloud strategy. Agencies also need a data strategy.

What is a cloud data strategy?

Hot off the heels of last week’s Amazon Web Services re:Invent conference, we sat down with DLT’s Chief Technology Officer, David Blankenhorn, to discuss the current state of the Cloud and what drivers will fuel more innovation and adoption for the U.S. public sector in 2020.

There have been a few big agenda items for the cloud community to digest this year – what is the current state of U.S. public sector cloud adoption and usage?

Every year, thousands of cloud enthusiasts, vendors and partners gather in Las Vegas for a week of learning and networking (and maybe a little downtime), all in the name of Amazon Web Services (AWS). This year was no different, and in excess of 65,000 people descended upon Las Vegas for the 8^th annual AWS re:Invent conference: an event that continues to get better, and certainly bigger, every year.

Although cloud adoption in government is growing, it can be a challenging technology to envision. Many cloud deployments don’t go as planned, take longer than expected to implement, or fail completely. In the private sector, studies suggest that 74% of those organizations that move an application to the cloud moved it back into their own infrastructure.