Technically Speaking

State and local government CIOs are always looking for ways to be agile and innovative in the delivery of citizen services. Yet, developing digital initiatives and omni-channel experiences in response to constituent demand is a real challenge. Perpetual barriers to digital transformation like siloed systems and data, funding, and ongoing support for legacy systems all must be addressed. Low-code development can help, and many agencies are taking note.

On January 22, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a directive to government agencies in response to breaches of the Domain Name System (DNS). The attackers used stolen credentials to alter DNS entries and steal certificates used for encryption and decryption.

Public sector organizations generate huge volumes of log data each day from servers, virtualization infrastructure, databases, security systems, applications, and more. And, according to IDC, unstructured data is growing at an annual compound rate of 60%. But due to its unstructured nature, that data, often called machine data, is much harder to analyze than structured data.

There is always something new to learn in the world of information technology, and organizations must act fast to keep pace with the fast pace of change. But where should your agency spend its training dollars to upskill its talent to match your evolving technology strategy? DLT’s technology partner, Pluralsight, has the answer.

Technological innovations in the storage and computing capacity in the world of data has moved exponentially – especially in the healthcare space.  One of the most dramatic use cases is in the field of genomics.  As Andrea Norris, the CIO for NIH mentioned at a public sector Healthcare Summit on IT Modernization last week, technology has greatly increased the speed and lowered the costs associated with gene sequencing.  Originally, when the human genome project completed the task, it took around 13 years with funding around 2.1 billion dollars (the project was from 1990–2003)

2019 is off to a great start for anyone in the business of working with data in the public sector.  President Trump signed the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act on January 14th, and with it, the OPEN Government Data Act has finally become law.[1]