The advent of the Biden administration brings new priorities for improving digital technology and infrastructure that the government uses.
Cybersecurity continues to remain a vital concern and is a primary reason the administration is emphasizing the modernization of IT infrastructure.
This will have a profound impact on budgets, staffing and technologies.
The administration’s top priorities
The Biden administration is spearheading a renewed effort and increased investments in tech infrastructure, tools and the workforce: areas that are critical for delivering modern and secure citizen services, data and networks.
Recent announcements have highlighted the administration’s direction and overall funding requests. The administration believes IT modernization efforts will help to accelerate delivery of enhanced digital services.
On March 11, 2021, Biden signed the America Rescue Plan that includes $1B for the Technology Modernization Fund—a 3900% increase over the $25 million the Fund received in 2020. The money will be used to fund large-scale, enterprise-wide IT modernization efforts across some or all federal agencies.
In addition, in a January 14 transition fact sheet, the president called on Congress to change the Fund’s reimbursement structure to “fund more innovative and impactful projects” since the current reimbursement requirements hinder the number and quality of proposals.
Biden’s plan also calls for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security to receive $650 million to “bolster cybersecurity across federal civilian networks and support the piloting of new shared security and cloud computing services.” This would be in addition to the $2B already appropriated for CISA in 2021.
The role of industry
The Alliance for Digital Innovation, a leading technology advocacy organization comprised of a number of forward-looking technology companies recently released its 2021 priorities for action for the incoming Biden administration and Congress.
This is a set of legislative and policy proposals that will help the government build a robust foundation for long-term digital transformation.
The recommendations include three pillars which encompass a broad range of IT needs:
- Fix the way the government acquires and uses technology solutions. Many of the current processes and legacy solutions are outdated.
- Secure federal networks, data and information. The recent Solarwinds incident was an indication of the need to secure IT assets as insider and outsider threats rapidly increase. The shift to telework during the pandemic will have a lasting impact and increase pressure to improve cybersecurity throughout a distributed workforce.
- Create a strong foundation for the future of IT modernization. This includes modernizing service delivery, empowering the federal IT workforce and improving the performance of IT spending.
Bringing government and industry together
Government agencies will need highly responsive, trustworthy support from skilled IT teams with a deep understanding of both security and regulatory requirements for their infrastructure.
Since so many of the government’s citizen services, data and networks live on the cloud, secure cloud technology will be a critical piece of the government’s IT modernization effort.
SAP NS2 provides government organizations within the DoD, intelligence and civilian agencies secure cloud hosting and software support for SAP products, along with NS2 Mission and cyber defense products.
Products are FedRAMP®-moderate and DoD IL4 compliant. All SAP NS2 cloud solutions are managed on US soil and are built to achieve the most stringent security compliance standards.
Does your agency need assistance with navigating its digital transformation? Contact SAP NS2 to find out how we can help.
