As federal, state, and local government-affiliated organizations provide a growing array of services, citizens also increasingly expect to receive these taxpayer-funded services in a timely and efficient manner. To boost service efficiency and citizen satisfaction, public sector organizations seek to digitally modernize programs and processes—and platform engineering is key to this crucial initiative.
Platform engineers manage the technology infrastructure and build internal platforms that deliver self-service tools and automated workflows to streamline the development and deployment of software. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 80% of software development organizations will have platform teams.1 Here are a handful of benefits strong platform engineering practices can provide to public sector organizations.
Modernize Infrastructure
Outdated and unreliable technology infrastructure can severely hamper even the most dedicated public sector employees in efficiently delivering services. Legacy infrastructure was the number-one barrier to cybersecurity, according to U.S. state-affiliated CISOs in 2022.2 Platform engineering can operationalize secure and reusable policies for developers to accelerate the migration to modern infrastructure, systems, and applications while mitigating security risks.
Improve Customer Experience
In December 2021, the Biden administration issued an executive order on transforming federal customer experience and service for Americans by focusing on their life experiences to foster trust in government.3 One goal of the order is to significantly reduce the over 9 billion hours of paperwork federal agencies impose upon the public.4 Platform engineering can help meet that goal by building services that developers use to more effectively integrate the on-premises, cloud, virtualized, and containerized environments of today’s public sector organizations. With integrated systems that auto-populate information from various sources, federal employees can reduce that tedious paperwork and deliver improved customer experiences.
Safeguard Operations
Ransomware is a scourge on public sector organizations and has become so prevalent for federal, state, and local governments that the FBI recently issued a bulletin stressing the severity of the threat.5 Platform engineering ensures that public sector software developers use ironclad bot defense protocols to significantly reduce the prevalence and potency of bot-led ransomware and cyberattacks. By mandating that public sector organizations utilize software that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to identify and thwart malicious bot traffic, platform engineering can enable citizens to reliably and securely receive goods and services from governmental entities.
Deliver Efficient and Secure Public Services with F5 and AWS
With F5 solutions, platform engineering can enhance AWS environments to build modern and secure applications and services for the public sector. F5 solutions deliver tremendous value to public sector platform engineering teams, including:
- F5 BIG-IP, which empowers public sector organizations to modernize their infrastructure by migrating to AWS while retaining the same level of security delivered on-premises and reducing costs and complexity
- F5 NGINX, which enables the reliable integrations of AWS environments to improve citizen experiences when receiving services from federal, state, or local entities
- F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense, which applies AI/ML to provide highly sophisticated data analysis to rapidly catch and prevent bot retooling before they can disrupt the delivery of public sector services
With F5 solutions, platform engineers can configure secure and reliable AWS cloud services to modernize public sector infrastructure, operations, and the citizen experience. With AWS-validated competencies in security, MSSP level-1, container, and networking, F5 solutions extend AWS native security capabilities to protect citizen information and deliver exceptional and efficient services.
Available in the AWS Marketplace, F5 solutions are fast to procure, easy to integrate into existing environments, and simple to manage. With flexible consumption models, F5 delivers faster time to value for public sector organizations.
Sources:
1 Gartner, What is Platform Engineering?, October 2022
2 National Association of State Chief Information Officers, 2022 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study, October 2022
3 The White House, Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government, December 2021
4 Ibid.
5 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ransomware Attacks Straining Local US Governments and Public Services, March 2022
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