Key Challenges from the NASCIO’s 2023 State CIO Priorities

This year’s National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) State CIO Priorities is out, and, once again, vital insights have been gleaned regarding the key areas of focus for state technology leaders. Cybersecurity continues to dominate as the prime concern, maintaining its position at the forefront of the priority list. Digital government and digital services has held a firm second position for the fourth consecutive year, highlighting its continued importance in this digital age.

Click the tabs to learn about the NASCIO Top 10
Cybersecurity and Risk Management

Challenge: Organizations struggle to consistently and comprehensively secure different environments whether that be in the cloud, on-premises or the edge. In fact, 78% say traditional security solutions don’t work for cloud.

How we can help: Only F5 offers the comprehensive protection and consistent security you need to stay agile and resilient in a hybrid, multi-cloud digital world. Watch the video.

Digital Government / Digital Services

Challenge: Many organizations report difficulties with building apps and related app services closer to constituents.

How we can help: With F5, you can run and connect workloads and services at any location for controlled delivery of apps to consumers with the security and resilience that today’s modern infrastructure requires. Learn about our modern application delivery solutions.

Digital Government / Digital Services
Workforce

Challenge: It’s challenging to keep up with the high demand for skilled IT workers, especially in cybersecurity.

How we can help: F5 allows even smaller workforces to excel through automation tooling. Simplify configuration processes, unburden SecOps through ML-powered dynamic API discovery, suppress false positives to reduce unnecessary investigations, and automate malicious user detection. And with F5 managed services, you can count on ongoing support and in-house expertise—without up-front investments in infrastructure and technology. Learn more about our cost-efficient and flexible security managed service offerings.

Workforce
Legacy Modernization

Challenge: The legacy apps that states have relied on to support their goals and operations are now unable to support their business requirements.

How we can help: F5 solutions streamline app modernization efforts and reduce complexity by supporting rapid innovation, integrated security, and accelerated app deployments to help states improve agility, efficiency, and effectiveness, and keep pace with evolving constituent and employee demands. Learn more here.

Legacy Modernization
Identity and Access Management

Challenge: Demand for remote and hybrid work is driving an increased need for states to ensure that all employees have secure access to their networks.

How we can help: With F5 BIG-IP APM Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP), F5 ensures employees have secure access to apps with a fine-grained approach to user authentication and authorization. BIG-IP APM IAP enables a zero trust approach through per-request context-and identity-aware access. Learn how an Idaho Government Agency simplifies secure access to Microsoft Office 365 with F5 Solution here.

Identity and Access Management
Cloud Services

Challenge: Modern, microservices-based apps rely on distributed Kubernetes cluster services and APIs that traditional network design and infrastructure models don’t accommodate.

How we can help: Find out how the F5 Distributed Cloud Platform unifies cloud, data center, and edge to connect, protect, and run apps anywhere, regardless of which cloud services you rely on. Read more here.

Cloud Services
Consolidation/Optimization

Challenge: States are struggling to streamline and unify their security strategies in a way that reduces costs without compromising cybersecurity effectiveness.

How we can help: F5 security solutions work wherever and however you need them to—for legacy and modern apps, for data centers, for the cloud, and at the edge—in the architecture you have now, and with the flexibility to adapt as you modernize and thrive. Protect all your environments with a single, consistent solution. Learn more here.

Consolidation/Optimization
Data and Information Management

Challenge: The task of preserving the safety and privacy of sensitive data is becoming increasingly daunting.

How we can help: If you’re not inspecting SSL/TLS traffic, you’ll miss attacks and leave your organization vulnerable. F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator provides robust decryption/re-encryption and orchestration through dynamic service chaining and policy-based traffic steering across security tools. Learn more here.

Data and Information Management
Broadband / Wireless Connectivity

Challenge: States are struggling to keep up with the increased security demands of expanding rural broadband and deploying 5G, leading to increased risk for mobile users and devices.

How we can help: F5’s industry-leading 5G network security solutions provide end-to-end protection without compromising performance, securing legacy and modern applications from the end to the network backbone, and even into your Kubernetes clusters with service mesh while maintaining quality of experience. Learn more here.

Broadband / Wireless Connectivity
Customer Relationship Management

Challenge: Meeting constituents’ service expectations becomes more difficult as states move to more modern digital environments.

How we can help: F5 excels at securing and delivering apps in these modern environments, which helps our customers meet and exceed their customers' expectations. Learn the many ways F5 can help states here.

Customer Relationship Management