Once upon a time, organizations had to host and manage all their physical computing equipment themselves to run necessary software applications and store data. That has completely changed: today, almost every organization in the world uses “the cloud,” a network of interconnected servers located in data centers worldwide that can be access via the Internet, to some extent. As a result, governments and businesses can outsource the management of physical servers without any loss in service or quality.
The cloud has thus become a powerful tool for those seeking to gain efficiencies and reduce costs.
The government of the United States knows it too: that’s why it launched its “Cloud First” initiative (subsequently rebranded as “Cloud Smart”). As the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer writes, “The Cloud Smart Strategy encourages agencies to think of cloud as an array of solutions that offer many capabilities and management options to enhance mission and service delivery.”
Some key benefits of the cloud include:
- Cost Savings: The cloud eliminates storage and labor costs associated with physical records.
- Flexibility: Organizations can adjust their cloud deployment as much as needed, when needed.
- Mobility: Anywhere, anytime, any device accessibility maximizes the ability to staff to complete tasks.
- Disaster Recovery: The cloud ensures off-site backups of key records.
- Insight: Organizations can start to get a better view of where their records live and how they are used.
The cloud also helps organizations to meet emerging challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic itself stands as a prime example because the cloud is what enabled organizations everywhere to let staff work remotely.
In fact, it’s where the cloud wasn’t used that government agencies ran into problems.
In a review of the state of federal agency compliance with FOIA requests in 2021, four out of every five respondents indicated that any failures or delays in meeting FOIA obligations resulted from an inability to access paper records due to office closures. In some cases, even electronic records were not accessible remotely, often because they weren’t cloud accessible.
This is how the cloud makes daily operations smoother and faster: by delivering instant access to every document in the organization. In fact, with cloud-based records management, searching for records requires only the time it takes to punch in a file number or perform a simple search and hit enter.
However, not all cloud environments – and not all the technology platforms built on them – are equal. For example, the FOIA compliance review also found that some technology platforms weren’t equal to the demands being placed on them. A few respondents had comments like:
- “Remote technology isn’t always able to handle the large quantity of records to sort and store for review.”
- “Staff [have] inferior technology and office set-ups at home”
- “Some large files are unable to be loaded and transferred without physical media”
Ultimately, the cloud can soar only when it’s built on a rock-solid foundation that incorporates each agency’s unique use-case needs and goals. In other words, the technology deployment matters.
Particularly for government agencies and organizations that deal in sensitive, proprietary, or even classified records, it’s critical to find a technology that works with clouds that have been built to meet rigorous certification and credentialing. For example, AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a FEDRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) certified entity that offers a specialized GovCloud platform to leverage industry leading security practices and certifications for use by federal agencies and institutions.
Ultimately, equipped with the right technology leveraging the right cloud environment, government agencies can access the extensive capabilities needed to better meet their mission-critical objectives with more flexibility and at lower cost – all while reducing the in-house IT burden.
When faced with competing (and confusing) service options and a long list of security and compliance concerns, PSL’s TransAccess GovCloud Records streamlines the process. As a certified AWS Partner who also maintains our own cutting-edge private, public and hybrid clouds, we can architect, build, and deploy a right-sized custom cloud to meet any need, budget and timeline. By launching a perfectly tailored solution, PSL will put your users on Cloud Nine.
About PSL
PSL is a global outsource provider whose mission is to provide solutions that facilitate the movement of business-critical information between and among government agencies, business enterprises, and their partners. For more information, please visit or email info@penielsolutions.com.