mLogica Thought Leaders: Enabling a Hybrid Cloud Environment in the Public Sector

Public sector agencies are in a bind when it comes to technology. Constrained by tight budgets, strict oversight and compliance mandates, they also serve enormous and diverse client bases, often numbering in the millions. What’s more, as public entities, they face harsh scrutiny and risk serious repercussions if their technology fails. So how can federal, state and local agencies level up their technology to meet the changing needs of their client bases while staying on budget and ensuring they meet stringent data security and reporting requirements?

The very criticality of public sector agencies is part of the problem. As the sole providers of vital services to local, state and federal constituencies, they’ve have been around for decades—and their decades-old technology can no longer keep up. According to the 2024 Ernst & Young (EY) Government and Public Sector Federal, State and Local Trends survey, 95% of government agency leaders surveyed say that over the next five years, they plan to invest in emerging technologies, with 53% prioritizing cloud networks.

But, EY points out, “Government agency leaders surveyed also overwhelmingly agree infrastructure is important for resilience against cyber-attacks (91%), as a majority (63%) are worried about data breaches, and (62%) are concerned their agency is not prepared for a breach.” The bottom line? EY U.S. Government and Public Sector Federal Leader Stacy Lindsay makes it clears that public sector modernization must address what she calls “the triple threat of legacy IT systems, siloed operations and a lack of skilled talent.”

So how do public sector organizations, including those charged with vital national security, leverage cloud scalability and agility while ensuring top-level data resilience and protection? The hybrid cloud model, which blends private and public cloud features with on-premise infrastructure, allows government agencies to bridge the gap between compliance and agility, offering a secure platform to deliver innovative services while complying with regulatory mandates. This allows applications to run in both public and private clouds, as well as on-premise data centers, so agencies can easily compartmentalize and secure sensitive data on-premise while leveraging cloud-based storage for less-sensitive information.

With agencies at all levels operating under strict government and public scrutiny, compliance and data security are critical. The hybrid cloud data storage model makes it possible to strike a balance between operational agility and compliance, ensuring that data resilience and security cannot be compromised as agencies take advantage of powerful cloud technologies.

It’s even possible to add another layer of protection and compartmentalization by securing cloud-based data in a hyper-resilient database management system specifically engineered for the cloud, which can then be deployed on the agency’s choice of platform, from AWS to Oracle, Google Cloud Platform, Azure and more. A good example of such a cloud-agnostic, hyper-resilient database is CockroachDB. Not only does such a standalone cloud database enable agencies to keep critical information compartmentalized, it ensures that even if the cloud system faces issues, data remains secure and continuously available.

Cost optimization is one of the most critical aspects of running a public sector organization. Agencies at all levels are under constant pressure to deliver comprehensive services while adhering to tight budgets. The hybrid model solves this by combining on-premise infrastructure with cost-friendly features intrinsic to cloud platforms, such as their “pay as you go” pricing model, dynamic scalability and optimized resource allocation, ensuring efficient use of public funds.

A hybrid cloud solution also means public agencies can save money on unused resources. For example, you can track usage trends of non-production environments that don’t run throughout the entire day and schedule resources, as required, to avoid waste during off time. In fact, some cloud vendors offer substantial discounts on certain deployment models, which can save agencies even more. Thus, by strategically running applications and workloads on both on-premise and cloud environments, public sector organizations can optimize costs without compromising either performance or security.

While legacy systems represent a growing challenge due to their high maintenance, licensing and staffing costs, plus their lack of scalability and adaptability, many organizations are still hesitant to commit to a total mainframe modernization. Opting for a hybrid model offers a practical, cost-effective solution that allows them to leverage much-needed cloud technologies and efficiencies while still retaining select functions on the mainframe.

With a hybrid solution, cloud and on-premise legacy systems can interoperate in one another’s environments, preserving what’s needed or required of the existing system while allowing agencies to more easily test and build out new functionalities. Specialized, proven legacy solutions, like mLogica’s highly automated LIBER*M Mainframe Modernization Suite, can help reduce risk, costs and time-consuming human error rates many organizations face when modernizing all or part of their legacy environments.

Public sector organizations have historically produced a huge volume of vital data that, when stored in legacy systems, becomes siloed and difficult to access on demand. They also need to take in large amounts of information to provide timely, targeted services—yet they lack the leading-edge technology needed to process skyrocketing volumes of data generated by traditional sources as well as the internet, devices, social media and more.

By contrast, cloud-native data analytics tools can ingest and efficiently store enormous volumes of diverse data to provide fast access and timely insights into key events and historical trends. This allows agencies at all levels to exploit incoming information to optimize service delivery, enhance user experiences and respond fast to developing issues of public safety, transportation, health care and more.

Mainframes, while stable, have a monolithic architecture that’s resistant to innovation. By contrast, cloud platforms offer powerful tools that allow public sector agencies to develop more user-friendly applications and integrate new functionalities while delivering a seamless user experience.

The emergence of hybrid cloud models has revolutionized the way public sector organizations can deliver services. By combining both cloud and on-premise computing, a hybrid cloud environment offers greater scalability and adaptability while providing millions of users with an increasing array of innovative, easily accessible services.

However, enabling a hybrid cloud environment requires a comprehensive, expert strategy encompassing infrastructure assessment, development of data management and governance policies, cost optimization and leading-edge security. By leveraging an expert mLogica modernization team and implementing a holistic approach, federal, state and local agencies can harness the power of hybrid environments to gain the benefits of cloud technologies while retaining control of on-premise applications and data.