<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title>Public Sector</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/</link><description>Public Sector</description><atom:link href="https://cloudblog.withgoogle.com/topics/public-sector/rss/" rel="self"></atom:link><language>en</language><lastBuildDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2021 08:00:00 -0000</lastBuildDate><image><url>https://gweb-cloudblog-publish.appspot.com/topics/public-sector/static/blog/images/google.a51985becaa6.png</url><title>Public Sector</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/</link></image><item><title>Cloud-ready in Under 30 Days: accelerate safe and efficient Cloud onboarding with guardrails from Google Cloud</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/cloud-ready-under-30-days-accelerate-safe-and-efficient-cloud-onboarding-guardrails-google-cloud/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt; During the pandemic, governments have needed to move quickly to respond to the changing world around them, while striving for continuity of services. However, when solutions are slow to come online, the delays put valuable resources and data at risk. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; For this very reason, the Government of Canada (GC) set &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails" target="_blank"&gt;guardrails&lt;/a&gt; for government organizations utilizing cloud services for their workloads. These standards are an essential part of data security for organizations looking to host infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS), or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) workloads in the cloud.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; To help agencies adhere to these Government of Canada standards, we’re proud to announce that we’ve developed &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails" target="_blank"&gt;a GC Cloud Guardrails solution&lt;/a&gt; based on OSS technology and the new &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/management-tools/cloud-metadata-inventory-service-helps-manage-assets"&gt;Asset Inventory API&lt;/a&gt; as well as &lt;a href="https://www.openpolicyagent.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Open Policy Agent&lt;/a&gt; controls. The solution includes 12 guardrails to help government agencies move to the cloud in the GC-specified 30-day period (or less upon receipt of an enrollment under the GC Cloud Services Agreement). The guardrails help ensure everything is in place before onboarding begins, including implementing a preliminary baseline set of controls within cloud-based environments and providing data validation tools.   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The three guardrails covered here reference the most rigorous security for data location, data at rest, and data in transit. We’ve taken these standards and made them simple and quick to implement. Each guardrail plays an important part in keeping Canada’s data sovereign, and we’ve added extra considerations to help the process be as efficient and consistent as possible.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Keeping your data solely in Canada&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; On September 14, we &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/google-cloud-toronto-region-now-open"&gt;launched a new Google Cloud Region&lt;/a&gt; in Toronto to augment &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/gcp-arrives-in-canada-with-launch-of-montreal-region"&gt;the existing Montreal region&lt;/a&gt;, and ensure Canadian data stays in Canada. The &lt;a href="https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=32603" target="_blank"&gt;Canadian Directive on Service and Digital&lt;/a&gt; states Government of Canada organizations have a responsibility for “ensuring computing facilities located within the geographic boundaries of Canada or the premises of a Government of Canada department located abroad, such as a diplomatic or consular mission, be identified and evaluated as a principal delivery option for all sensitive electronic information and data under government control that has been categorized as Protected B, Protected C, or as Classified.” These standards will keep Canadian data in Canada and make up &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails/blob/master/EN/05_Data-Location.md" target="_blank"&gt;GC Cloud Guardrail #5&lt;/a&gt;. The latest Google Cloud data center in Toronto meets all these requirements. All regulated industries across the provinces can use it, and we follow strict data tagging policies to ensure data is only stored and moved through approved geographic locations. We’ve also added data location and &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/resource-manager/docs/tags/tags-overview"&gt;tagging tools&lt;/a&gt; designed to accelerate the process of setting and managing data location. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Default protection for data at rest &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; For public sector organizations, data at rest is often more valuable to malicious actors than data in transit. This is the case for many reasons, but one of the most common is that data at rest is where vast databases of identifying or highly classified information sit untouched for long periods of time. For this reason, &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails/blob/master/EN/06_Protect-Data-at-Rest.md" target="_blank"&gt;GC Cloud Guardrail #6&lt;/a&gt; helps government organizations keep all data at rest protected and encrypted by default, without any action from the customer, using one or more encryption mechanisms. We’ve made&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption/default-encryption"&gt;high levels of encryption the default for data at rest&lt;/a&gt;, while still giving you the flexibility to choose your encryption.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Extra protection for data in transit &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Data at rest may often be more valuable, but data in transit can be more vulnerable because data is at a higher risk of hijacking by malicious actors while it is moving across networks. Calling data to and from Google Cloud needs to be as secure a process as possible, and &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails/blob/master/EN/07_Protect-Data-in-Transit.md" target="_blank"&gt;GC Cloud Guardrail #7&lt;/a&gt; helps ensure this happens by making Communications Security Established (CSE)-approved &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/how-google-protects-your-data-in-transit"&gt;encryption the default&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unencrypted data-in-transit is one of the biggest security blunders any organization can make. One of the key parts of this guardrail is to ensure that never happens to you. Google Cloud uses CSE-approved cryptographic algorithms and protocols, meeting or exceeding Canadian security standards and simplifying selecting encryption for our users. We also encrypt all access to cloud services. That means every possible path your data can take from point A to point B is fully protected. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Up and running within 30 days &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Although it’s called the 30-Day Guardrail process, several Canadian Government departments using Google Cloud have deployed the guardrails and passed the approvals process in a matter of days. To minimize downtime, we designed the validation process to be as speedy as possible with our &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails-gcp" target="_blank"&gt;Guardrails data validation tools&lt;/a&gt;. Approval of the guardrails is needed before using Google Cloud, and we know delays can cost time, money, and put security at risk. The 30-day process minimizes all of these and helps you get onboarding fast. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Ready when you are, Canada&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;GC Cloud guardrails are crucial to the continued protection of Canadian data and help ensure data stays solely within Canada, eliminate &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/application-development/protecting-your-kubernetes-deployments-policy-controller"&gt;configuration drift&lt;/a&gt; with meticulous tracking, and minimize the risk of valuable data being stolen. We’re committed to making sure that vital protection is maintained. We’re ready for you, and you aren’t alone. Dozens of organizations have already gone through the guardrails process for Google Cloud, and we’ve even created a community for users to share their stories on our &lt;a href="https://www.pubsecconnect.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Public Sector Connect&lt;/a&gt; page. &lt;/p&gt;For more information on the complete list of our (12) guardrails and how Google Cloud is helping Canada migrate to the cloud, visit our &lt;a href="https://github.com/canada-ca/cloud-guardrails-gcp" target="_blank"&gt;GitHub page&lt;/a&gt;, or contact us at canada-pubsec-ce@google.com.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/cloud-ready-under-30-days-accelerate-safe-and-efficient-cloud-onboarding-guardrails-google-cloud/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Public Sector</category><media:content url="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Cloud-ready_in_Under_30_Days_hero.max-600x600.png" width="540" height="540"></media:content><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Cloud-ready in Under 30 Days: accelerate safe and efficient Cloud onboarding with guardrails from Google Cloud</title><description>Chris Carty, Public Sector Customer Engineer, dives into how Google Cloud keeps data secure and inside Canada with the addition of our new Toronto region now online, making it available for all Government of Canada organizations.</description><image>https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Cloud-ready_in_Under_30_Days_hero.max-600x600.png</image><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/cloud-ready-under-30-days-accelerate-safe-and-efficient-cloud-onboarding-guardrails-google-cloud/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Chris Carty</name><title>Public Sector Customer Engineer, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Making public services more accessible with AI-powered translations from Google Cloud</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/making-public-services-more-accessible-with-ai-based-translations/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;b&gt;Editor’s note&lt;/b&gt;: This article has originally been published on our German &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/de/topics/offentlicher-sektor/barrierefreie-verwaltungen-mit-ki-basierten-ubersetzungen-von-google-cloud"&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Imagine you’ve done your due diligence for your upcoming trip to the local authority office. You’ve filled out the relevant forms, booked the appointment, found the correct points of contact. But, as much as you’ve prepared, there’s one aspect of your visit you can’t control: you and the clerks don’t speak the same language.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In science-fiction, this wouldn’t be a problem. Star Trek has the universal translator. In Douglas Adams’ novel &lt;i&gt;The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy&lt;/i&gt;, there’s the telepathic Babel Fish, which enables everyone to understand everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here at Google Cloud, we’ve turned these future visions into reality. Without the need for telepathy or sci-fi, we use AI-powered translation technology. With smart translations, done almost in real-time, we’ve created a new, more agile way of communicating. In our webinar &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/google-cloud-ki-basierte-ubersetzungstechnologie?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q1-emea-digitalconference-operational-er-TranslationAI_DACH_Speigel&amp;amp;utm_content=pswebki" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;i&gt;How Google Cloud’s AI-based translation technology drives innovation and overcomes language barriers&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, we’ll introduce you to our AI solution that will make multilingual interactions in public administrations easier than ever before. We’ll show you a simple translation app we’ve created for a common use case, and explain how you can use this solution in the day-to-day work of public officialdom to overcome language barriers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Creating equal opportunities with AI&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here at Google, we’ve been pursuing our mission of organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful for more than 20 years. In the world we’re helping to create, language barriers will be a thing of the past. Fairness and respect take center stage in our vision of communication. That’s why our AI-enabled communication technology is tailored to use cases where language barriers currently put some at a disadvantage. We’ve made these technologies as user-friendly as possible to help administrative bodies easily integrate them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;From optimizing the models to point-and-click data science with &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/automl"&gt;AutoML&lt;/a&gt;, our fully managed end-to-end AI platform is suitable for users of all proficiency levels. It consists of three fundamental components:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Prebuilt APIs&lt;/b&gt;: With our prebuilt APIs, continuously refined by us, you don’t need training data to get going. They’re available for image, video, language, conversational, and structured data.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Custom AI with AutoML&lt;/b&gt;: With AutoML, you can develop first-class AI models without writing a single line of code.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;End-to-end AI with core tools&lt;/b&gt;: With your developers and our core tools, you can create fully customizable AI models tailored to your needs. We’ll support you every step of the way, from choosing the right cloud infrastructure to your solution’s implementation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Spotlight: Cloud technology and data protection&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meeting EU data protection requirements is a top priority for us, as well as our customers. Our maxim has always been &lt;i&gt;your data belongs to you - and no one else&lt;/i&gt;. Your data is fully protected, and encrypted during both storage and transport. We have our data protection measures audited regularly too according to international norms and standards, such as ISO 27018 and BSI C5:2020. You can find out more about our security model &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/privacy"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To illustrate the power of our intuitive and secure AI solution, we’ll explain in the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/google-cloud-ki-basierte-ubersetzungstechnologie?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q1-emea-digitalconference-operational-er-TranslationAI_DACH_Speigel&amp;amp;utm_content=pswebki" target="_blank"&gt;webinar&lt;/a&gt; how public administrations can use our application to communicate with citizens in their preferred languages and remove barriers in oral and written communication. The webinar is conducted by Dominik Steiner, Sales Engineer, Public Sector at Google Cloud: “I have two children who grow up bilingual, so I know the issue of language barriers very well,” explains Steiner.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;A multinational trip to the authorities&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Language barriers are not uncommon. In our multinational world, there’s more than one official language, and our AI-powered translation technology helps meet the needs of increasingly international populations. In the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/google-cloud-ki-basierte-ubersetzungstechnologie?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q1-emea-digitalconference-operational-er-TranslationAI_DACH_Speigel&amp;amp;utm_content=pswebki" target="_blank"&gt;live demo&lt;/a&gt;, we’ll walk you through a multilingual trip to the authorities, for which we used our Google Cloud AI platform to build a simple tool that directly translates verbal speech to facilitate communication between multiple parties. For some agencies, this can be a legal requirement. According to the Online Access Act, for example, EU-wide eIDAS trust services need to be clear and accessible to all EU citizens.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To make it work, we use a simple architecture based on &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/appengine"&gt;App Engine&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/storage"&gt;Cloud Storage&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/logging"&gt;Cloud Logging&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/iap?hl=de"&gt;Identity-Aware Proxies&lt;/a&gt;. Each request, meaning a voice recording in any given language, is forwarded to App Engine via an Identity-Aware Proxy. Meanwhile, the recording is transferred to Cloud Storage, and Cloud Logging is involved for traceability. Next, the APIs &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text"&gt;Speech-to-Text&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/translate"&gt;Cloud Translation&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech"&gt;Text-to-Speech&lt;/a&gt; do their thing. Speech-to-Text converts the voice recording into text, which is translated into any number of languages by Cloud Translation, and then turned back into speech. Together, the three APIs help all speakers communicate with each other in their preferred languages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In practice, this solution enables conversations in any number of languages, which are fully customizable. This technology is particularly helpful for public administrations, state or federal agencies, or migration offices. You can tailor the app’s user interface according to your corporate guidelines and integrate it on your website or into tools, such as AI-powered chat or phone bots.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can sign up for the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/google-cloud-ki-basierte-ubersetzungstechnologie?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q1-emea-digitalconference-operational-er-TranslationAI_DACH_Speigel&amp;amp;utm_content=pswebki" target="_blank"&gt;webinar&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/contact"&gt;contact us&lt;/a&gt; if you need any help or want to find out more about our Google Cloud solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2021 16:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/making-public-services-more-accessible-with-ai-based-translations/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><category>Identity &amp; Security</category><category>Google Cloud</category><category>AI &amp; Machine Learning</category><media:content url="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/telecom.max-600x600.jpg" width="540" height="540"></media:content><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Making public services more accessible with AI-powered translations from Google Cloud</title><description>We explain, with practical use cases, how public administrations can use AI translation technology to overcome language barriers.</description><image>https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/telecom.max-600x600.jpg</image><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/making-public-services-more-accessible-with-ai-based-translations/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Dominik Steiner</name><title>Sales Engineer, Infrastructure Modernization, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>New Google poll: Cloud enables research to continue despite pandemic delays</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-poll-cloud-enables-research-continue-despite-pandemic-delays/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all industries over the last year-and-a-half, and research institutions were no exception. In fact, making advancements in medicine and science became an even more urgent priority. Many private sector and government agencies around the globe turned to the cloud to help their remote employee base stay connected and collaborate with cloud tools like chat, video, large file sharing, live document editing, and more. But some scientific research still requires face-to-face collaboration in a lab environment. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is why we wanted to dig deeper to understand how COVID may have impacted the progress researchers have been making in various critical fields, including medical research, geophysics, climate science, chemistry, computer engineering and more. We commissioned &lt;a href="https://theharrispoll.com/" target="_blank"&gt;the Harris Poll&lt;/a&gt; to explore how the pandemic may have impacted academic researchers around the world. The study surveyed 1,591 respondents across the &lt;b&gt;United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia.&lt;/b&gt; All were employed in either a private or government lab, medical center, or PhD-level program. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here are the four main takeaways: &lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Researchers across all 12 countries and age groups are struggling to manage their workloads without face-to-face interaction.&lt;/b&gt;The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on productivity, especially in terms of innovation and collaboration. Globally, 67% of researchers reported making less progress in 2020 due to the pandemic. Eighty-five percent of respondents said they struggled to innovate effectively, and 77% said they struggled to test, compute, and collaborate effectively while working remotely. This was true across all types of institutions surveyed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The pandemic accelerated the demand for collaboration and communication tools–both cloud-based and virtual–for the majority of researchers.&lt;/b&gt;An overwhelming majority of researchers (98%) said the pandemic accelerated their need for cloud-based tools. More specifically, they cited the “lack of collaboration tools to replace face-to-face meetings” as one of their biggest challenges. Due to this demand, and despite the lack of tools, the use of virtual collaboration and communication tools increased significantly. Respondents indicated that virtual meetings increased 91% and chat use increased 62% globally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Usage of all disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), increased substantially during the pandemic.&lt;/b&gt; The vast majority of those surveyed (96%) reported increased usage of at least one of the following tools: cloud, data and analytics, digital productivity tools, or AI / ML. Of those, the cloud saw the largest increase in usage during the pandemic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Globally, more than half of researchers surveyed anticipate an increased investment in cloud solutions due to the COVID-19 crisis.&lt;/b&gt; Sixty-one percent of researchers reported that their institutions were “not very” or “not at all” prepared for COVID conditions, though those already using the cloud were best prepared. More than 93% of researchers across all work environments agree that COVID-19 has deepened the current and future needs for cloud computing in their organizations. Just over half (52%) of respondents believe their organizations will increase their investment in cloud technologies in the next 12 months. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Survey data also reveal some differences among institutions and regions. For example, researchers employed by private laboratories were more likely than those in other types of research facilities to report an increased use of cloud. Regionally, organizations in Colombia, the U.S., and Australia were the most likely to increase their investment in cloud solutions. Overall, the survey revealed the dramatic impact of the pandemic on research and researchers everywhere, though it also documents how cloud-based tools and strategies helped organizations adapt.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With new SARS-CoV-2 variants making in-person work more difficult, there are number of actions research facilities–private or government-funded–can take in order to continue their important research:&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Scale as needed.&lt;/b&gt; Cloud technologies can help research institutions implement a support-at-scale model under rapidly changing conditions. Flexible cloud infrastructures make data more accessible and secure so researchers can work together from anywhere, at any scale.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Leverage AI / ML.&lt;/b&gt; As the use of AI / ML tools for scientific research increases, research centers need to ensure the quality, safety, and efficiency of their workloads. Cloud provides a platform to quickly build and deliver modern applications and other connected experiences for clinical trials, research studies, patient care, and more. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Optimize data.&lt;/b&gt;As academic research centers expand and incorporate new sources of data across multiple clouds, the task of consolidating this data and information becomes a challenge. Cloud technologies enable researchers to break down data silos to gain insight across all teams and ensure a consistent data experience on a fully managed infrastructure.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Maximize ROI.&lt;/b&gt;Securing funding is not easy. In fact, 44% of respondents said funding decreased or was redirected during the pandemic. By processing documents and data quickly and securely, cloud-enabled automation tools help institutions increase the speed of decision-making, reduce costs of data entry, and accelerate discoveries.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;To learn more about these findings and more, download our &lt;a href="https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/covid_impact_on_researchers.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;infographic&lt;/a&gt;. To ramp up your own research project with Google Cloud, &lt;a href="https://edu.google.com/programs/credits/research/?modal_active=none" target="_blank"&gt;apply&lt;/a&gt; now for free credits in select countries. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Research methodology: The survey was conducted online and by phone by the Harris Poll on behalf of Google Cloud, from April 22, 2021 to May 17, 2021, among 1,591 researchers in academic laboratories/medical centers, government laboratories, private sector laboratories, colleges/universities, or hospitals/health care systems. Researchers were based in the United States (n=501), Canada (n=100), Mexico (n=100), Colombia (n=100), Argentina (n=100), Brazil (n=77), France (n=105), Spain (n=100), Germany (n=102), UK (n=100), Singapore (n=100), Australia (n=105), and have to have been employed in lab or hospital/medical center or be a PhD student at least one year into program, and work as a researcher or be a decision maker for research facilities.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Tue, 05 Oct 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-poll-cloud-enables-research-continue-despite-pandemic-delays/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Research</category><category>COVID-19</category><category>Cloud ML Engine</category><category>Public Sector</category><media:content url="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Research_Institutions_Turned_to_the_Cloud_Du.max-600x600.png" width="540" height="540"></media:content><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>New Google poll: Cloud enables research to continue despite pandemic delays</title><description>Google engaged the Harris Poll to determine</description><image>https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Research_Institutions_Turned_to_the_Cloud_Du.max-600x600.png</image><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-poll-cloud-enables-research-continue-despite-pandemic-delays/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Steven Butschi</name><title>Head of Education</title><department>Google Cloud</department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Accelerating biomedical research with Terra and Google Cloud</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/accelerating-biomedical-research-terra-and-google-cloud/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we think about biology, data is not always the first thing that comes to mind. But in reality, biology is one of the most fascinating data challenges of our time, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of understanding, organizing, and using this information. Over the past few years, significant advances in biomedical research have come to life with the emergence of better and more cost-effective tools. Cloud technologies, such as those offered by &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/"&gt;Google Cloud&lt;/a&gt;, provide computational resources capable of analyzing massive amounts of biomedical information at unprecedented speed, lower cost, and with democratized access to the leading tools. In a cloud environment, you don’t need to own a data center to do research at a global scale. Today, the use of cloud-based tools enables analyses across petabytes of biomedical data to identify patterns and markers for disease predisposition, prediction, and causality. These analyses help healthcare providers understand and treat disease, drug developers develop new therapies, and research investigators tackle big problems in science. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Bringing together engineering, biomedical science, and the research community&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For years &lt;a href="https://verily.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Verily&lt;/a&gt; and the &lt;a href="https://www.broadinstitute.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Broad Institute&lt;/a&gt; have been working with partners to enable the next generation of collaborative biomedical research and to raise the bar for health data analysis around the world - &lt;a href="https://terra.bio/" target="_blank"&gt;Terra&lt;/a&gt; is a result of this work. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Terra is a secure, scalable, open-source platform for biomedical researchers to access data, run analysis tools and collaborate. The cloud-based platform is co-developed by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Microsoft, and Verily - an Alphabet company, with the goal of accelerating biomedical innovation. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Across Alphabet, there are ongoing efforts to bring AI/ML and cloud computing to tackle hard problems in the life sciences, and Terra on Google Cloud combines the best of both AI/ML and cloud. Thousands of researchers actively use Terra every month to analyze data from diverse research programs to accelerate biomedical innovation. These programs include the NIH &lt;a href="https://allofus.nih.gov/" target="_blank"&gt;All of Us Research Program&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href="https://www.humancellatlas.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Human Cell Atlas&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href="https://anvilproject.org/" target="_blank"&gt;NHGRI AnVIL&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href="https://biodatacatalyst.nhlbi.nih.gov/" target="_blank"&gt;NHLBI BioData Catalyst&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href="https://datascience.cancer.gov/data-commons/cloud-resources" target="_blank"&gt;NCI Cloud Resources&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Accelerating biomedicine with Terra&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A central tenet to Google’s DNA is open-source collaboration, and biomedical research is no different. We know that science doesn't happen in a vacuum, so we build our tools to enable global scale collaboration across industry, academia, and government. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Accelerating Medicine Partnership in Parkinson’s Disease (AMP PD)&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 2018, through the &lt;a href="https://www.fnih.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Foundation for the NIH (FNIH)&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://amp-pd.org/about" target="_blank"&gt;an AMP partnership&lt;/a&gt; was launched for Parkinson’s disease between the NIH, the FDA, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, a number of leading pharmaceutical companies, and Verily. A critical component of the work under this partnership is &lt;a href="https://edu.google.com/why-google/case-studies/nih-amp/" target="_blank"&gt;providing the biomedical community with open access to the data and analyses&lt;/a&gt;. Terra enables collaboration across the program, &lt;a href="https://amp-pd.org/harmonized-clinical-assessments" target="_blank"&gt;harmonizing data from seven different clinical studies&lt;/a&gt; with different protocols, policies, and institutions. The collaboration brings together data from over 10,000 participants with various harmonized multi-omic read-outs, including whole genome sequencing, RNAseq, and curated longitudinal clinical data on most participants. The platform is also being used for the &lt;a href="https://parkinsonsroadmap.org/gp2/" target="_blank"&gt;Global Parkinson's Genetic Program&lt;/a&gt; (GP2), which provides complementary data on genetic associations in diverse populations on a biobank scale. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The NIH All of Us Research Program aims to enable thousands of studies on a wide range of diseases and is driven by the belief that diversity is key to accelerating health research and a better understanding of health disparities. The program brings together &lt;a href="https://www.researchallofus.org/data-tools/data-snapshots/" target="_blank"&gt;over 100 institutions across more than 350 clinical sites with over 378,000 (and counting) participants&lt;/a&gt;. Program data is available to approved researchers via the Researcher Workbench, which is powered by Terra on Google Cloud. This workbench helps researchers learn more about the health impact of individual differences in biology, lifestyle, and environment in order to advance precision diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Verily’s Baseline Health Study&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Through Alphabet’s own research initiatives, we understand the challenges to effective collaboration, data sharing, and analysis, which is why we use the same products and tools that we share with the community. In 2017, Verily launched &lt;a href="https://www.projectbaseline.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Project Baseline&lt;/a&gt; and the Baseline Health Study alongside Google and collaborators like Stanford Medicine and Duke University School of Medicine to make it easy and engaging for people to contribute to our understanding of clinical and biomedical research. Terra is the central platform that researchers use to explore and analyze molecular, device, and clinical data collected from the Baseline Health Study. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Google Cloud for biomedical research&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud has a broad range of genomic services and tools developed over the years, many of which are available in Terra today. One of these most commonly used by our customers is the &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/life-sciences"&gt;Cloud Life Sciences API&lt;/a&gt;, which integrates into the tools that bioinformaticians use today (Cromwell, Nextflow, BC, BlueBee, Sentieon, Galaxy, and many others) to enable the life sciences community to process biomedical data at scale.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/genomics/docs/how-tos/variant-transforms"&gt;Variant Transforms&lt;/a&gt; is an open source tool for loading and transforming raw VCF (variant call format) data for use in advanced analytics. Genomics research teams can use Variant Transforms to load massive amounts of raw VCF data, validate it for inconsistencies, and then transform it into &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/"&gt;BigQuery&lt;/a&gt; for use in Machine Learning (ML) and additional analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud also has a number of solutions to integrate research data and workflows into clinical settings. The &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/healthcare"&gt;Cloud Healthcare API&lt;/a&gt; allows easy and standardized data exchange between diverse healthcare applications and solutions. With support for popular healthcare data standards such as &lt;a href="https://www.hl7.org/" target="_blank"&gt;HL7&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://www.hl7.org/fhir/" target="_blank"&gt;FHIR&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="https://www.dicomstandard.org/" target="_blank"&gt;DICOM&lt;/a&gt;, the Cloud Healthcare API provides a fully managed, highly scalable, enterprise-grade development environment for building clinical and analytics solutions securely on Google Cloud. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google has been working for years to help researchers leverage Google Cloud’s vast array of ML &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/products/ai"&gt;capabilities&lt;/a&gt; to advance biomedical analysis. Customers can benefit from Google’s expertise in ML applied to biology-related challenges, such as our variant caller, &lt;a href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/09/improving-accuracy-of-genomic-analysis.html" target="_blank"&gt;DeepVariant&lt;/a&gt;, our protein folding project, &lt;a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/article/AlphaFold-Using-AI-for-scientific-discovery" target="_blank"&gt;Alphafold&lt;/a&gt;, and the ever expanding repertoire of tools and workflows in &lt;a href="https://terra.bio/" target="_blank"&gt;Terra&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Scaling biomedical research with Terra and Google Cloud&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;We know the challenges researchers and clinicians around the world face when tackling big questions in biomedical research. That's why we build platforms that we want to use everyday, share them with the world, and &lt;a href="https://edu.google.com/programs/credits/research/" target="_blank"&gt;help people use our platforms&lt;/a&gt; to drive science forward. Terra and Google Cloud are two of these platforms. Both were built to support a global user base that needs to collaborate and analyze massive scale data. Together, Terra and Google Cloud democratize access to leading edge biomedical research tools designed to accelerate discovery, development, and delivery of new healthcare solutions around the world. We would be excited to answer your questions and provide a demo of the Terra platform. Contact us at terra-bd@google.com.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/accelerating-biomedical-research-terra-and-google-cloud/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Research</category><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Accelerating biomedical research with Terra and Google Cloud</title><description></description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/accelerating-biomedical-research-terra-and-google-cloud/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>David Glazer</name><title>Terra CTO, Verily</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Alexander Titus, PhD </name><title>Strategic Business Executive, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Google Cloud research credits expand to nonprofit researchers</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/google-cloud-research-credits-expand-nonprofit-researchers/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;To fuel the breakthroughs of the future, today’s researchers need easy access to the most innovative cloud technologies. That’s why we are delighted to announce the latest expansion of &lt;a href="https://edu.google.com/programs/credits/research/" target="_blank"&gt;Google Cloud research credits&lt;/a&gt; beyond its previous scope of government and academic research institutions to researchers at nonprofit institutions. This initiative is part of our ongoing efforts to make the advantages of cloud research available to more people everywhere--and to drive more discoveries faster. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To serve researchers outside of academia, we are now offering nonprofit institutions access to Google’s research credit program. Leading centers of scientific knowledge like the &lt;a href="https://www.nygenome.org/" target="_blank"&gt;New York Genome Center&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://www.scripps.edu/" target="_blank"&gt;Scripps Research Institute&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href="https://vectorinstitute.ai/" target="_blank"&gt;Vector Institute&lt;/a&gt; in Toronto, the &lt;a href="https://oicr.on.ca/" target="_blank"&gt;Ontario Institute for Cancer Research&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href="https://allenai.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Allen Institute for AI&lt;/a&gt; (AI2) have already benefited from the efficiencies of managing and analyzing their datasets on Google Cloud.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Michael Schmitz, Director of Engineering at AI2, reports that “Google Cloud has been essential for our research program. While we have an on-premise installation for custom hardware, the ability to use Google Cloud for isolated workstations (where researchers always have guaranteed access to a development environment) and bursting with increased need (such as our summer intern surge or a hyperparameter tuning just before our deadline) has been a critical part of conducting our research.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, to better support Ph.D. students, we are updating the terms of Google Cloud credits for use toward advanced research. Now, Ph.D. students can apply for up to $1,000 grants that are renewable over the five years of their programs. We know that the researchers of the future need the best resources now.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hassaan Maan, Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto/Vector Institute, says “when the pandemic started, I began working on a web-based platform to help researchers analyze genome sequences of the COVID-19 virus in real time and compare with data from labs around the world. Deploying the Covid Genotyping Tool (CGT) platform was challenging, as I had minimal experience hosting web applications and we required a scalable and fine-tuned deployment. Google Cloud’s comprehensive user interface and thorough documentation made for a seamless deployment, and I was able to get the platform up and running in less than two weeks. Google Cloud was a huge factor in the success of this project, and I hope to be able to use it further during my Ph.D. studies.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To ramp up your own research project with Google Cloud, &lt;a href="https://edu.google.com/programs/credits/research/?modal_active=none" target="_blank"&gt;apply&lt;/a&gt; now for free credits in selected countries. To supplement your own learning on Google Cloud, sign up to earn four &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/training/badges"&gt;Google Cloud skills badges&lt;/a&gt; that you can share on your social platforms.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Sep 2021 09:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/google-cloud-research-credits-expand-nonprofit-researchers/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Google Cloud research credits expand to nonprofit researchers</title><description>To fuel the breakthroughs of the future, today’s researchers need easy access to the most innovative cloud technologies. See the latest expansion of Google Cloud research credits beyond its previous scope of government and academic research institutions to researchers at nonprofit institutions.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/google-cloud-research-credits-expand-nonprofit-researchers/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Eleazar Ortiz</name><title>Senior Program Manager for Academic Research, Global Public Sector</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>How educational institutions are securing their data before breaches happen</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/how-educational-institutions-are-securing-their-data-breaches-happen/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the US alone, &lt;a href="https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/us-schools-data-breaches/" target="_blank"&gt;24.5 million school records&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;have been leaked across 1,327 data breaches since 2005. And when &lt;a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/137-billion-students-now-home-covid-19-school-closures-expand-ministers-scale-multimedia" target="_blank"&gt;+1.3 billion students&lt;/a&gt; moved to remote learning, the pandemic became an accelerant for cyber attacks with the number of attacks in education spiking &lt;a href="https://collegiseducation.com/news/technology/cybersecurity-higher-ed-understanding-vulnerabilities-preventing-attacks/" target="_blank"&gt;30% YoY during July and August 2020.&lt;/a&gt; In our experience working with education customers, we’ve seen three areas impacted by cyber attacks:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Financial:&lt;/b&gt; Institutions experience financial loss from operational disruption and demands from cyber criminals who stole data. For example, &lt;a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/06/29/the-university-of-california-pays-1-million-ransom-following-cyber-attack/?sh=1e38d9c618a8" target="_blank"&gt;The University of California, San Francisco&lt;/a&gt; confirmed it paid a ransom of $1.14 million to the criminals behind a cyber attack on its School of Medicine. To protect sensitive student data, the federal government &lt;a href="https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2020-12-18/protecting-student-information-compliance-cui-and-glba" target="_blank"&gt;released&lt;/a&gt; a statement encouraging all postsecondary institutions to implement NIST 800-171 controls, a policy designed to protect sensitive student data. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Operational:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;Cyber attacks can prevent students, faculty and staff from accessing systems that are necessary to continue teaching, learning, and research initiatives, bringing operations to a halt. &lt;a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hartford-public-schools-postpone-first-day-classes-following-ransomware-attack-n1239499" target="_blank"&gt;Hartford Public Schools&lt;/a&gt; in Connecticut postponed its first day of classes following a ransomware attack that shut down the district's system.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Reputational:&lt;/b&gt;Institutions who have financial or student data breaches can suffer from lower enrollment rates and a loss of grant funding. A &lt;a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20140321161842666" target="_blank"&gt;study&lt;/a&gt; conducted by the Ponemon Institute pointed out that higher education institutions are judged largely on their reputation. A single data breach can significantly impact the reputation of the institution, in addition to substantial financial implications.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;How is Google Cloud helping educational institutions put security in place before a data breach happens?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud's &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/security"&gt;security model&lt;/a&gt; model, global infrastructure, and unique capability to innovate is helping academic institutions keep their organizations secure and in compliance. For example, &lt;a href="https://workspace.google.com/customers/brown-university.html" target="_blank"&gt;Brown University&lt;/a&gt; leverages Google Workspace for Education to protect information sharing among faculty, students, and staff, while reducing IT maintenance costs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Workspace helps establish each user’s identity in Google Cloud and this feature has become a core component of Google’s Zero Trust security model, implemented through &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp"&gt;BeyondCorp&lt;/a&gt;. By shifting access controls from the network perimeter to individual users, BeyondCorp enables secure work from virtually any location without the need for a traditional VPN. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most academic institutions look to minimize their risk in a shared responsibility model when running infrastructure-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service workloads. Google Cloud has partnered with industry-leading security consortia like &lt;a href="https://www.rhedcloud.org/" target="_blank"&gt;RHEDCloud&lt;/a&gt; to understand the specific needs of educational and academic research institutions, and follow applicable regulations and grant requirements. We have co-developed solutions with partners, like &lt;a href="https://www.burwood.com/higher-education" target="_blank"&gt;Burwood Group&lt;/a&gt;, to meet those needs and help our customers automate secure and compliant environments for their researchers, students and staff. Burwood Group has partnered with 27 top-tier research universities (R-1) to deploy security solutions. Here are a few of the products we’ve seen the most interest in:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/google-cloud-security-foundations-guide"&gt;Blueprint scripts&lt;/a&gt; uses Google Cloud built-in services to automate the provisioning and management of enterprise applications and research environments to be in compliance with HIPAA, FedRAMP, CUI, NIST 800-53, NIST CSF, and GDPR regulations.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/security-command-center"&gt;Security Command Center&lt;/a&gt; manages assets in your organization, uncovers vulnerabilities and threats, and reviews your organization’s compliance.  The solution generates security alerts and audit events from logs that integrate with existing enterprise systems like Security Information and Event Management (SIEMs), Endpoint Detection &amp;amp; Response (EDR’s) and Security, Orchestration, Automation, &amp;amp; Response  (SOAR) tools.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/introducing-chronicle-detect-from-google-cloud"&gt;Chronicle&lt;/a&gt;, Google Cloud’s next generation SIEM platform, is changing the game. It is a cloud-native platform designed to ingest your organization’s logs for a flat rate, abandoning the tiered model most SIEM providers offer. It can sift through petabytes of data in seconds and is useful for organizations that are both cost and security conscious.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.virustotal.com/gui/services-overview" target="_blank"&gt;VirusTotal Premium&lt;/a&gt; provides access to the world’s largest corpus of threat data to protect your organization proactively. The VT API can easily integrate into your commonly used SIEM, EDR and SOAR tools, alerting you to threats that would otherwise go unnoticed.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/recaptcha-enterprise"&gt;reCAPTCHA&lt;/a&gt;, helps defend against common attack patterns such as scraping or credential stuffing in web applications.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/armor"&gt;Cloud Armor&lt;/a&gt; defends against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;For research workloads, these tools provide controls for data ingestion, the export of research data, and, sharing permissions and auditability, allowing researchers to collaborate with other institutions. These tools also automate the provisioning of environments to provide secure execution of Jupyter notebooks and other applications commonly used in research, like Matlab, SAS and Python/R environments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A customized approach that aligns with education-specific needs&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud has partnered with academic institutions and research groups to understand their specific needs, and co-develop solutions that help customers govern, control, and audit security and compliance for all types of workloads in a shared responsibility framework. These solutions integrate with most common enterprise and security systems and permit customization to accommodate specific needs around security or data sharing (e.g grant requirements).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To learn more, watch our latest on-demand webinar, &lt;a href="https://www.carahsoft.com/learn/event/30143" target="_blank"&gt;Cloud Security Best Practices for Higher Education&lt;/a&gt;, hosted by Google Cloud and our partners, Burwood Group and Carahsoft.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/how-educational-institutions-are-securing-their-data-breaches-happen/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Education</category><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>How educational institutions are securing their data before breaches happen</title><description>In the US alone, 24.5 million school records have been leaked across 1,327 data breaches since 2005. And when +1.3 billion students moved to remote learning, the pandemic became an accelerant for cyber attacks with the number of attacks in education spiking 30% YoY during July and August 2020. In our experience working with education customers, we’ve seen three areas impacted by cyber attacks: Financial, Operational, and Reputational. See how Google Cloud is helping educational institutions put security in place before a data breach happens.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/how-educational-institutions-are-securing-their-data-breaches-happen/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Jesus Trujillo Gomez</name><title>Strategic Business Executive, Education &amp; Research, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Russell Goldenbroit</name><title>Customer Engineer, Education</title><department></department><company>Google Cloud</company></author></item><item><title>Why higher ed needs to go all-in on digital: Research from BCG and Google</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/why-higher-ed-needs-go-all-digital-research-bcg-and-google/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Why Higher Ed Needs to Go All-in on Digital&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of students within the 18-24-year-old demographic now expect hybrid learning environments--even once we are beyond the pandemic. And a vast number of adult learners are seeking options that accommodate their work and family lives now that it’s clear that effective learning can indeed occur virtually. Implementing cloud technologies and achieving digital maturity within higher education will enable institutions to be innovative and responsive to evolving student preferences, while being prepared for future disruptions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Exhibit 1: BCG" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/original_images/Why_Higher_Ed_Needs_to_Go_All-in_on_Digital_-_Inline_1.gif"/&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The state of digital maturity&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In February and March 2021, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in partnership with Google, surveyed U.S. higher education leaders on their views of the state of digital maturity in the higher education sector. This survey found that institutional and technology leaders strongly agreed that moving legacy IT systems to the cloud, centralizing and integrating data, and increasing the use of advanced analytics is necessary to make a successful digital transformation, and ultimately achieve digital maturity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But what is &lt;a href="https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/digital-technology-data/digital-maturity" target="_blank"&gt;digital maturity&lt;/a&gt;? Digital maturity—a measure of an organization’s ability to create value through digital delivery—focuses on three areas of technological advancement that drive large-scale innovation:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Using cloud infrastructure&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Expanding access to data&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Using that data to improve processes through advanced analytics, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although university leaders agree on prioritizing digital maturity, more than 55% said they considered their schools to be “digital performers” or “digital leaders.” However, only 25% of tech leaders at these universities stated that their schools regularly use data analytics. As with corporations and governments, higher education institutions face barriers to technological innovation, such as:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Competing priorities to meet step-change goals and decentralized decision making&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Budget constraints&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cultural resistance to change&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tech staff skillset gaps&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Still, leaders understand that the way to overcome institutional inertia is with a strong, goal-oriented vision of what is best for the institution overall. Although only a handful of schools have reached digital maturity as we define it, others can learn a great deal from their examples. Here are the top takeaways from higher education leaders who successfully transformed their institutions:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Digital solutions can improve the student journey in many ways&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Exhibit 2: BCG" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/original_images/Why_Higher_Ed_Needs_to_Go_All-in_on_Digital_-_Inline_2.gif"/&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;As digital capabilities hold the key to dealing effectively with declining enrollment and rising costs, higher ed leaders identified four goals that are critical to improving performance:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Improve the student journey&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Increase operational efficiency&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Scale computing power in advanced research&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Innovate education delivery&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The research found that technology investments can help enhance the student journey in the recruiting and retention of students, improving digital education delivery, government funding, and donations from alumni. Digital maturity can make institutions more agile and efficient in delivering education that aligns with the changing societal norms, evolving student preferences, and future disruptions. Survey participants shared that they plan to increase the use of the cloud by more than 50% over the next three years. By shifting legacy IT systems to the cloud, institutions can increase scalability, lower the cost of ownership, and improve operational agility, while offering a more secure, long-term data storage solution.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cloud-native software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions provide an excellent platform for centralizing data. However, institutions that attempt to “lift and shift” their legacy systems to the cloud may encounter challenges to achieving measurable improvements in data integration and cost reduction. Higher ed leaders must realize that centralizing data and transitioning to the cloud do not happen simultaneously.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Leaders who are able to articulate a strong vision and commitment will experience a more successful technology transformation. By linking their vision to specific needs, such as more effective recruiting, leaders will find their technology investments will have a more substantial return. University presidents should base their decisions about which systems to move, when, and how on desired performance outcomes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Big visions become a reality with small steps. Small pilot projects are an excellent way to start the journey toward digital maturity. Small steps toward a significant transformation can reduce resistance to change, build positive momentum, and produce better student outcomes. Read the full report&lt;a href="https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/investing-in-education-technology" target="_blank"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. If you’d like to talk to a Google Cloud expert, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/contact"&gt;get in touch&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Fri, 10 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/why-higher-ed-needs-go-all-digital-research-bcg-and-google/</guid><category>Education</category><category>Transform with Google Cloud</category><category>Google Workspace</category><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Public Sector</category><media:content url="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Why_Higher_Ed_Needs_to_Go_All-in_on_Digital_.max-600x600.png" width="540" height="540"></media:content><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Why higher ed needs to go all-in on digital: Research from BCG and Google</title><description>In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of students within the 18-24-year-old demographic now expect hybrid learning environments--even once we are beyond the pandemic. And a vast number of adult learners are seeking options that accommodate their work and family lives now that it’s clear that effective learning can indeed occur virtually. Implementing cloud technologies and achieving digital maturity within higher education will enable institutions to be innovative and responsive to evolving student preferences, while being prepared for future disruptions. Explore why Higher Ed Needs to Go All-in on Digital.</description><image>https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Why_Higher_Ed_Needs_to_Go_All-in_on_Digital_.max-600x600.png</image><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/why-higher-ed-needs-go-all-digital-research-bcg-and-google/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Steven Butschi</name><title>Head of Education</title><department>Google Cloud</department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Reimagine what’s possible with Google Cloud for human services and labor</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/reimagine-whats-possible-google-cloud-human-services-and-labor/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;The COVID-19 pandemic tested our nation’s public benefits system in unimaginable ways. With an unprecedented 60 million individuals turning to unemployment and social services to satisfy their basic needs, state and local governments were stretched to meet the demand.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But state and local government leaders have risen to the challenge of providing their constituents with critical services. They created and administered innovative solutions, complete with wholly original processes, and brought desperately needed employment, cash, food, and healthcare support to families in crisis. These public sector heroes raised the bar during this critical time and facilitated economic recovery for our local communities, making the impossible possible for its people. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When state and local government agencies partner with Google Cloud, they can reimagine how they deliver human services and labor services for their communities.  Check out this &lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl1wEIgscso" target="_blank"&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; which highlights the power of customer innovation - all in a matter of weeks, instead of months or years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Tools that solve for remote work and service delivery hurdles&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Never before was there such a need for modern and accessible tools to allow a workforce to secure new jobs and operate remotely. The&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/press-releases/2021/0323/wisconsin-to-launch-virtual-career-center-built-on-google-cloud"&gt;Virtual Career Center&lt;/a&gt; (VCC), built on Google Cloud, was designed with these needs in mind.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Workspace, including Google Meet, allows job seekers to schedule video meetings with career coaches, job recruiters, and potential employers. The Google Job Search API will enable them to explore career opportunities best suited to their skills and interests.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A thousand miles away, the&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/press-releases/2021/0301/rhodeislandpartnerswithgooglecloud"&gt;Rhode Island Virtual Career Center&lt;/a&gt; was helping its job seekers by offering virtual meetings with career coaches, the ability to schedule meetings with prospective employers, and help on building effective resumes. Skipper, the CareerCompass RI Bot, an intelligent agent for careers, uses data and machine learning to facilitate potential new career paths and reskilling opportunities for Rhode Islanders.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In addition to enabling remote work, Google Workspace can support remote service delivery, a critical need for those involved in health and human services programs. Engaging with individuals and families is an essential component for more of these programs, including eligibility determination, assessment, and service delivery. The ability to engage directly with the public through virtual interviews, counseling sessions, telehealth, etc. improves access for those on both sides of the screen. Further, through Google Classroom, a component of Google Workspace for Education, foster and adoptive parents can obtain virtual training required for licensing. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Tools to expedite relief funds and employment assistance&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the number of people applying for unemployment assistance skyrocketed, so did the backlog of claims requiring review. The pandemic also saw a rise in fraudulent claims, which caused delays for families waiting on legitimate payments and resulted in unnecessary spending for government agencies. Realizing the magnitude of the challenge was beyond the agencies’ current resources, and they shifted their focus to machine learning.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To address the massive backlog of claims, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/using-ai-powered-machine-learning-models-identify-fraudulent-unemployment-claims"&gt;SpringML&lt;/a&gt; partnered with Google Cloud to develop the Improper Payment Analytics solution that successfully leverages AI to help agencies identify fraudulent claims and avoid improper payments so aid can be prioritized for those who need it. Though such a tool would typically take months to develop, the team was able to launch it in just weeks, to the benefit of all stakeholders involved. Families awaiting legitimate payments received checks more quickly, and state and local governments saved millions in spending.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For instance, to address erroneous payments totaling $330 million to fraudulent applicants, the &lt;a href="https://www.10tv.com/article/news/investigations/10-investigates/after-paying-out-228-million-in-fraudulent-unemployment-claims-ohio-turns-to-google-others-for-help/530-64ff75b4-a9ef-4a4b-afca-9dbb60036890" target="_blank"&gt;State of Ohio&lt;/a&gt; partnered with Google Cloud to utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions to proactively identify and decline improper payment risks. As a result, the State avoided paying fraudulent claims and accelerated the payment of legitimate benefits to families facing financial hardship.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The&lt;a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/nys-department-labor-launches-new-streamlined-application-new-yorkers-apply-pandemic" target="_blank"&gt;New York State Department of Labor&lt;/a&gt; launched a streamlined unemployment application to allow residents to apply for pandemic unemployment assistance without the added burden of applying for unemployment insurance. Success was immediate, and the application backlog plummeted as New Yorkers got the financial aid they desperately needed. &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/customers/state-of-illinois"&gt;Illinois&lt;/a&gt; took a different approach, deploying &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/solutions/contact-center#section-2"&gt;Contact Center Artificial Intelligence&lt;/a&gt; (CCAI) to create virtual agents who assist with specialized calls 24/7, in multiple languages, providing turn-by-turn guidance in real-time. Conversations can be turned into insights through analytics and reporting tools that uncover key call drivers and customer sentiment. By solving for spikes in call volume, CCAI has helped process more than 1 million unemployment claims.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Automated data solutions bring immediate food and cash assistance resources&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With millions out of work and out of school during the pandemic, food and cash assistance became a critical need. Applying for all of these benefits requires significant documentation that, in most cases, has historically been manually processed. Given the volume of people in need, this took a massive amount of human resources and time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/document-ai"&gt;Document AI&lt;/a&gt; (DocAI), agencies can automate this highly manual process and speed up the delivery of critical benefits to individuals and families. DocAI extracts the key data, provides a confidence score in a single review pane for staff review, and automatically uploads that data to the case management system--significantly reducing manual processing. Today, these state and local government organizations turn to DocAI to eliminate the difficult paperwork application process to help meet the benefit needs of their residents now and tomorrow, as illustrated by both the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and the State of Hawaii.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/economic-recovery-wisconsin-leans-google-cloud-better-serve-its-community-during-covid-19-and-beyond"&gt;Wisconsin DWD&lt;/a&gt; streamlined their paper unemployment insurance claims using DocAI by enabling DWD staff to receive critical data extracted from submitted applications and make decisions rapidly, saving time for both applicants and staff. The&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/customers/state-of-hawaii/"&gt;State of Hawaii&lt;/a&gt; also used DocAI to extract, interpret, and transport COVID-19 test result data of incoming travelers to Google Cloud instantly. As a result, Hawaii was able to welcome travelers and reopen its economy in the midst of the pandemic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Partner with us&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After making it through this very difficult period, agencies have emerged from the pandemic with stronger labor and health and human service delivery for their residents. State and local governments recognized the necessity of virtual engagement and expanded access to services to meet this critical moment, solving for work, cash, food and healthcare needs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To learn more about Google Cloud for human services and labor, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/contact?direct=true"&gt;contact&lt;/a&gt; your Google Cloud sales representative. Let’s get solving together.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Wed, 08 Sep 2021 10:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/reimagine-whats-possible-google-cloud-human-services-and-labor/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Reimagine what’s possible with Google Cloud for human services and labor</title><description>The COVID-19 pandemic tested our nation’s public benefits system in unimaginable ways. With an unprecedented 60 million individuals turning to unemployment and social services to satisfy their basic needs, state and local governments were stretched to meet the demand. See how Google Cloud provided tools to solve for health and human service entities.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/reimagine-whats-possible-google-cloud-human-services-and-labor/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Brent Mitchell</name><title>Managing Director US State &amp; Local and Canada Public Sector</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Denise Winkler </name><title>Strategic Business Executive, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>ManTech and Google Cloud open joint facility to expedite government adoption of cloud technologies</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/mantech-and-google-cloud-open-joint-facility-expedite-government-adoption-cloud-technologies/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Transitioning from legacy infrastructure to the cloud, mitigating security risk, and enabling secure collaboration for a hybrid workforce are challenges many agencies face today. While we are already seeing many federal, state and local governments adopting cloud technologies like artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics, cybersecurity solutions like Zero Trust, and Google Workspace, recent world events like COVID and cybersecurity breaches have accelerated the need for this adoption. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To meet the need for faster industry-wide cloud adoption, Google Cloud is &lt;a href="https://www.mantech.com/google-cloud-and-mantech-bringing-even-more-mission" target="_blank"&gt;partnering with ManTech&lt;/a&gt;, a company that deeply understands the unique needs of the U.S. government mission. This partnership combines the public sector domain expertise and federal solution delivery capability of ManTech, with our world-class technology and security capabilities.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Joint demo center to bring strategy and vision to execution&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Building on the recently announced partnership, we are now launching a joint demo center in Northern Virginia to enable customers to engage in practical problem solving and showcase our combined technology capabilities. Together, ManTech and Google Cloud’s full range of capabilities and technology know-how can meet government needs across multi and hybrid cloud environments, infrastructure modernization, application development, data management, artificial intelligence, analytics, and cybersecurity. This will enable the two companies to jointly assist agencies with core areas of modernization including multicloud and hybrid cloud adoption, hyperscale analytics, security, 5G, and edge-computing. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Supporting government agencies today—and into the future&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud’s partnership with ManTech is a critical step toward meeting the federal customer mission by expediting cloud adoption, and helping to solve the government’s unique challenges with new solutions and capabilities. As the need for cloud adoption has accelerated, and cybersecurity threats continue to destabilize our critical infrastructure, strategic private sector partnerships that support U.S. government interests have a key role to play in facilitating remote collaboration, and securing the welfare of Americans.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Sep 2021 14:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/mantech-and-google-cloud-open-joint-facility-expedite-government-adoption-cloud-technologies/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Security In Plaintext</category><category>Google Workspace</category><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>ManTech and Google Cloud open joint facility to expedite government adoption of cloud technologies</title><description>Transitioning from legacy infrastructure to the cloud, mitigating security risk, and enabling secure collaboration for a hybrid workforce are challenges many agencies face today. To meet the need for faster industry-wide cloud adoption, Google Cloud is partnering with ManTech, a company that deeply understands the unique needs of the U.S. government mission.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/mantech-and-google-cloud-open-joint-facility-expedite-government-adoption-cloud-technologies/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Mike Daniels</name><title>Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Announcing the Government &amp; Education Summit, Nov 3-4, 2021</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/announcing-government-education-summit-nov-3-4-2021/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mark your calendars – &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/cloud-govt-edu-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q4-global-G&amp;amp;E1306-onlineevent-er-gov-and-edu-summit-main&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion-gov-and-edu-summit&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;registration is open&lt;/a&gt; for Google Cloud’s Government and Education Summit, November 3–4, 2021.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Government and education leaders have seen their vision become reality faster than they ever thought possible. Public sector leaders embraced a spirit of openness and created avenues to digital transformation, accepting bold ideas and uncovering new methods to provide public services, deliver education and achieve groundbreaking research. At Google Cloud, we partnered with public sector leaders to deliver an agile and open architecture, smart analytics to make data more accessible, and productivity tools to support remote work and the hybrid workforce. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The pandemic has served as a catalyst for new ideas and creative solutions to long-standing global issues, including climate change, public health, and resource assistance. We’ve seen all levels of government and education leverage cloud technology to meet these challenges with a fervor and determination not seen since the industrial revolution. We can’t wait to bring those stories to you at the 2021 Google Cloud Government and Education Summit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The event will open doors to digital transformation with live Q&amp;amp;As, problem-solving workshops and leadership sessions, designed to bring forward the strongest talent, the most inclusive teams, and the boldest ideas. Interactive, digital experiences and sessions that align with your schedule and interests will be available, including dedicated sessions and programming for our global audiences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/cloud-govt-edu-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q4-global-G&amp;amp;E1306-onlineevent-er-gov-and-edu-summit-main&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion-gov-and-edu-summit&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Register today&lt;/a&gt; for the 2021 Google Cloud Government and Education Summit. Moving into the next period of modernization, we feel equipped with not just the technology, but also the confidence to innovate and the experience to deliver the next wave of critical digital transformation solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stay tuned to our &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/cloud-govt-edu-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q4-global-G&amp;amp;E1306-onlineevent-er-gov-and-edu-summit-main&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion-gov-and-edu-summit&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Google Cloud Government and Education Summit&lt;/a&gt; page for upcoming announcements and updates.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-related_article_tout_external"&gt;&lt;div class="uni-related-article-tout h-c-page"&gt;&lt;section class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;a class="uni-related-article-tout__wrapper h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--8 h-c-grid__col-m--6 h-c-grid__col-l--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-2 h-c-grid__col-m--offset-3 h-c-grid__col-l--offset-3 uni-click-tracker" data-analytics='{ "event": "page interaction", "category": "article lead", "action": "related article - inline", "label": "article: {slug}" }' href=""&gt;&lt;div class="uni-related-article-tout__inner-wrapper"&gt;&lt;p class="uni-related-article-tout__eyebrow h-c-eyebrow"&gt;Related Article&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="uni-related-article-tout__content-wrapper"&gt;&lt;div class="uni-related-article-tout__image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;div class="uni-related-article-tout__image" style="background-image: url('')"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="uni-related-article-tout__content"&gt;&lt;h4 class="uni-related-article-tout__header h-has-bottom-margin"&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;&lt;p class="uni-related-article-tout__body"&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="cta module-cta h-c-copy uni-related-article-tout__cta muted"&gt;&lt;span class="nowrap"&gt;Read Article&lt;svg class="icon h-c-icon" role="presentation"&gt;&lt;use xlink:href="#mi-arrow-forward" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"&gt;&lt;/use&gt;&lt;/svg&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/section&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Sep 2021 09:14:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/announcing-government-education-summit-nov-3-4-2021/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Announcing the Government &amp; Education Summit, Nov 3-4, 2021</title><description>The pandemic has served as a catalyst for new ideas and creative solutions to long-standing global issues, including climate change, public health, and resource assistance. We’ve seen all levels of government and education leverage cloud technology to meet these challenges with a fervor and determination not seen since the industrial revolution. We can’t wait to bring those stories to you at the 2021 Google Cloud Government and Education Summit.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/announcing-government-education-summit-nov-3-4-2021/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Mike Daniels</name><title>Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Education is leveraging cloud and AI to ensure intelligent safety and incidence management for student success</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/education-leveraging-cloud-and-ai-ensure-intelligent-safety-and-incidence-management-student-success/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Campus safety is increasingly important to students and parents. A &lt;a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5810fea5e58c62bd729121cc/t/58bf2575414fb542366d7a93/1488921974373/studentPOLL_V6.2_May2008.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;student poll&lt;/a&gt; published by the College Board and Art &amp;amp; Sciences Group found that 72% of students indicated that the safety of the campus was very important to them in college consideration and choice, with  86% percent having reported that it was very important to their parents.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The latest &lt;a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020063.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;annual report&lt;/a&gt; of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for indicators of school crime and safety found  that there were 836,100 total victimizations on campus in the United States, including theft, sexual assaults, vandalism, and even violent deaths. Unfortunately, those acts of violence and threats to safety are a global challenge for university staff who are responsible for student safety and wellbeing&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Besides the importance of ensuring campus safety for student success, the Clery Act requires all colleges and universities participating in federal financial aid programs to keep and disclose information about crime on and near their campuses. Compliance is monitored by the Department of Education and violation of the Clery Act compliance requirements results in &lt;a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-1-million-fine-for-violating-the-clery-act-expensive-but-not-unprecedented/?bc_nonce=kt9z9gicedcl79ruihcy6&amp;amp;cid=reg_wall_signup" target="_blank"&gt;multimillion dollar fines&lt;/a&gt; in civil penalties to several academic institutions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Google Cloud is helping educational institutions put the right solution in place to ensure campus safety and facilitate compliance with Clery Act requirements&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we announced &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/education/introducing-student-success-services-from-google-cloud"&gt;Student Success Services&lt;/a&gt; last November, our goal was to reinvent how educational institutions attract, support and engage with students and faculty. As part of the offering, we’ve partnered with &lt;a href="https://nowims.com/" target="_blank"&gt;NowIMS&lt;/a&gt; to provide a fully managed intelligent safety and incident management platform in compliance with FERPA, GDPR and COPPA.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;NowIMS is provisioned to the customer’s own Google Cloud project through the Google Cloud &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/marketplace"&gt;Marketplace&lt;/a&gt; to facilitate automated deployment and provide integrated billing with the rest of the organization’s Google Cloud services. Some of the key functionality includes:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Automated capture and consolidation of data from different sources, including social media, websites, external alarm systems, video cameras and other sources that facilitate user-reported incidents &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Analysis and visualization of data at scale, aggregating all data and providing a single pane of glass view that ensures teams have access to the data and audit logs they need to get work done, complying with security and data governance policies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Real-time tailored reporting and messaging: Teams will be notified as intelligence is collected and processed, and have access to self-service real-time reports. Each user group will receive tailored communication through their desired channels.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Automated generation of reports: Clery Act requirements bring significant operational overhead, and NowIMS helps to automate the generation of applicable reports, giving time back to campus safety team members to do what matters most--providing personalized support to students.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A customized approach that aligns with the needs of educational institutions&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although NowIMS is a fully managed solution, it integrates with the rest of Student Success Services to offer customization to any educational institution. Our solution is currently being used by Higher ED and K-12 customers across the US. For example, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/customers/fort-bend-isd"&gt;Fort Bend Independent School District&lt;/a&gt; is using NowIMS on Google Cloud to solve student safety and emergency communication challenges and serves 78,500 students across the district’s 80 schools. And recently, Alabama A&amp;amp;M University has deployed NowIMS to facilitate intelligence tracking for public safety, including issues such as drugs on campus, fights, suspicious packages, and more.  Captain Ruble of Alabama A&amp;amp;M stated, “NowIMS is the first tool we have found that will provide a single pane of glass for our operators. Before NowIMS, we had to watch more than 6 other systems.” In addition to this public safety use case, the Information Technology department will also use NowIMS to track badge access entry events, as well as network anomaly and outage notifications.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To find out more about how NowIMS detects issues and rapidly responds to risks on and off campus, check out our session from &lt;a href="https://inthecloud.withgoogle.com/studentsuccessweek/hub.html" target="_blank"&gt;Student Success Week&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Tue, 31 Aug 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/education-leveraging-cloud-and-ai-ensure-intelligent-safety-and-incidence-management-student-success/</guid><category>Google Cloud</category><category>Education</category><category>Data Analytics</category><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Education is leveraging cloud and AI to ensure intelligent safety and incidence management for student success</title><description>Campus safety is increasingly important to students and parents. A student poll published by the College Board and Art &amp; Sciences Group found that 72% of students indicated that the safety of the campus was very important to them in college consideration and choice, with 86% percent having reported that it was very important to their parents. See how Google Cloud is helping educational institutions put the right solution in place to ensure campus safety and facilitate compliance with Clery Act requirements.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/education-leveraging-cloud-and-ai-ensure-intelligent-safety-and-incidence-management-student-success/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>John Rodkey</name><title>Co-Founder, NowIMS</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Jesus Trujillo Gomez</name><title>Strategic Business Executive, Education &amp; Research, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Cultivating stability while leaning into the unknown: resilience in the public sector</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/cultivating-stability-while-leaning-unknown-resilience-public-sector/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Editor’s note: Bill Duane spoke at Student Success with Google Cloud, a digital event about how technology can support student learning and resilience. You can find Bill's full session available &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/student-success-with-google-cloud/watch?talk=session-1" target="_blank"&gt;on demand&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the current fast moving and uncertain environment,  education and government leaders are being called on to chart new directions. While this opens up new possibilities and options, the stress of rapid change and the unknown can also lead us into tunnel vision and reactivity. How can we meet the challenge of these times? Google’s culture can offer insights into best practices for not just coping, but actually fostering innovation during times of change and uncertainty. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You might ask, what do I know about fast moving environments? I had the honor of leading teams at Google for 13 years, both in Engineering, looking after Site Reliability for Websearch Infrastructure and Google Workspace, and then in People Operations, creating ways of working hard without burning out. After seeing firsthand how burnout and stress made managing rapid change much harder (and a lot less fun), I applied these methodologies to my own life and my relationship with my desire to make big, positive change in the world. What I found out surprised me and transformed my life and how I lead. It’s a privilege to share this with you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Fight or flight&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The human stress response exists to keep us safe from physical threats. When we encounter a potentially threatening situation, our bodies and minds automatically switch to survival mode.  Our heart beats faster, our eyes dilate and a flood of chemicals washes through us to allow us to better fight or flight. This works like a charm, if the challenge in front of you is jumping out of the way of a student on their phone on a skateboard. The problem is that neither fighting nor fleeing are good strategies for reinventing remote learning/work, making budgets more efficient, working with staff concerns or upset parents. As a matter of fact, the parts of our human nervous system we need to innovate: creativity, trust, communication and strategic vision turn off when our stress system is going full tilt. That said, a little stress is good for innovation. It keeps us on our toes, gives us focus and drive, and a sense of urgency.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If a little stress helps us but a lot of stress hurts, the goal is to find your sweet spot and be in constant adjustment about what you need. How can we shift from reacting to responding and thus opening the door for innovation? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Getting off autopilot: Self awareness &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most of the time we are on autopilot about stress - it just happens. If we want to optimize for a healthy level of stress, that logically means being aware of your stress levels. This is harder than it sounds - humans are great at acclimating to stress where we don’t notice it. Are you under challenged? Over challenged? Suffering from chronic burnout? As human beings, we likely know what works for us to lower our stress (e.g. exercise, sleep, etc.) but the question is how do we know when it’s time to do those things? These are our own “tells” ( like in poker), and vary from person to person. Generally, they fall into three categories. The first is body sensations: tightness in the shoulders, upset stomach, disrupted sleep, and so on. The second is narrative loops in your head - recurring, perhaps intrusive thoughts about what could go wrong, imposter syndrome or anger at perceived threats from others. The third is moods, longer periods where joy seems far or anger is close at hand. The next time you’re feeling stressed ask yourself, “how do I know I’m stressed?” Of course, what may be subtle to us is clear as day to the people around us, so take advantage of this and ask others how we act when we’re stressed. We can recruit people we trust to help us know when we may be dealing with too much stress, but are too stressed to notice. When we are aware of our tells, we know it’s time to do things to lower our stress levels, pulling us back from the stress red zone and into the creative and energetic zone. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you are looking to cultivate self awareness, research has found a few things that help including: mentoring, mindfulness, therapy and work and team feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Getting off autopilot: Self regulation and mindset&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chances are you know what fills your resilience tank. At Google, the top things that people with high achievement and high well-being do are spending time with friends or family, having a positive work experience (trust, psychological safety, meaning), getting good sleep, moving the body, meditation and &lt;a href="https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/googles-work-life-balance-segmentors-v-integrators/" target="_blank"&gt;having boundaries around work and non-work time&lt;/a&gt;. But, the list is long--the right thing for you to downregulate your stress is the one you do (vs the one you “should” do). By actively managing stress, you are increasing your ability to innovate and perform, creating a resilient mindset.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Leading for resilience &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We’ve talked about resilience at the individual level but we know that our stress level can be increased or decreased by the people around us. This is a critical understanding in leading teams in times of rapid change. Teams and organizations can act as shock absorbers or shock amplifiers. If the environment is chaotic and unpredictable, it's crucial that teams and organizations help the individuals manage that stress. Some ways to lead for resilience and innovation include:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Manage your own resilience as a way of being strategic and setting an example&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness/steps/foster-psychological-safety/" target="_blank"&gt;Understand how psychological safety and positive work environments can enable sustainable high performance&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Enable people to downregulate by promoting stress management as a performance booster and encouraging work life boundaries&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Be realistic about how to manage long-term stress through prioritization and setting clear expectations for your team &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we understand what it means to be human, and how stress impacts us, we can do things to get off autopilot and position ourselves and our organization to step into ambiguity and create positive change. Find the full talk available &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/student-success-with-google-cloud/watch?talk=session-1" target="_blank"&gt;on demand&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Aug 2021 11:19:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/cultivating-stability-while-leaning-unknown-resilience-public-sector/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Cultivating stability while leaning into the unknown: resilience in the public sector</title><description></description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/cultivating-stability-while-leaning-unknown-resilience-public-sector/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Bill Duane</name><title>Well-being expert and former Googler</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Economic Recovery: Wisconsin Leans on Google Cloud to Better Serve Its Community During COVID-19 and Beyond</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/economic-recovery-wisconsin-leans-google-cloud-better-serve-its-community-during-covid-19-and-beyond/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;When confronted with challenges, resilient organizations adapt and innovate to address changing customer needs. Through its partnership with Google Cloud, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development exemplifies this evolutionary approach. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Just a few months ago, challenges created by the antiquated unemployment insurance (UI) system threatened the agency's ability to serve constituents who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Now, and in the months ahead, that continuing evolution will transform how the DWD serves its constituents with the modernization of their UI system, which includes customer experience workflows, predictive analytics, and streamlining and expediting paper applications.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like many workforce development agencies nationwide, last year, DWD experienced a deluge of claims filed in response to the COVID-19 economic fallout. Unfortunately, DWD's legacy UI infrastructure -- largely written in the COBOL computing language and hosted on a mainframe server – was no match for the volume and complexity of cases. Wisconsin’s multiple technology systems required a large amount of manual processing, with staff using spreadsheets to manually calculate benefit adjustments. As a result, the state just couldn’t keep up with the surge of claims, and it needed to pivot quickly to a new solution to keep up with demand. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;DWD initially responded by staffing up call centers, hiring UI application adjudicators, and deploying other personnel--all told, hiring, contracting with, or reassigning more than 1,300 individuals. However, while this enabled DWD to respond to approximately 7 million calls per month, the massive number of incoming claims surged to create a  backlog of more than 750,000 claims. Legacy technology issues continued to significantly slow the query-response time. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;DWD leaders recognized that staffing alone was not the solution and that innovation was needed to overcome past, inadequate IT investment. To address the inherited issues, Wisconsin turned to Google Cloud. Working together, we were able to scale the state’s response to claims and speed up overall response time. We were also successful in screening out fraudulent claims so that the UI program could be administered--with integrity--to Wisconsinites who needed financial assistance.   &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Year-to-date, Wisconsin has now disbursed $2 billion in unemployment benefits, in addition to successfully &lt;a href="https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/press/2020/201230-unemployment-claim-backlog-cleared.htm" target="_blank"&gt;clearing its entire 2020 UI backlog&lt;/a&gt;. As a result of our partnership, the state is now processing an average of 157,000 claims each week and releasing most payments to citizens within two to three business days. Before the new system was in place, the response time could be weeks or even months.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here is how Wisconsin and Google Cloud are modernizing the state’s current legacy system through a modular approach:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Artificial intelligence (AI)/ machine learning (ML) for predictive analytics:&lt;/b&gt; Through the use of Google AI/ML, the state is creating predictive analytics based on historical data to shorten adjudication decision-making for UI claims, enabling it to release payments to eligible claimants faster. Comprehensive data models and confidence scores analyze the backlog data to determine the shortest route to approval and payments, with a high level of confidence and accuracy. DWD is using Google Cloud technology to identify where in the process the claimant was getting stuck in one of the “hold buckets” for processing a UI claim. Using Google Cloud’s data and AI/ML tools, Wisconsin is able to identify problem areas and quickly resolve those issues. This informed DWD's rewrite of the UI claim application process. And it also helped DWD identify fraudulent claims.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Document AI (DocAI) for streamlining paper applications:&lt;/b&gt; DWD is also partnering with Google Cloud to streamline paper applications and fax documents as part of UI claims processing--enabling documents to be submitted online instead of by fax or hard-copy mail. Our &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/document-ai"&gt;DocAI&lt;/a&gt; solution helps Wisconsin staff make faster decisions by rapidly extracting critical data from documents, saving time, and removing manual processes, which allows employees to focus on high-priority activities. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;These modernization steps in Wisconsin are resulting in a bold new vision for state unemployment systems across the United States. Through a combination of design thinking, deep partnership with state officials, and modern technology, DWD’s solutions are tailored to maximize benefits to the constituents they’re designed to serve. By joining forces with Google Cloud and utilizing modernizing technology to make informed, data-driven decisions, Wisconsin DWD is helping residents have a better experience that is easier to understand and navigate–all while better serving the community overall.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Aug 2021 04:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/economic-recovery-wisconsin-leans-google-cloud-better-serve-its-community-during-covid-19-and-beyond/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Economic Recovery: Wisconsin Leans on Google Cloud to Better Serve Its Community During COVID-19 and Beyond</title><description>When confronted with challenges, resilient organizations adapt and innovate to address changing customer needs. Through its partnership with Google Cloud, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development exemplifies this evolutionary approach.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/economic-recovery-wisconsin-leans-google-cloud-better-serve-its-community-during-covid-19-and-beyond/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Brent Mitchell</name><title>Managing Director US State &amp; Local and Canada Public Sector</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Accelerating Government’s Zero Trust Journey</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/accelerating-governments-zero-trust-journey/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;In May, the White House issued an &lt;a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/12/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/" target="_blank"&gt;Executive Order&lt;/a&gt; aiming to improve the nation’s cybersecurity defenses and requiring US Federal agencies to develop plans to implement Zero Trust architectures in alignment with &lt;a href="https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-207/final" target="_blank"&gt;National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidance&lt;/a&gt;. This Executive Order also calls on agencies to accelerate cloud adoption, with a preference for &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/how-google-cloud-can-help-public-sector-embrace-zero-trust"&gt;cloud capabilities that implement or advance the adoption of Zero Trust&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Zero Trust moves front and center &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://youtu.be/a91J8T9erVQ?t=302" target="_blank"&gt;The White House guidance is timely and necessary&lt;/a&gt; given the surge of &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/its-about-time-proactive-approach-ransomware-recovery"&gt;ransomware&lt;/a&gt; and other cyber attacks over the past year targeting remote workers and VPNs, &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/how-were-helping-reshape-software-supply-chain-ecosystem-securely"&gt;software supply chains&lt;/a&gt;, identity infrastructure and email, and various critical infrastructure sectors. These attacks have raised concerns about cyber-risk across the board, including pervasive IT monocultures that persist, unquestioned, despite their exploitability by attackers. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="White House" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/shutterstock_1704174583.max-1000x1000.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;This order ties together multiple strands of US cybersecurity best practices and policy that have evolved over the past decade, including stronger identity and access controls, expanded use of encryption and authentication, increased monitoring and visibility, and prioritizing high-value IT assets. Yet the urgent challenge of cybersecurity requires more than simply adding to the existing proliferation of cyber tools or ratcheting up traditional measures around hygiene and compliance. The Administration’s focus on Zero Trust marks a critical shift to prioritizing architectures in which the strategic coordination of layered cyber defenses drives improved cyber outcomes.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In many ways then, the demand for accelerating the adoption of Zero Trust in federal IT is not a new requirement, as departments and agencies are already implementing many of the core technical components that can contribute to achieving the goals laid out in the executive order.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What is new, however, is the fact that Zero Trust, when done right, is primarily an outcomes-oriented approach to security. Successfully implementing Zero Trust can drive down cyber risk, transform the daily security experience of users, reduce management complexity and toil for IT managers, and improve the overall productivity of the workforce. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Outcomes, not just technology&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Successfully implementing Zero Trust is not about the individual technology components and inputs themselves. Instead, what matters most is how security components are integrated and orchestrated to achieve and enforce a simple set of core principles: &lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Connecting from a particular network must not determine which services you can access&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Access to services and data is granted based on what we know about you and your device&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;All access to services must be authenticated, authorized and encrypted.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Using this set of principles as our north star, &lt;a href="https://youtu.be/hohtuhZkcAk?t=311" target="_blank"&gt;Google began our Zero Trust journey, with BeyondCorp, over a decade ago, under similar circumstances to those driving federal cybersecurity policy&lt;/a&gt; now. Google had been targeted by nation-state cyber attacks (&lt;a href="https://www.wired.com/2010/01/operation-aurora/" target="_blank"&gt;Operation Aurora&lt;/a&gt;), and in the aftermath, we recognized that providing remote access with VPNs was not sustainable or efficient for business performance, especially at a time when Google’s global workforce was growing rapidly. Something had to change.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To improve our security posture and user experience, we had to reimagine our infrastructure and production networks. This ultimately drove innovations in how we protect our supply chains and resulted in a complete rethinking of the scale, analytics and visibility needed to fully modernize and transform enterprise security. The journey forced us to consolidate redundant systems, understand usage patterns better, and transform how people experience security day to day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Safe Cybersecurity" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/386619208-huge.max-1000x1000.jpg"/&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A shift in technology and a change in mindset&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we developed &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp"&gt;BeyondCorp&lt;/a&gt;, we had to reimagine our infrastructure and production networks in order to affect a better security posture and user experience. This ultimately drove innovations in how we protect our supply chains and resulted in a complete rethinking of the scale, analytics and visibility needed to fully modernize and transform enterprise security. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moving to a Zero Trust approach drastically changed how Google’s end users did business and reduced the toil on both individual users and IT professionals to do their part to secure the enterprise, further fostering the innovation, architectures, operational integrations and best practices we see today. Now, the layered defenses and invisible security our users experience have been incorporated into Google’s secure cloud offerings, so our customers can experience the same benefits and provide their users with a secure and productive work environment. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Leadership for a cross-team journey&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, change isn't trivial, especially in government. A shift in behavior, user experience, collaboration, tools and infrastructure requires planning, change management, and executive support. To make the Zero Trust journey a success, organizations need the long-term focus and vision of leadership to drive meaningful change. For traditional security and technology leaders, accelerating the journey to Zero Trust will require them to think less tactically and and act more strategically, in order to focus more on outcomes and less on inputs, and to integrate, harmonize, orchestrate and automate what were previously standalone IT and security efforts. For non-technology leaders, their engagement and leadership is essential – and much more likely – given the visible benefits to collaboration, culture, and the business from what could otherwise be seen as a technology-centric initiative.      &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Done right, Zero Trust brings a sea change from how most people experience security. The crossroads of the Zero Trust journey present organizations with two clear choices: stick with an old and not-so-secure security model that's clunky and burdensome, or adopt a new model that's more intuitive, easy, and secure.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Jump start your own journey&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Today, the same opportunity exists to transform government security, operations, and organizational models by implementing Zero Trust. By sharing lessons learned from &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp"&gt;Google’s BeyondCorp journey&lt;/a&gt; and building core security capabilities into many of our cloud products, our goal is to help government agencies  accelerate their own Zero Trust journey, transforming the security posture of their highest value and most-critical applications and data.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To learn more, watch our on-demand sessions from the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Google Cloud Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;About the authors&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Dan Prieto previously served in the White House as Director for Cybersecurity Policy on the staff of the National Security Council. He also served as CTO and Director of the Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Program in the Office of the Department of Defense CIO.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Max Saltonstall tells stories about Google Cloud, how we use similar Cloudy tools inside Google, and what diverse solutions Cloud’s many customers have created. At Google he’s worked within DoubleClick, Corporate Engineering, Staffing and the Cloud CTO Office.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Thu, 22 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/accelerating-governments-zero-trust-journey/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Accelerating Government’s Zero Trust Journey</title><description>In May, the White House issued an Executive Order aiming to improve the nation’s cybersecurity defenses and requiring US Federal agencies to develop plans to implement Zero Trust architectures in alignment with National Institute of Standards and Technology National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidance. See how Google's decade long journey with Zero Trust has influenced the approach to this Executive Order.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/accelerating-governments-zero-trust-journey/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Dan Prieto </name><title>Head of Security Strategy, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Max Saltonstall</name><title>Senior Developer Relations Engineer, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Government Security Summit Shines Light on Power of Innovation and Zero Trust</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/government-security-summit-shines-light-power-innovation-and-zero-trust/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Tuesday, July 20, public sector cybersecurity leaders gathered virtually at the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Google Cloud Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt; to learn, engage, and collaborate around a single goal – to improve the government’s cybersecurity posture and defenses. It’s a 24/7 mission that gets more challenging daily, and several of the world’s most respected cybersecurity thought leaders shared their most pressing needs, and their latest learnings, best practices, and strategies for a safer, more secure government  network. All sessions below are now available &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;on demand.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Keynotes Set the Stage&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Biden Administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order (EO) and the power of Zero Trust architecture set the stage and tone for the half-day event, starting with our&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit/watch?talk=welcome" target="_blank"&gt;keynote speakers&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian&lt;/b&gt;kicked off the program with an overview of today’s cybersecurity landscape, the significance of the EO, and Google Cloud’s commitment to and leadership in cybersecurity in the public sector. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Google is a proud American company committed to defending our nation’s critical infrastructure,” Kurian said, “We are honored to support public servants, government agencies, and your mission.” &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He also introduced&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-cloud-security-offerings-just-announced-government-security-summit-keynote"&gt;new solutions&lt;/a&gt; that will help government organizations accelerate their Zero Trust journey and improve their overall security posture. These include a Zero Trust assessment and planning offering, as well as a targeted deep-dive security assessment that helps government agencies proactively and rapidly analyze their cybersecurity logs to determine risk.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In his Q&amp;amp;A remarks, &lt;b&gt;Mike Daniels, vice president, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud&lt;/b&gt;, highlighted two additional cybersecurity solutions: Google Cloud’s Actifio enterprise cloud data management solution, which enables agencies to quickly recover from ransomware attacks; and Secure Application Access Anywhere, which leverages Google’s Anthos solution to help users secure applications and identify and manage threats to network and data – across on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The keynote session also featured two Biden Administration cybersecurity leaders: &lt;b&gt;Chris DeRusha, federal chief information security officer&lt;/b&gt;, and &lt;b&gt;Eric Goldstein, executive assistant director for cybersecurity for the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency (CISA)&lt;/b&gt;. DeRusha underscored the urgent need to change the cybersecurity paradigm in the wake of recent attacks, and how the EO and commitment to Zero Trust can achieve that shift. He also discussed the importance of measuring and assessing progress – highlighting how the EO prioritizes tested security, increased automation, and IT modernization with a strong focus on security outcomes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Goldstein focused on the need to break the cycle and move to a posture where we are no longer surprised by the next attack; he highlighted how CISA is advancing this mission. He shared how the EO will drive progress in stemming the root causes of cybersecurity risk through initiatives such as Zero Trust and a more secure software supply chain. He also underscored the need for greater public-private cooperation, citing CISA’s new Joint Cyber Planning Office as one channel to expand collaboration.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Zero Trust Takes Center Stage: &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit/watch?talk=security-scale" target="_blank"&gt;Security at Scale - Google's Zero Trust Journey&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Zero Trust pioneers &lt;b&gt;Dmitri Alperovitch, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike and Executive Chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator&lt;/b&gt;, and &lt;b&gt;Heather Adkins, Director of Information Security for Google&lt;/b&gt;, provided unique insight into the potential of Zero Trust architecture to transform the security of government organizations. Alperovitch shared his perspective on the most significant changes in the attack surface and cybercriminal tactics in recent years, the potential impact of the EO, and pitfalls agencies should avoid in implementing Zero Trust. Adkins then chronicled Google’s own journey to Zero Trust, including drivers for Google’s BeyondCorp initiative, as well as success in executing it globally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Innovation in Action: &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit/watch?talk=defense-innovation-unit" target="_blank"&gt;Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) - Secure Application Access Anywhere&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When facing a daunting challenge, there’s nothing more inspiring and empowering than a real-world success story. &lt;b&gt;Rick Simon, Cyber Portfolio Program Manager at the DIU&lt;/b&gt;, served up a healthy dose of inspiration. Simon shared the DIU’s journey to creating and implementing a successful &lt;a href="https://www.diu.mil/latest/defense-innovation-units-secure-cloud-management-prototypes-completed-with" target="_blank"&gt;secure cloud monitoring prototype&lt;/a&gt;, which was born out of necessity. The DIU collaborates with many private sector technology organizations, and it needed a more streamlined – yet highly secure – way for users to connect to the cloud directly through the internet. The DIU tapped Google Cloud and its Anthos platform for this mission – bringing new levels of security and management simplicity to its multi-cloud environment. As a result of this successful prototype, Google Cloud will now offer this container-based solution for secure application access and monitoring to a broader set of customers.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;A Compliance Page-Turner:&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit/watch?talk=modernizing-compliance" target="_blank"&gt;Modernizing Compliance for Government&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud’s &lt;b&gt;Jeanette Manfra, Director, Risk and Compliance, and Chris Johnson, Global Compliance Product Lead&lt;/b&gt;, promised to make compliance interesting and engaging--and they made good on their promise. The duo shared how Google Cloud is modernizing security and advancing the compliance journey using products like Assured Workloads and Confidential Compute. Manfra also discussed the importance of moving from a shared responsibility to a shared fate mindset – built on a foundation of transparency and commitment to investing in customer success. She explained that Google Cloud’s commitment extends well beyond providing a secure and trusted infrastructure and the auditing needed to document it. It also encompasses blueprints for secure and compliant solutions, as well as offerings to help agencies better respond to and remediate issues. For Google Cloud, this also includes partnering across the ecosystem to offer innovative joint risk management solutions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Invest in a Robust Toolkit:&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit/watch?talk=zero-trust-principles" target="_blank"&gt;Zero Trust Principles and Tools for Government&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Google Cloud’s Ameet Jani, Product Manager, Engineering, and Robert Sadowski, Trust and Security Marketing Lead&lt;/b&gt;, unpacked Zero Trust principles and shared what tools agencies need to achieve their Zero Trust objectives. They showed how agencies can leverage user, device information, and strong multi-factor authentication, coupled with data protection, to elevate security, especially when employees are remote and phishing attacks are at record highs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;All About Analytics:&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit/watch?talk=transform-cybersecurity" target="_blank"&gt;Transform Cybersecurity Productivity with Next-Gen Analytics and Detection&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cybersecurity Analytics is a critical capability for organizations to counter threats and manage risk. But, most organizations don't do enough, do it well enough, or make full use of the data they have to elevate their cyber detection game. &lt;b&gt;Eric Hutcheson, Customer Engineering Team Lead at Looker, Trevor Welsh, Global Security Strategist at Google&lt;/b&gt;, and &lt;b&gt;Dan Prieto, Head of Security Strategy, Global Public Sector, at Google Cloud&lt;/b&gt;, broke it down for summit participants. They demonstrated how three powerful Google Cloud products ─ BigQuery, Looker, and Chronicle ─ combine to transform an agency’s cybersecurity situational awareness and balance the scales between cyber attackers and cyber defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt; is a wrap, but Google Cloud’s commitment to partnering with public sector organizations to defend our nation’s critical infrastructure is stronger than ever. Together we can solve for the future of &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/solutions/federal-government"&gt;government cloud security&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Wed, 21 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/government-security-summit-shines-light-power-innovation-and-zero-trust/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Government Security Summit Shines Light on Power of Innovation and Zero Trust</title><description>On Tuesday, July 20, public sector cybersecurity leaders gathered virtually at the Google Cloud Government Security Summit to learn, engage, and collaborate around a single goal – to improve the government’s cybersecurity posture and defenses. It’s a 24/7 mission that gets more challenging daily, and several of the world’s most respected cybersecurity thought leaders shared their most pressing needs, and their latest learnings, best practices, and strategies for a safer, more secure government network. All sessions below are now available on demand.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/government-security-summit-shines-light-power-innovation-and-zero-trust/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Tricia Davis-Muffett</name><title>Director, Global Public Sector Marketing, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>New Google Cloud Security offerings, just announced in the Government Security Summit keynote</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-cloud-security-offerings-just-announced-government-security-summit-keynote/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;This morning, Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, and I kicked off the Google Cloud Government Security Summit with a keynote address that announced a set of offerings to help federal, state, and local government organizations implement Zero Trust architecture in accordance with the &lt;a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/12/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/" target="_blank"&gt;White House’s Executive Order&lt;/a&gt; on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, and in alignment with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;These announcements are focused on easing the task of standing up a Zero Trust approach to security for government agencies, a mandate that government agencies were faced with in the wake of President Biden’s executive order a couple months ago. It is our job as Google Cloud to make it easier for our customers to: 1) understand what a Zero Trust strategy means for their agencies; and 2) help them implement that strategy by offering unique solutions to their ever-changing needs. Now, more than ever, we understand that security strategies are not “one size fits all.”. Below, you’ll read about four offerings we have announced that your organization can implement today to improve their cybersecurity. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Zero Trust assessment and planning offering:&lt;/b&gt;Delivered through Google Cloud’s professional services organization (PSO), the Zero Trust assessment and planning offering is designed to help the government reach security goals through Zero Trust architecture planning for core applications and data. Google Cloud’s PSO team will advise government organizations on the culture change, policies, and technology needed to achieve a Zero Trust framework—delivered in phases to ensure success within the customer’s infrastructure. This new offering will help government agencies leverage Google Cloud tools to support existing assets and infrastructure in cloud-based, on-premises, or hybrid environments. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Secure Application Access Anywhere offering:&lt;/b&gt;Google Cloud is also launching Secure Application Access Anywhere, a new, container-based offering for secure application access and monitoring. Secure Application Access Anywhere can serve as a scalable, highly responsive alternative to government network boundary systems. Delivered in partnership with Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud’s PSO team, this offering leverages Google Cloud’s Anthos to deploy and manage containers that provide secure access and monitoring for applications in cloud or on-premises environments. A recent &lt;a href="https://www.diu.mil/latest/defense-innovation-units-secure-cloud-management-prototypes-completed-with" target="_blank"&gt;successful prototype&lt;/a&gt; of this &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/press-releases/2020/0520/defense-innovation-unit"&gt;solution&lt;/a&gt; with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)—an organization within the Department of Defense—helped accelerate DIU’s Zero Trust journey by providing fast, secure, and controlled access by users to software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps directly over the internet.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Active Cyber Threat Detection offering:&lt;/b&gt; Google Cloud’s new Active Cyber Threat Detection offering can help government organizations quickly determine if they may have been compromised by cyberattacks that they have not yet detected. Delivered through Google Cloud partners Deloitte and Fishtech CYDERES, Active Cyber Threat Detection leverages the proven capabilities of Google Cloud’s Chronicle threat hunting, detection, and investigation platform. This offering will allow government organizations of all sizes to readily analyze their historic and current log data to detect threats confidently and quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Zero Trust demos:&lt;/b&gt; We launched two demos at the Government Security Summit to help walk you through scenarios related to &lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3000nGsuV8k" target="_blank"&gt;better securing access to your resources&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mZB4boQEok" target="_blank"&gt;collaboration and communication with Google Workspace&lt;/a&gt;. After the VPN surge to address remote work, are you wondering how to better secure access to enterprise web applications? BeyondCorp Enterprise provides Zero Trust access/remote access to enterprise web and SaaS applications in alignment with the core tenets of NIST 800-207. BCE also simplifies the experience for admins and end-users with an agentless approach. To learn more watch this demo: “&lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3000nGsuV8k" target="_blank"&gt;Securing access to your resources&lt;/a&gt;”. Are you reviewing various Zero Trust architectures to meet the White House Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO)? Discover how Google Workspace can help agencies address the EO mandate by providing a NIST-aligned Zero Trust environment for secure email, communications and collaboration. &lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mZB4boQEok" target="_blank"&gt;Watch the demo here.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;In addition to these new offerings, Google Cloud also offers several solutions that help government agencies accelerate their journey to Zero Trust and to protect against and recover from cyberattacks:&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp-enterprise"&gt;&lt;b&gt;BeyondCorp Enterprise:&lt;/b&gt; Google's Zero Trust access solution&lt;/a&gt;provides secure access to internal web applications, SaaS applications, and cloud resources by leveraging access policies based on identity and device contextual information. It also offers users integrated threat and data protection, such as malware protection, data leakage protection, and credential protection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/google-cloud-security-feature-rollout-for-spring-2021"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Google Workspace&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; also leverages Google’s Zero Trust technologies to provide a secure email, communication, and collaboration solution. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/its-about-time-proactive-approach-ransomware-recovery"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Actifio GO&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; can help organizations to better address ransomware attacks by providing scalable and efficient incremental data protection and a unique near-instant data recovery capability.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Together, these Google Cloud offerings can accelerate the U.S. government’s Zero Trust efforts to protect against cyber attacks, and to also better detect, respond to, and recover from cyber attacks when they do occur.  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Did you miss any sessions at the Google Cloud &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt;? All sessions will be available on demand today.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Jul 2021 13:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-cloud-security-offerings-just-announced-government-security-summit-keynote/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>New Google Cloud Security offerings, just announced in the Government Security Summit keynote</title><description></description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/new-google-cloud-security-offerings-just-announced-government-security-summit-keynote/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Mike Daniels</name><title>Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Exclusive preview: Google Cloud fireside chat with Dmitri Alperovitch, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/exclusive-preview-google-cloud-fireside-chat-dimitri-alperovitch-founder-and-former-cto-crowdstrike/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;As I was preparing for my fireside chat with Dmitri Alperovitch, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike and Executive Chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, for the Google Cloud &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt; taking place on Tuesday, July 20th, I was reflecting about recent developments in cybersecurity, Zero Trust best practices – including aspects of Google’s journey – and the benefits that this approach to cybersecurity brings to the public sector. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As Dmitri and I discussed what we wanted to share during our session at the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt;, I quickly realized how pertinent the information was to our public sector audience. For that reason, ahead of Tuesday’s event, I wanted to give you a glimpse of what is to come in our fireside chat. Read below for an exclusive preview of what we plan to discuss. If you are planning to attend on Tuesday, we encourage you to ask questions through our interactive chat function and sign up for 1:1 time with our Ask the Expert program. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Check out my chat with Dmitri below…&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Heather: What do you see as the most significant changes in both the attack surface and cybercriminal tactics in recent years? And why do these changes present unprecedented challenges for public sector? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dmitri: In terms of the threat landscape, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The adversaries haven’t changed that much. It’s actually striking. Not all threats are emanating from governments or state actors – either directly or by providing safe harbor to criminals – but a large portion are. That has not changed. The volume and scale of attacks have grown, however, and become massive. And now, the greatest challenge is that everyone is a target. Before, only top-end institutions and government organizations were facing nation state threats. That has changed either through targeted attacks or accidental ones, such as WannaCry. The question now is “How do we protect the most vulnerable and extend much-needed protection to smaller organizations that do not have deep security expertise or resources?”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Heather: Earlier this year, the Biden Administration released its Cybersecurity Executive Order (EO). What do you see as the most important takeaways and potential impact of the EO? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dmitri: The Cybersecurity EO is set to have a significant impact. The biggest change is a shift in strategy. For many decades, we all had the mentality that we have to keep attackers out of the network. That is great in theory, but we all know that it is a virtual impossibility with a network of any significant size. Adversaries will find a way in. And, we used to think it was game over once they were in the network.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then about 10 years ago, we began to see a change. Google led the way with its BeyondCorp strategy as did Lockheed Martin with its sentinel Kill Chain framework. Now, when an adversary penetrates a network, it’s not the end of the game, but the beginning. That is the case if the organization is prepared with a network architecture built around Zero Trust principles. The adversary now has to move laterally, steal credentials, and elevate privileges to get to the resources they want. A Zero Trust architecture can slow them down and give organizations time to detect and eject adversaries from the network. The EO recognizes the power of this approach and has made Zero Trust its fundamental tenet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Heather: Federal agencies have spent the last 60 days looking at Zero Trust and developing their plans. What do you hope to see? What is critical to accelerating implementation?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dmitri: The EO establishes a very ambitious timeline, and the US government is not known to move rapidly due to a number of restrictions and considerations. That said, the EO recognizes the idea that logging has to be at the center of modern architecture. Agencies need full visibility into what is going on at endpoints and across the network, have to hunt continuously across networks for adversaries, and must work to rapidly eject them. That is at the core of the EO, and it is a great shift. The private sector should be watching and learning as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Heather: What pitfalls should the Federal government look out for in moving forward to implement the EO?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dmitri: One of the main challenges is the limited authority of the President. Congress is the only branch with the power to change the laws. While the establishment of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) a few years ago allows for hunting across agency networks, CISA still has limited authority. It cannot manage the cybersecurity of more than 120 civilian agencies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some agencies are performing well when it comes to security, but we have to recognize that this is not the norm. Not all agencies have the capacity to recruit the best cybersecurity talent, but their needs may be just as great. We need to centralize capabilities and leverage the cloud, like Google, to provide all agencies with the best cyber talent and resources.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Join us at the &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Google Cloud Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt; to hear the rest of our conversation. The event is complimentary. &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Register today&lt;/a&gt; to reserve your spot on July 20th. If you have any questions about the event, please reach out to us at &lt;a href="mailto:cloudsummitsupport@google.com"&gt;cloudsummitsupport@google.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Mon, 19 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/exclusive-preview-google-cloud-fireside-chat-dimitri-alperovitch-founder-and-former-cto-crowdstrike/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Exclusive preview: Google Cloud fireside chat with Dmitri Alperovitch, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike</title><description></description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/exclusive-preview-google-cloud-fireside-chat-dimitri-alperovitch-founder-and-former-cto-crowdstrike/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Heather Adkins</name><title>Director of Information Security</title><department></department><company>Google</company></author></item><item><title>Making sense of logs with machine learning</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/making-sense-logs-machine-learning/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hard at work on the border between France and Switzerland, thousands of researchers are using some of the biggest, most complex scientific instruments in the world to examine the smallest particles in our universe. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), based in Geneva, is one of the world’s largest and most respected research centers. They are famous for being the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator. The CERN data center sits at the heart of a distributed global computing system called the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, which shares computation resources and experimental data among more than 161 institutions in 42 countries &lt;a href="https://videos.cern.ch/record/2640380" target="_blank"&gt;worldwide&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to share those resources and data, it relies on a file transfer service that handles on average two million jobs a day, regularly exceeding 60GB/s.  All those jobs are logged. The vast majority succeed, but for those that fail, the support team has to trawl through the logs to investigate the problem (a very time-consuming task). Yet finding patterns in the logs may help the team prioritize their efforts, plan resource allocation, accelerate resolution and improve service level objectives. In turn, this will lead to more efficient cooperation between scientists working on the experimental data.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Google Cloud and the CMS experiment worked together in the context of the Operational Intelligence CERN project to study the problem, with a view to automate the identification of anomalous transfers, analyze the message text content and recognize those patterns. &lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Exploring the data &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;CMS provided an historical excerpt of about 70 million log entries over several days. Google ingested them in &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/bigquery"&gt;BigQuery&lt;/a&gt; and set about exploring them using its &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/bi-engine/docs/introduction"&gt;BI Engine&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://datastudio.google.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Data Studio&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Figure 1: Quantity and type of errors over time" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Figure_1_Quantity_and_type_of_errors_over_.max-1000x1000.png"/&gt;&lt;figcaption class="article-image__caption "&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;Figure 1: Quantity and type of errors over time&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;The error distribution was not uniform across categories, with the majority of errors falling into two groups: communication errors and missing files or directories. The distribution varied over time, and among network nodes. A few nodes were responsible for most failures, but the connection pattern varied over time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Figure 2: Count of errors over connection pairs" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Figure_2_Count_of_errors_over_connection_p.max-1000x1000.png"/&gt;&lt;figcaption class="article-image__caption "&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;Figure 2: Count of errors over connection pairs&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Anomaly Detection &lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A communication network lends itself to representation as a graph. We observed changes in error distribution across time, connections on the graph and content of messages among nodes. Hence, we investigated graph anomaly detection algorithms as a possible way to identify issues in the logs. &lt;/p&gt;Using Google’s &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/ai-platform-notebooks"&gt;AI Platform Notebooks&lt;/a&gt; to run several experiments for quick prototyping, we returned an anomaly score for each entry in the data set. The scores were subsequently stored into BigQuery for further analysis. This allowed us to visualize the evolution of the anomalies over time by producing a sequence of network or chord diagrams, which we could display as brief animations in the notebook itself.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Figure 3: Holomap anomalies over time" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/original_images/figure_3_holomap-anomalies-over-time.gif"/&gt;&lt;figcaption class="article-image__caption "&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;Figure 3: Chord diagram of anomaly scores at a given time&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Text Analysis&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The content of the error messages is useful in identifying patterns and clusters of anomalies. To include it as a feature in our detection algorithm, it is necessary to encode it. For that purpose, we chose Google’s &lt;a href="https://www.tensorflow.org/hub/tutorials/semantic_similarity_with_tf_hub_universal_encoder" target="_blank"&gt;Universal Sentence Encoder&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The model is trained on sentences, phrases and paragraphs rather than just words. Log entries range from a simple “transfer successful” to full paragraphs, tracing errors across the software stack. For messages longer than a few words, a sentence encoder tends to outperform word-based ones in most natural language tasks. While not specifically trained on computer logs, the encoder vocabulary is large enough to include phrases that are likely to appear there. The universal sentence encoder is available in &lt;a href="https://www.tensorflow.org/hub" target="_blank"&gt;Tensorflow Hub&lt;/a&gt; and can be imported in your python code. All the necessary libraries to leverage Universal Sentence Encoder are already included with Vertex AI notebooks. The algorithm encodes text into 512-element floating-point vectors, which we manipulated further to extract topic clusters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Figure 4: Error topic clusters" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/figure_4_error_topic_clusters.max-1000x1000.png"/&gt;&lt;figcaption class="article-image__caption "&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;Figure 4: Error topic clusters&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;While the main clusters correspond to the categories that already existed in CERN data, we found several more of interest. For each, we could extract the message closest to the cluster center, which can be considered a “template” for the rest. For instance, the second-largest error cluster contained messages such as:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;'TRANSFER  &amp;lt;...&amp;gt;: the server responded with an error 500 500-Command failed. : System error in open: No such file or directory  500-A system call failed: No such file or directory  500 End.'&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we include successful transfers as well into the analysis, we’ll have to expect a diagram looking like Figure 5, with a large cluster in the middle representing “success” messages. Errors are normally outliers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Figure 5: Complete clusters" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/figure_5_complete_clusters.max-1000x1000.png"/&gt;&lt;figcaption class="article-image__caption "&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;Figure 5: The largest cluster represents successful transfers, errors are outliers&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Actionable Information&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With the information from anomaly detection and text analysis, one can build a recommender for the support team, which proposes a selection of errors to investigate. Both criteria are useful. For instance:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Common errors (represented as large clusters) may not require a support agent to investigate, because they may already have a prescribed solution. However, if they occur at uncommon times or between unusual nodes, they may indicate an anomaly worth examining.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;An uncommon error (belonging to a small cluster) may occur at heavily trafficked times or on heavily trafficked links and cause disruption, hence be worth investigating.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;No algorithm is perfect, so one must make sure that whatever selection is chosen, it is actually composed of errors. A useful metric for that is precision-at-k, where k is the number of selected items. In our experiments, with k=1000 most anomalous entries, we obtained a precision of 85% or better, thus making our selection quite relevant.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-image_full_width"&gt;&lt;div class="article-module h-c-page"&gt;&lt;div class="h-c-grid"&gt;&lt;figure class="article-image--large h-c-grid__col h-c-grid__col--6 h-c-grid__col--offset-3 "&gt;&lt;img alt="Figure 6: Topic distribution over the 1000 most anomalous entries" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/Figure_6__Topic_distribution_over_the_1000.max-1000x1000.png"/&gt;&lt;figcaption class="article-image__caption "&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;Figure 6: Topic distribution over the 1000 most anomalous entries&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/figcaption&gt;&lt;/figure&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Next Steps&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Given the promising results of this study, we plan to finalise and deploy in production a recommendation engine for operators based on the techniques described above. Issue severity will be calculated by correlating with information from the ticketing systems used by the operators for past issues. The aim is to provide the operators with a list of the most severe issues to be addressed, as well as with suggestions on actions to take (such as opening a ticket, escalating to experts, etc.). The final goal is the complete automation of this process.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The experiment can be generalized to process other types of communication logs or log streams, including information such as commercial transaction records over time. One can also include other categorical and numerical information too, such as quantities, product codes, etc. (rather than just text descriptions).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Want to give it a try? Once you &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/free/"&gt;sign up for Google Cloud&lt;/a&gt;, you can deploy an AI Platform &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/ai-platform-notebooks"&gt;notebook&lt;/a&gt; and experiment with the &lt;a href="https://www.tensorflow.org/hub/tutorials/semantic_similarity_with_tf_hub_universal_encoder" target="_blank"&gt;Universal Sentence Encoder&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no need to rewrite from scratch; you can explore our &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/using-automated-ml-streaming-architecture-to-find-anomalies"&gt;patterns&lt;/a&gt; for anomaly detection with &lt;a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/anomaly-detection-using-streaming-analytics-and-ai"&gt;streaming analytics.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Fri, 16 Jul 2021 13:11:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/making-sense-logs-machine-learning/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Making sense of logs with machine learning</title><description></description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/making-sense-logs-machine-learning/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Dr. Federica Legger</name><title>Member of CMS experiment, CERN</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Dr. Grazia Frontoso</name><title>Manager, Customer Engineering, Public Sector EMEA North</title><department></department><company></company></author><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Giovanni Marchetti</name><title>Customer Engineer, Government, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Google Cloud Government Security Summit - Join us for ‘can’t miss’ content and solutions for your toughest cybersecurity challenges</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/google-cloud-government-security-summit-cybersecurity-/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Google Cloud Government Security Summit is one week away, and we’re pleased to announce our full program line up, packed with content and insights from some of the world’s leading cybersecurity thought leaders, including:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Thomas Kurian&lt;/b&gt;, CEO, Google Cloud&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Chris DeRusha&lt;/b&gt;, Federal Chief Information Security Officer&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Dmitri Alperovitch&lt;/b&gt;, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike and Executive Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Heather Adkins&lt;/b&gt;, Senior Director, Information Security and Privacy, Google&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rick Simon&lt;/b&gt;, Cyber Portfolio Program Manager, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wondering what’s in store for you? Here are the top sessions you don’t want to miss:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;b&gt;Welcome and Opening Keynote&lt;/b&gt;. Hear opening remarks from&lt;b&gt;Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud,&lt;/b&gt;and &lt;b&gt;Chris DeRusha, Federal Chief Information Security Officer&lt;/b&gt;, on the state of government cybersecurity. Following that, &lt;b&gt;Mike Daniels, Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud&lt;/b&gt;, and &lt;b&gt;Dan Prieto, Strategic Executive, US Public Sector, Google&lt;/b&gt;, will take the stage for a  live Q&amp;amp;A, sharing how Google Cloud is partnering with governments to develop zero trust plans and strengthen their overall cybersecurity defenses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;b&gt;Fireside Chat: Security at Scale – Google’s Zero Trust Journey&lt;/b&gt;. Gain insight on the latest cybersecurity learnings and zero trust best practices from &lt;b&gt;Dmitri Alperovitch, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;Executive Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator,&lt;/b&gt; and &lt;b&gt;Heather Adkins, Senior Director, Information Security and Privacy, Google&lt;/b&gt;. And, learn how your agency can benefit from Google’s zero trust architecture offering.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;3.&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;Defense Innovation Unit: Secure Application Access Anywhere.&lt;/b&gt; Join &lt;b&gt;Rick Simon, Cyber Portfolio Program Manager at DIU&lt;/b&gt;, and &lt;b&gt;Mike Daniels, Vice President of Global Public Sector at Google Cloud&lt;/b&gt;, for a discussion and live Q&amp;amp;A on how DIU implemented a successful &lt;a href="https://www.diu.mil/latest/defense-innovation-units-secure-cloud-management-prototypes-completed-with" target="_blank"&gt;secure cloud monitoring prototype&lt;/a&gt;. As a result of this successful prototype, Google Cloud will now offer  this container-based solution for secure application access and monitoring to a broader set of customers. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;4. &lt;b&gt;Modernizing Compliance for Government&lt;/b&gt;. Join Google Cloud’s &lt;b&gt;Jeanette Manfra, Director, Risk and Compliance&lt;/b&gt;, and &lt;b&gt;Chris Johnson, Global Compliance Product Lead&lt;/b&gt;, to learn how Google Cloud is modernizing security and enabling the compliance journey using  products like Assured Workloads and Confidential Compute.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;5. &lt;b&gt;Zero Trust Principles and Tools for Government.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;Learn how zero trust principles and tools can add layers of protection for public sector organizations, especially when employees are working remotely and when phishing attacks are at record highs. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;6. &lt;b&gt;Transform Cybersecurity Productivity with Next-Gen Analytics and Detection&lt;/b&gt;. Explore how BigQuery, Looker, and Chronicle can combine to transform your organization's cybersecurity situational awareness and balance the scales between cyber attackers and cyber defenders.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Google Cloud Government Security Summit is a complimentary event.  &lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Register today&lt;/a&gt; to reserve your spot on July 20th. If you have questions about the event, please reach out to us at &lt;a href="mailto:cloudsummitsupport@google.com"&gt;cloudsummitsupport@google.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/google-cloud-government-security-summit-cybersecurity-/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Google Cloud Government Security Summit - Join us for ‘can’t miss’ content and solutions for your toughest cybersecurity challenges</title><description>The Google Cloud Government Security Summit is one week away, and we’re pleased to announce our full program line up, packed with content and insights from some of the world’s leading cybersecurity thought leaders, including: Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud Chris DeRusha, Federal Chief Information Security Officer Dmitri Alperovitch, Founder and Former CTO of CrowdStrike and Executive Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator Heather Adkins, Senior Director, Information Security and Privacy, Google Rick Simon, Cyber Portfolio Program Manager, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Register today to reserve your spot on July 20th, 2021.</description><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/google-cloud-government-security-summit-cybersecurity-/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Tricia Davis-Muffett</name><title>Director, Global Public Sector Marketing, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item><item><title>Federal CISO Chris DeRusha to headline Google Cloud Government Security Summit</title><link>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/federal-ciso-chris-derusha-headline-google-cloud-government-security-summit/</link><description>&lt;html&gt;&lt;head&gt;&lt;/head&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;div class="block-paragraph"&gt;&lt;div class="rich-text"&gt;&lt;p&gt;The past 16 months served up unprecedented cybersecurity challenges to government agencies. First, the cyber-attack landscape expanded exponentially with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and pivot to remote work. Then came a rapid succession of high-profile attacks – SolarWinds, Hafnium, the Colonial Pipeline, and JBS Foods, to name several – that threatened national security, critical infrastructure, and the delivery of essential services.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Federal government is on high alert and taking action. President Biden’s Cybersecurity Executive Order is focused on transforming government and critical infrastructure cybersecurity. Accelerating the journey to Zero Trust Architecture is central to these efforts, as is the need for improved cyber analytics. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Federal agencies have a big job ahead, and Google Cloud is ready to help you stay ahead of next-generation threats. We’re diving deep at our first&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;Google Cloud Government Security Summit&lt;/a&gt;, scheduled for 9 a.m. ET on July 20. Join us for this digital event, packed with content designed to help you keep your government organization secure in the cloud, on-premises, or in hybrid environments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We’re excited to announce that&lt;a href="https://www.cio.gov/about/members-and-leadership/deRusha-Chris/" target="_blank"&gt;Chris DeRusha&lt;/a&gt;, Federal Chief Information Security Officer, will set the stage for the event with a special keynote outlining the path forward for Federal agencies. DeRusha has served in the Biden Administration since January after holding previous cybersecurity leadership roles in the Obama Administration, state government and the automotive industry.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other event highlights include a keynote from Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian, as well as a live Q&amp;amp;A with Mike Daniels, Google Cloud’s Vice President of Global Public Sector.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You’ll hear firsthand from customers on how to tackle multi-cloud security and Zero Trust with Google Cloud. During sessions, you can post your questions in our interactive Q&amp;amp;A forum and get answers in real time from subject matter experts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can also engage with Google Cloud experts to learn about our latest security product solutions and explore how Google Cloud can help your agency transform its security strategy. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Google Cloud Government Security Summit is a complimentary event, save your spot to be with us on July 20 by&lt;a href="https://cloudonair.withgoogle.com/events/government-security-summit?utm_source=google&amp;amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;amp;utm_campaign=FY21-Q3-northam-G&amp;amp;E1241-onlineevent-er-goverment-security-summit-main=&amp;amp;utm_content=google-owned-blog-promotion&amp;amp;utm_term=-" target="_blank"&gt;registering today.&lt;/a&gt; If you have any questions about the event, please reach out to us at &lt;a href="mailto:cloudsummitsupport@google.com"&gt;cloudsummitsupport@google.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;</description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jul 2021 08:00:00 -0000</pubDate><guid>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/federal-ciso-chris-derusha-headline-google-cloud-government-security-summit/</guid><category>Public Sector</category><media:content url="https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/original_images/Security_Landing_Page_1300x1020.gif" width="540" height="540"></media:content><og xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"><type>article</type><title>Federal CISO Chris DeRusha to headline Google Cloud Government Security Summit</title><description>The past 16 months served up unprecedented cybersecurity challenges to government agencies. First, the cyber-attack landscape expanded exponentially with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and pivot to remote work. Then came a rapid succession of high-profile attacks – SolarWinds, Hafnium, the Colonial Pipeline, and JBS Foods, to name several – that threatened national security, critical infrastructure, and the delivery of essential services. See how Google Cloud is ready to help you stay ahead of next-generation threats. Register for our first Google Cloud Government Security Summit.</description><image>https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/original_images/Security_Landing_Page_1300x1020.gif</image><site_name>Google</site_name><url>https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/public-sector/federal-ciso-chris-derusha-headline-google-cloud-government-security-summit/</url></og><author xmlns:author="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><name>Mike Daniels</name><title>Vice President, Global Public Sector, Google Cloud</title><department></department><company></company></author></item></channel></rss>