The balance between modernizing IT infrastructure and preserving existing investments presents a major concern for the U.S. Government. Tricia Fitzmaurice, Vice President of Sales at Rancher Government Solutions (RGS), shares how RGS is transforming the approach to IT modernization, giving government customers and partners unparalleled flexibility and choice. Allowing them to leverage new technologies without the constraints of vendor lock-in or hardware limitations, ensuring a future-proof IT environment.

While the push towards modernization in the U.S. Government and Military is critical, transforming and modernizing government IT infrastructure has never been more challenging. Traditional service providers are increasingly becoming a source of frustration. Agencies find themselves constrained by the technical limitations, escalating costs, and inflexibility of these legacy systems.  

In a recent webinar, Brandon Gulla, Chief Technology Officer at Rancher Government Solutions (RGS), alongside Dominic Perez from Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions, offered a deep dive into the world of cloud capabilities at the tactical edge. Hosted by Signal Media, this discussion was a masterclass in enhancing the effectiveness of military and emergency operations in challenging environments. 

The Changing Security Requirements Landscape

In the wake of watershed cybersecurity events like the SolarWinds breach and the Log4J vulnerability, federal agencies face urgent demands to secure their software supply chains. Along with emerging Congressional action and forthcoming CISA regulations, the Biden-Harris Administration’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (14028)1 is a direct response to these crises, imposing rigorous new standards for software security. The reality is clear: securing software supply chains is no longer optional; it’s a national imperative.

In a landscape cluttered with cybersecurity solutions, Rancher Government Solutions (RGS) distinguishes itself through a triad of differentiators: our adherence to Defense Information Security Agency (DISA)-approved Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs), our commitment to Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140 Encryption standards, and our “Secure by Default” ethos.

Over the last few years, Kubernetes has revolutionized the world of infrastructure and application distribution. From bare-metal servers to virtual machines to containers, Kubernetes has compelled teams to re-evaluate their entire technology stack – in the very best way possible. However, for many teams, Kubernetes is seen as a tall mountain to climb. But it doesn’t have to be.

You can perform no-code deployments of Rancher Kubernetes on the AWS GovCloud!

While the federal government and U.S. military are innovative in many ways, they don’t like to live on the edge when it comes to information technology. Stable, reliable, and secure are the name of the game. But in order to support the most advanced technology, such as next-gen warfare and highly complex supply chains, agencies need the power of edge computing with more choices that go beyond proprietary vertical stacks and standard Amazon Web Services (AWS). Edge computing eliminates the dependencies of on-premise infrastructure and decouples devices in any form from the data center, providing powerful, always available computing wherever the user is—from our communities to our borders to the battlefield.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully implemented your containerization strategy and automated your application deployment with Kubernetes. Whether you have a private or public cloud, you are still at risk for threats to your virtualized environment, including: