Federal government technology leaders are leaning hard into upgrading their data infrastructure to create value from fast-growing data flows that are proving too much to handle for their older systems, new research from MeriTalk and Hitachi Vantara Federal finds.
The new research – Federal Data Maturity Report: Optimizing Storage, Operations, and Insights – generates its conclusions from a survey of 150 Federal IT decision-makers who offered their views on the current and future states of Federal data storage and operations.
On the data generation side of the equation, business is booming, the research shows.
More than half the decision-makers surveyed said they are seeing significant increases in data generation from numerous sources including biometric and identity data, machine-generated data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices, multimedia-generated data, geospatial and location-based data, and unstructured data in general.
Federal policy imperatives are driving government agencies to better use their data for mission outcomes and citizen service improvements. Still, as the supply of data increases, many agency tech leaders are finding that their current systems aren’t up to the challenge.
The new research finds that 57 percent of those surveyed believe their current data infrastructure is being swamped by increasing data volumes. Similarly, 62 percent said they fear their current data infrastructure won’t scale sufficiently to meet current and future demands.
The culprits at work are familiar themes that drive technology modernization – outdated systems, complexity problems, and security vulnerabilities.
While nearly all respondents are feeling the to get better at turning data into mission and decision-making gold, the key takeaway is that most of them don’t believe their organizations are doing particularly well in meeting those overarching goals. On the data maturity front, only 41 percent said their organizations have reached “advanced” status, and less than a third – 32 percent – give their organizations an “A” grade on the ability to use data-driven insights.
The data-driven future looks brighter, but the new research indicates there’s a lot of work to do to get there. Among the priority steps suggested by the Federal tech leaders:
- Agencies should focus on upgrading data storage infrastructure;
- Agencies should invest in advanced analytical tools; and
- They should continue to improve cybersecurity to protect data and systems.
The value proposition of these steps is already being realized by some organizations, the research shows. Of the respondents whose organizations have upgraded their data capabilities, more than half are seeing the payoff in the form of more streamlined collaboration and data sharing. And 53 percent have been able to generate better decision-making capabilities as a result.
Looking forward, more than half of those surveyed said that further adoption of modern data infrastructure will improve data access and retrieval, increase efficiency, and improve data reliability and resiliency for mission-critical applications.
We invite you to click through for the entire research report.