Join us to learn how government agencies are using AWS GovCloud (US) to achieve data center consolidation and optimization goals, and to support IT modernization. This session features the US Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Veterans Affairs Enterprise Cloud program. It examines their unique journeys through enterprise data center consolidation, and how these efforts are influencing application modernization and database management strategies. Topics include database re-platforming, refactoring legacy applications, compliance, technical strategies, implementation, and running operations in the cloud.

1. P U B L I C S E C T O R
S U M M I T
WASHINGTON, DC

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S U M M I T
ATF’s Journey to the Cloud
Mason McDaniel
Chief Technology Officer
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)
Department of Justice (DOJ)
2 9 8 4 4 8 - A T a l e o f T w o I T M o d e r n i z a t i o n S t r a t e g i e s

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Agenda
1. Funding: How do you convince executives to invest in “invisible” IT?
2. Migrations: Known challenges
3. Key Focus: Pay off Technical Debt first
4. IT Governance: Technology is not enough!
5. Lessons Learned: Don’t repeat our mistakes… at least make new ones
6. Status: Where we are today

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Communicate IT Needs in Business Terms
Technical
Debt

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Problem to Opportunity: DR as Cloud Onramp
Failover / Disaster Recovery Datacenter Site
Primary Datacenter Site
ATF User
ATF Data Center
(NONE)
STARTING STATE
AWS GovCloud (US)
AWS GovCloud (US)
END STATE
AWS GovCloud (US)
ATF Data Center
PHASE 1
AWS GovCloud (US)
ATF Datacenter
PHASE 2

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Migration Challenges

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Strategy: Pay Off Technical Debt First
Previous
Strategy
Modernize
SYSTEM
New Strategy Modernize By Tier, Starting with all
data
Database
ANEW
Database
BNEW
Database
CNEW
…Database
C
Database
B
App 2App 3…
…
…
Data
Access
App 1NEW
Business
Logic
User
InterfaceRefactor
Code
App 1
Database
A
App 2NEW
Business
Logic
User
Interface
Data
Access
App 3NEW
Business
Logic
User
Interface
Data
Access

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IT Governance: Technology is Not Enough
Blue-Green
Deployments
Time Budget: 2 mins
Process Approvals
Auto-Scaling
Deployment Automation

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Lessons Learned
Assume code baselines and
documentation are… not current
Automate everything
Don’t update your governance.
Start over and replace it.
$ Explain needs in business terms
Assume things are
worse than you think
Dead
code
Rogue
Scripts
End User
DBAs
Hijacked
Fields

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Status: Where we are today
Time Budget: 5 mins
• CI/CD environment
• Databases
• Governance
• Migrations
In progress
2-3 months
Fall, 2019

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Thank you!
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S U M M I T
Mason McDaniel
mason.mcdaniel@atf.gov
Twitter: @MasonBMcDaniel

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Executing VA’s Cloud Strategy
Dave Catanoso
Director, Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office (ECSO)
Office of Information & Technology (OIT)
Department of Veterans Affairs
2 9 8 4 4 8 - A T a l e o f T w o I T M o d e r n i z a t i o n S t r a t e g i e s

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Agenda
• VA Overview
• Why VA is moving to the cloud?
• VA’s cloud strategy and the Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office
(ECSO)
• VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC)
• Success Story: Veterans Benefits Management System Migration

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VA Overview
U.S. Dept. of
Veterans Affairs
https://www.va.gov/health/aboutvha.asp
https://www.benefits.va.gov/BENEFITS/about.asp
https://www.cem.va.gov/cem/about/index.asp
https://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/pocketcards/fy2019q3.pdf
• 136 national cemeteries
and 33 soldiers' lots and
monument sites in 40
states and Puerto Rico

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VA’s challenge—increase innovation tempo and drive
down costs
• Need to speed innovation to better serve the Veteran
(including supporting DevOps)
• Hampered by lack of funds to innovate/substantial portion
of budget goes to sustainment (capital expense/CapEx)
• Required to support cloud mandates issued by the White
House, Congress, the Federal CIO, and the VA Secretary

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OIT formed the ECSO in 2018 to lead VA’s Cloud Strategy
Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office
• Established in March 2018
• Provides migration and cloud
expertise
• Develops/maintains VA Enterprise
Cloud (VAEC) architecture
• Acts as the focal point for cloud
policy
• Supports cloud-related, enterprise-
wide acquisition
• Facilitates the efficient migration
and use of cloud technology
VA’s Cloud Strategy
• Software-as-a-Service
• VA Enterprise Cloud

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The VAEC currently supports two clouds including Amazon
Web Services GovCloud (VAEC-AWS)
VA Enterprise Cloud
VA Apps
VA Apps
VA Users
SaaS/PaaS
AppsExamples
• Office 365
• Salesforce
Existing VA
Data CentersOperational Tools
Other
Clouds
19
Standardized
operational tools
and support
services speed
implementation
General Support
Services
General Support
Services

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VAEC-AWS environment

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Success Story: Veterans Benefits Management System
(VBMS)
• Web-based, paperless claims processing
system
• Primary system for managing the Veterans
Benefits Administration
• FISMA High
• ~ Eight years old
• Custom development

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Key drivers of VBMS migration
Cost Reliability
Scalability Performance
Cloud Legislation, Policy
and Initiatives
• Modernizing Government
Technology (MGT) Act
• President’s Management Agenda
(PMA)
• VA Directive 6517 (Feb. 2012)
• Exec. Order 13800 (May 2017)
• OIT Comprehensive IT Plan
• VA Risk Management Framework for
Cloud Computing Services
• VA Cloud Policy Memorandum (Jan.
2018)
• Memorandum on the Use of Cloud
Native Technologies and Approaches
(April 2018)

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VBMS architecture—before and after
Datacenter
FileNet
Oracle RAC
Oracle WebLogic
Red Hat Enterprise
Linux
16vCPU/128MB RAM
Hosting:
Doc. Storage
RDBMS:
VAEC-AWS
AWS S3
Oracle
Oracle WebLogic
Red Hat Enterprise
Linux
64 vCPU/976GB RAM
Middleware:
O/S:
Servers:

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VBMS migration plan—four independent tracks
Sep’18 Oct’18 Nov’18 Dec’18 Jan’19 Feb’19 Mar’19 Apr’19 May’19 Jun’19
Track 1
(Transition Document Uploads)
Cease Uploading to Hosted Solution
Track 4
(VBMS Environments Migration)
System Cutover
Complete
Track 2
(Document Migration)
Snowball
Testing
Migrate
Current
Data to
AWS
Migration from IBM to AWS Complete
Track 3
(Shared Services Migration)
System Cutover
Complete
Infrastructure
Automation Complete
Readiness
Testing
Complete
Developer
Transition
Out of Legacy
Legacy Data
Filestores Deleted
Infrastructure
Automation Complete
Readiness Testing
Complete

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VBMS migration anticipated and actual results
• Improved performance
• Supported peak loads of 3,500 users on day 1
• Download speeds are faster than pre-VAEC-AWS
• More scalable (esp. end of fiscal year (FY))
• At the end of FY18, saw an increase of 300 users per
minute
• Significant cost savings (targeting 50%)
• Improved high availability
• 1 primary/1 secondary to 3 primary/3 secondary
• Far greater visibility into the virtualization layer
• Faster recovery times
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Pre-Migration Post Migration
Time to Download 100MB File (mins)
Bottom Line: Improved benefits processing for the Veteran

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Lessons Learned So Far
• Standardizing all environments using Infrastructure-as-code (TerraForm)
• Using both Snowball (> 5MB) and over the network (< 5MB) for file migration
• Ensuring readiness for cutover via extensive testing
• Getting Information Assurance involved early
• Handoff between contractors
• Communications—needed more and earlier
• Engaging the scanning vendors and consumers earlier
• Should have moved databases to AWS earlier as a test run

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VAEC-AWS Usage

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Sample of other VAEC-AWS apps
• Digital Veterans Platform
• Enterprise Mobility Management
• My HealtheVet
• VA.gov
• Vets.gov
• VistA (future)

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Thank you!
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Dave Catanoso
david.catanoso@va.gov

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