Booz Allen’s Dan Tucker, Elastic’s George Young: Data-First Strategy Key to Federal IT Modernization

Dan Tucker, a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton’s digital solutions business, and George Young, VP of U.S. public sector at Elastic, have said federal agencies that aim to modernize their information technology infrastructure should begin with their data layer.

“The most effective IT modernization strategies are driven by a data management strategy,” Tucker and Young wrote in a Nextgov article published Wednesday.

They said a “data-first” strategy calls for government IT teams to analyze their machine data, logs, text and other information for transparency and visibility.

There are several factors agencies should consider when implementing a data-first initiative such as their future information requirements; ways to acquire and govern data; architecture to support information needs; and approach to provide data access while maintaining privacy and security controls.

Agencies should have agile and incremental data-first programs that are tailored to their unique requirements and “consistent with their data layer,” they noted.

Young and Tucker also cited how the adoption of a data-first strategy helped the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department update the USAspending.gov portal and assisted the Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation to modernize its systems for the 2020 U.S. Census.