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Article Source: FCW Data & Analytics Summit: May 18, 2022

Apply Data in Motion
GOVERNMENT TODAY understands that datais central to everything it does, helping ensure
the success of missions and citizen services.
But delivering these types of experiencesthat constituents and decision-makers expect
requires a new way of thinking, along with a new
set of requirements for data infrastructure. It’s
not just a matter of bolting on an application orautomating existing business processes. Instead,
it requires an end-to-end transformation thatcreates a real-time flow of data across projects,
lines of business programs and missions. It
requires moving from bath processing to realtime stream processing, and from sprawling silos
to highly connected data systems.

“In this world view, you model
everything that happens as anevent. It could be monetarytransactions, customer orcitizen activity, or healthand medical updates, andeverything from low-levelsensor readings to updates
or databases. All of these are
streams of events that model

So how is all of this connected to the conceptof data in motion? Essentially, the idea is thatdata can move from one location to another. The
foundational assumption of every database is data
at rest, but that is the antithesis of a continuous
real-time flow of data. Databases were designed
as the destination for data, allowing users toanswer questions or run analytics against the data
at a given snapshot of time.
“What ends up happening is countless pointto-point connections, usually handled in periodic
batches to ship data around from one silo toanother,” explained Will LaForest, Field CTO for
the Americas and Public Sector at Confluent.
“It’s too brittle, too costly, and it doesn’t scaleeffectively to enable the sort of transformation
we’re seeing.”
The solution is better data-in-motion
architectures that focus on harnessing the flowof data across applications, databases, Software
as a Service (SaaS), layers and cloud systems.

S P O N SO R E D BY:

the operation of the mission.”W I L L L A FO R E ST
Field CTO for the Americas
and Public Sector,Confluent

The core of a data in motion architecture is data
streaming, where data isn’t static. With data
streaming, organizations must reorient their wayof thinking into “streams of events.”“In this world view, you model everything that
happens as an event,” LaForest explained. “Itcould be monetary transactions, customer orcitizen activity, or health and medical updates,and everything from low-level sensor readings
to updates or databases. All of these are
streams of events that model the operation ofthe mission.”

AEventummitAs this approach matures and is more widelyadopted, it becomes an essential nervous
system, much like the central nervous systemties together all independent parts of the humanbody into a coherent whole. In other words, it
connects every part of the organization.
“It’s having a profound impact. It’s enabling
people to independently tap into live streams ofdata and then use it to accomplish their goals ina decentralized fashion,” LaForest said.
Beyond data streaming, it’s also helpful toleverage Apache Kafka, especially with added
capabilities around data compatibility, data
governance and security that make it easier toreach that central nervous system.

“If a stream of data is published, consumers
can discover it. They can understand it, handleschema evolution if they have permission, andeven perform simple tasks like getting data outof Oracle or traditional queues. Having it flow
to more modern tools can be done with offthe-shelf connectors rather than having write abunch of code,” LaForest explained.
“The biggest use case for government
adoption of data in motion, though, is probably
cyber defense and zero trust. That’s because
these requirements have amplified the needto collect and analyze observability data. Whiletools will change over time along with the dataagencies need, a flexible framework is the best
option to employ,” LaForest said.

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