Top Five Blog Posts from the AWS Government, Education, & Nonprofit Blog for 2016

Thank you all for reading our blog this past year! From veterans and researchers to educators and engineers, our customers are changing the game in the public sector with the cloud.

To end the year and ring in 2017, we have compiled the top five most-read blog posts from 2016.

1. Cloud Transformation Maturity Model: Guidelines to Develop Effective Strategies for Your Cloud Adoption Journey – The Cloud Transformation Maturity Model offers a guideline to help organizations develop an effective strategy for their cloud adoption journey. This model defines characteristics that determine the stage of maturity, transformation activities within each stage that must be completed to move to the next stage, and outcomes that are achieved across four stages of organizational maturity, including project, foundation, migration, and optimization. Where are you on your journey? Read the post to learn more.
2. AWS Educate Now Available to U.S. Veterans – U.S.-based veterans, transitioning military personnel, and their spouses are eligible to create an AWS Educate account to get access to the resources needed to accelerate cloud-related learning endeavors to help power civilian career success.  From the frontline to the classroom, AWS is committed to prepping the next generation of IT and cloud professionals. Get started today.
3. A Practical Guide to Cloud Migration – To achieve full benefits of moving applications to the AWS platform, it is critical to design a cloud migration model that delivers optimal cost efficiency. This includes establishing a compelling business case, acquiring new skills within the IT organization, implementing new business processes, and defining the application migration methodology to transform your business model from a traditional on-premises computing platform to a cloud infrastructure. A Practical Guide to Cloud Migration: Migrating Services to AWS provides a high-level overview of the cloud migration process based on the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and is a great first read for customers who are thinking about cloud adoption.
4. AWS Offers Data Egress Discount to Researchers – The pace of research is no longer limited by the availability of computing resources. Researchers are beginning to rely on cloud computing to drive breakthrough science at breakneck speeds and AWS wants to fuel the pace of new discoveries by making it possible for all scientists to have their very own supercomputers in the cloud. AWS committed to making it easier for scientists to use its cloud storage, computing, and database services by waiving data egress fees for qualified researchers and academic customers; these are fees associated with “data transfer out from AWS to the Internet.”
5. IRS 990 Filing Data Now Available as an AWS Public Dataset – We announced that over one million electronic IRS 990 filings are available via Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Filings from 2011 to the present are currently available and the IRS will add new 990 filing data each month. Collaborating with the IRS allows us to improve access to this valuable data.

See you all in the New Year!