There was a time when public entities with sensitive data thought they’d never move to public cloud. Then the Central Intelligence Agency endorsed cloud not despite security, but because of it. And so the tide turned. Government agencies now move to cloud for security, agility, and to help them do hard, high-stakes work.

Case in point: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is utilizing cloud to help solve crimes. The FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director spoke at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. The bureau is in the midst of a “data crisis,” she said.  The Vegas shooting is an example of a case whose dragged-out investigation frustrated the public.

Enterprise customers choose cloud to shorten time to value. Government entities with high-pressure missions to execute can benefit greatly from agility, high-speed data analytics, etc., according to Teresa Carlson (pictured), vice president of the worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services Inc.

The FBI is running a data-analytics program called Sandcastle, according to Carlson. “It’s a perfect example of us helping [government agencies] move faster to do their mission,” she said.

Carlson spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. They discussed the trend of public entities getting aboard cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Trial and error the agile cloud way

The slow version of trial and error in information technology for an entity like the FBI doesn’t cut it, according to Carlson. The fast, cloud-enabled version, however, can make a crucial difference in investigations. That involves “being able to test and try quickly and effectively test, fail fast, recover, and then use the data,” she said, “so that they can quickly disseminate and get to the heart of the matter, and not sit there and say, ‘Wait on this bad guy while we go over here and chase this one.'”

AWS is helping a lot of smaller state governments modernize and speed up operations with cloud.

“The governor of Arizona has a really big push toward modernization and utilization of information technology,” Carlson stated. AWS just announced the ASU Smart City Cloud Innovation Center with Arizona State University.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS reInvent. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE