Despite Metro Shutdowns in Washington, Virtualization and Telework Let Feds Keep Working

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is shutting down sections of Washington’s subway system, the Metro, for weeks at a time as part of its “SafeTrack” plan to perform accelerated track maintenance and upgrades. So, one could expect that extensive track work affecting the workday commute of thousands of federal workers would be a severe disruption, right?

Wrong, according to Bill Rowan, vice president of federal sales at VMware. Thanks to improvements that the federal government has made over the last few years in virtualization technology and telework policies, SafeTrack likely won’t have a material impact on the ability of federal workers to get their jobs done, he said.

While some workers will undoubtedly be adversely affected, he contended, the government is in a much better position than it was even five years ago. The SafeTrack plan started in June and will run through next March, altering commutes for virtually everyone that uses the Metrorail system at one time or another.

Improvements in Technology, Culture

Rowan said that over the last five years, “work has become more about not where you are but what you do” and that “agencies have gotten considerably better” in letting workers perform core functions — email, printing, file-sharing — remotely.

“The vast majority of government workers now have the ability to do that in a safe and secure way, whether they are sitting at their desk or on their mobile device,” he said.

The proof is in the pudding. When Metro shut down the rail system to perform emergency inspections in March, it was “not the horrific event from a commerce perspective that I think some people thought it could have been. Had that happened five years ago, it would have had a much bigger impact.”

Federal workers, he said, “were able to get the basic mission of the agencies accomplished.”

With SafeTrack, the Office of Personnel Management has given agencies flexibility to let employees take advantage of alternative work schedules and telework options, noting that one size does not fit all.

“Agencies will need to make decisions on which AWS schedules to adopt (if any) based on the impact of the SafeTrack project on their agency mission and employees,” OPM’s guidance states. “It is important to remember that each individual employee’s commuting situation will vary within your agency and will most likely change during the SafeTrack Project. Supervisors will need to communicate the flexibilities and work schedule(s) that will be available to their employees, along with their expectations for employees electing to use any new flexibilities.”

Rowan said “the federal government understands, that they, much like the Fortune 500, have to be able to be proactive and take these steps, and can’t just sit back and say, ‘Woe is us.’ OPM understands that a lot of agencies have made progress.”

Rowan said VMware has seen a steady uptick in the use of its virtualization products as more federal employees have engaged in telework and remote work. OPM said in a 2014 report to Congress that about 125,000 federal employees engage in telework.

“That’s an unbelievable number of people,” Rowan said. “Five years ago there is no way we would be near those kinds of numbers.”

Additionally, Rowan said it was a “phenomenal story” and proof that government can adapt. The number of employees engaged in telework is “a great example of government continuing to do the work it should be doing for the citizens irrespective of whether there is a snowstorm, a derecho or an accident that impacts traffic in a certain way.”
 

Virtualization Makes Remote Operations Smoother

What’s driving the federal government’s ability to let so many workers telework?

Rowan, unsurprisingly, said that virtualization solutions and virtual desktops that VMware provides have been a major help. He also said the ability to support virtual applications on mobile devices has given federal users greater flexibility.

Agencies making upgrades to Windows operating systems and moving more applications to the cloud has helped spur remote work opportunities, Rowan said, especially hybrid cloud environments that let workers access certain nonsensitive agency data from home.

To be fair, Rowan said, “government still has a long way to go in a number of areas.” While the vast majority of agencies have made it easy for users to access work email via the cloud, many functional or agency-specific applications are still not virtualized or in the cloud, he said.

Rowan estimated that around 80 to 90 percent of basic federal apps such as email are virtualized, while only 40 to 45 percent of agency-specific applications are.

Many agencies lack the funding to modernize and virtualize such applications, according to Rowan, and they are not incentivized to do so. Many such applications are also quite old and agency IT leaders might be reticent to put them in the cloud.

Security is a constant concern, and Rowan said “there is not a single agency that wants to be on the front pages of the Washington Post from a security breach perspective.”

Still, agencies are making progress. Five years ago, Rowan said, SafeTrack would have been a “blackout-type event for certain organizations, and today it’s business as usual. We’re proud to be a part of that story.”

For more on teleworking solutions in the federal government, visit fedtechmagazine.com/telework2016. 

This content is made possible by FedTech. The editorial staff of Nextgov was not involved in its preparation.