The Cyxtera-Powered Nutanix Federal Lab Brings IT Innovation to Federal Agencies

Cyxtera Technologies • August 27, 2021 • 2 minute read

Hybrid IT, Enterprise Bare Metal, Federal in Data Centers

In the Spring, President Biden issued a Cybersecurity Executive Order, which not only acknowledged the escalating cyber threats that the public and private sectors are facing, but directed the Federal government to modernize its approach to cybersecurity with an eye to speeding the pace of cloud migration.

I noted in a subsequent blog post that some things, however, are easier said than done. There are, in fact, significant hurdles that have long kept federal CIOs and CTOs out of the cloud, and that frankly, should still give any security professional pause, especially those tasked with highly sensitive data. The bad news is that the inherent shared infrastructure of public cloud, problems presented by legacy apps, vendor lock-in, and legacy sprawl are just a few of the challenges that must be contended with. The good news is that these challenges are far from insurmountable.

Innovation can’t exist without risk

Federal CIOs and CTOs have a reputation for being risk-averse—and who can blame them given that the path to a successful government career has always meant opting for the tried and true. It should come as no surprise, then, that government CIOs and CTOs also aren't leading adopters when it comes to new technology. This tendency has made it difficult for the government to keep pace with its commercial counterparts and for the government to be innovative service providers to Americans and the people they serve.

History has shown that there is no advancement without innovation and that there is no innovation without risk. With the debut of the Nutanix Federal Innovation Lab, powered by Cyxtera, we are flinging open the door to government IT creativity.

Located in one of our Northern Virginia data centers, the lab is a dedicated space whose sole purpose it is to allow government IT to turn technology innovation into proof of concepts and deliver better results in the process. The Innovation Lab will give government enterprises the chance to build, test, and deploy versions of their infrastructure needs as pilot programs without having to make a full purchase and formally put it into production. By providing financial flexibility that doesn’t lock a CTO into a particular hardware or asset purchase for years to come, we are lowering the cost of failure — both literally and figuratively.

The catalyst that will turn ideas into proof of concept infrastructure solutions will be the Cyxtera Platform: Government Edition,, a purpose-built, software-programmable and massively scalable infrastructure solution designed to meet the needs of U.S. federal agencies and which includes the necessary processes, tools, and security controls to meet the criteria outlined by FedRAMP guidelines at the High Impact Level.

No longer constrained by stringent security and regulatory guidelines, Federal agencies will have a safe space in which to explore and test-drive solutions, and in doing so, develop a culture of innovation that’s currently missing from government initiatives.

Views and opinions expressed in our blog posts are those of the employees who made them and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Company. A reader should not unduly rely on any statements made therein.