The New Data Center in Cloud-First Realities

July 28, 2022

In the age of cloud modernization, federal agencies are envisioning new strategies for data centers. At NIH, the BioData Catalyst was envisioned to never use existing NIH data centers, opening up new opportunities for collaborative data sharing for innovative approaches to health. Alastair Thomson, CIO at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health and Bryan Courtright, VP of Engineering at ID Technologies, discuss what it means to think cloud first.

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Mr. Thomson serves as the Chief Information Officer of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He works to provide the information technology support needed by researchers on the NIH campus as well as NHLBI funded researchers around the world. He also serves as the co-lead of the NHLBI DataSTAGE program – a cloud based data commons that provides storage and computational resources to the heart, lung, blood and sleep research community. DataSTAGE currently stores 3.2PB of genomic and clinical data for the TOPMed program along with millions of imaging. Prior to this role he serves as the NHLBI’s Chief Information Security Officer and spent most of his career in the commercial world consulting to pharma, insurance, finance and logistics. He has also spent time working in broadcast television, computer animation and has directed an Applied Research Center at a university. He trained at the University of Otago in Dunedin New Zealand and holds a BSc(Hons) in Psychology and a DipGrad in Computer Science.

Alastair Thomson

Chief Information Officer, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health

Bryan Courtright joined ID Technologies in 2018 and was promoted to VP Of Engineering April 2022. In this position, Bryan is responsible for the overall technical strategy at ID Technologies. Bryan manages all pre and post sales engineers as well as ID Technologies’ Wireless and Enterprise IT Technology practices with their Solution Architects. The engineering group focuses on driving customer innovation in pursuit of ID Technologies growth strategy drive to increase shareholder value.

Prior to joining the team, Bryan spent 20 years in senior engineering roles supporting government customers across both Civilian and DoD agencies. Throughout his career in technology, he has established a reputation for building world-class solutions aligning technology to customer missions. Bryan has been recognized by the DOE NNSA for his work on the Classified Removable Electronic Media project designed to safeguard the nation’s nuclear secrets.

Bryan Courtright

VP of Engineering, ID Technologies

Melissa Harris is a staff writer and researcher for GovernmentCIO Media & Research, where she covers federal health and defense IT and co-hosts HealthCast.

Prior to joining the team in October 2019, Melissa worked as a technology reporter for MeriTalk, where she covered IT acquisition, Congressional hearings, and federal technology reports and events. She was also a local news reporter for the New Jersey Hills Media Group, the Editor-in-Chief at The Oberlin Review, and an intern reporter at Homeland Security Today.

Melissa earned her Bachelor of Arts in history and English at Oberlin College.

Melissa Harris

Senior Researcher GovCIO Media & Research

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The New Data Center in Cloud-First Realities

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