Public sector agencies are working to uplift critical systems at a time when their IT environments have never been more complex. Legacy platforms sit alongside new cloud services, data is scattered across multiple systems and security teams are stretched thin.
The result is a landscape that is difficult to secure and costly to maintain.
“Government agencies tell us the same thing over and over again,” said Anna Mascarello, regional vice president, Public Sector and Education ANZ at Elastic. “They are managing multiple tools, data sources and consoles, but they can’t easily see what is happening end to end. That lack of visibility slows response, increases cost, and increases risk.”
For years, the long-held dream was a “single pane of glass” — a single repository to gain a holistic view. Agencies are now adopting a more pragmatic approach: leveraging decentralised insights and connecting them within a single, unified platform.
By bringing observability and security together, Elastic helps agencies achieve this connected intelligence. Built on powerful search technology, the platform allows teams to surface the right insights in real time, across distributed environments.
Sovereignty through search
Key barriers to modernisation are data governance and sovereignty. Agencies need visibility without being forced to centralise or move sensitive data.
Elastic’s cross-cluster search gives leaders the ability to view what’s happening across multiple systems, departments, and jurisdictions, all while data remains in place. This capability is amplified by a data mesh architecture, which enables analysis where data already resides.
“You don’t have to rip and replace everything to modernise,” Ms Mascarello notes. “The goal is to make the data usable, connected and visible, so that decisions can be made in real time.”
Overcoming the capacity challenge
This unified platform approach also helps overcome another persistent challenge: workforce capacity. Security and operations teams are managing more complexity with fewer specialists.
“The cybersecurity skills gap is not theoretical; it is impacting day-to-day operations,” Ms Mascarello said. “If teams are overwhelmed by noise, they simply cannot respond effectively. Fragmentation becomes a vulnerability in itself.”
Here, AI-driven analytics within Elastic’s platform acts as a force multiplier. AI helps summarise complex alerts, detect anomalies, and automate investigation, reducing manual workloads.
“Modernisation should reduce workload, not increase it,” Ms Mascarello said. “If a platform isn’t reducing complexity, it isn’t solving the problem.”
Resilience, efficiency and trust
This commitment to resilience is also reflected in Elastic’s support for open standards like OpenTelemetry (OTel). By supporting OTel natively, Elastic helps agencies integrate data from diverse sources without vendor lock-in, ensuring strategies remain flexible.
“When systems can communicate through open standards, resilience and trust follow naturally,” said Ms Mascarello.
This consolidation also directly addresses cost pressures. “Consolidation doesn’t just simplify operations, it creates budget headroom,” Ms Mascarello explains. “It allows agencies to invest in capability uplift instead of maintaining overlapping systems.”
As Australian governments advance their digital transformation, connected visibility is key to enabling faster decisions, reducing operational friction, and strengthening public trust.
“In the end, citizens rely on government systems every day, often without realising it,” Ms Mascarello said. “Our role is to help agencies keep those systems resilient, transparent, and secure, even as complexity grows. When you gain clarity, you gain confidence—and that confidence is what enables real modernisation.”
This article was produced by InnovationAus.com in partnership with Elastic
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.