Cloud migration drives performance improvements, smart city strategy in Atlanta

Editors Note: This podcast was recorded before a ransomware attack affected Atlanta city technology operations in March . The work the city does in the Azure Government cloud was not affected by the ransomware attack, Microsoft says.

In Atlanta, the transition to the cloud has indeed been a journey.

On the latest edition of StateScoop’s Journey to the Cloud podcast, underwritten by Microsoft Azure Government, Atlanta city technology officials say the embrace first of software as a service applications, then migration of enterprise applications to the cloud, enabled the city to lead and really jump into adopting cloud technology across the city.

This is a journey, Vijay Gogineni, the city’s deputy chief information officer, says on the podcast. The city has been really good at implementing [Software-as-a-Service] applications. We’ve been doing that for a while.

From there, the city has also begun its embrace of native cloud infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service, in addition to the migration of the city’s enterprise resource planning application to the cloud.

We did that because we were facing several challenges with the on-premise solution, Gogineni says on the podcast. Many of which included antiquated technology, both on the application as well as hardware.

In addition to supporting those city government applications, the move to cloud has also given way to the city’s smart city efforts, dubbed Smart ATL.

Apart from solving for the aging infrastructure issue, something thats really propelled our cloud journey has been Smart ATL, Frank Ruben, Atlantas director of data analytics and reporting says. The initiative is this overarching, highly vertical or highly horizontal strategy to innovate in the city and really engage in some outside-of-the-box thinking.

On the podcast:

• Vijay Gogineni, deputy chief information officer, City of Atlanta
• Frank Ruben, director of data analytics and reporting, City of Atlanta
• Murray Gordon, regional cloud sales director, Microsoft
• Jake Williams, associate publisher and director of strategic initiatives, StateScoop

What to listen for:

• With the establishment of the city’s Enterprise Data Platform, the city has started to address some of its critical workloads, which has freed up staff to take on more and more workloads, Microsofts Murray Gordon says.
• Cloud is really the great equalizer in IT, Ruben says. In fact, everything the city does from a smart city prospective will rely on cloud.
• With the cloud, the city has enabled the Atlanta Police Department to respond to crime more efficiently thanks to data aggregation and sensor integration, Ruben says.
• The city technology departments embrace of technology has lead to a greater embrace and interest about cloud from other city agencies, Gogineni says.
• Cloud will help Atlanta continue its work of breaking down silos and enabling city departments to work collaboratively, Ruben says.

The Journey to the Cloud podcast is part of StateScoop and Microsoft’s series on the Journey to the Cloud . Journey to the Cloud is underwritten by Microsoft Azure Government.

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