The City of Brotherly Love Taking Cloud Adoption Sky High

by Rachel Eckert, Senior Analyst

Philadelphia’s CIO has declared the City of Brotherly Love a “cloud-first city.” Adel Ebeid, CIO for the County and City of Philadelphia, shared his vision recently in an Executive Teleconference Q&A session. Ebeid’s goal is to host 30% of his infrastructure in the cloud — primarily through SaaS delivery.

Much of Philadelphia’s infrastructure is already hosted in the cloud, so this declaration does not represent a major shift for the city. However, it does represent a forward-thinking approach Ebeid brings to Philadelphia’s Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT). And this means big opportunity for cloud solution providers in the coming years in three main areas:

1. Continued Data Center Consolidation

Ebeid clearly stated that over the next two to three years he would like to reduce his data center footprint. During the Q&A Teleconference, Ebeid reiterates his desire to increase innovation in IT and a reduced footprint will help the County and City of Philadelphia drive efficiency through less required day-to-day management. With support from cloud vendors in areas like data migration, data storage, and data consolidation, Ebeid’s team can turn their attention to innovative projects.

2. Increased Virtualization

Ultimately, Philadelphia’s CIO stated he would like to see a more virtualized infrastructure that supports the county and city’s needs for flexibility and disaster recovery. However, one of Ebeid’s challenges in a virtualized environment is managing the inevitable “virtual sprawl”. As a cloud supplier, minimizing the spin-up of resources and improving the county and city’s management of “virtual sprawl” enables Philadelphia’s OIT to avoid unnecessary spending.

3. Consolidated Cloud Provider Contract

Ebeid’s number one priority is to pursue the cloud more aggressively. Perhaps the best way in which the County and City of Philadelphia can meet their “cloud-first” goal is through a consolidated and vetted cloud provider contract. Ideally this would be a single procurement that provides agencies with three to four vetted cloud service providers and standard service catalog. Not only will this make it simpler for agencies, but this also gives OIT the ability to see exactly what resources are being consumed and how they are being utilized. The COTS community should stay informed on consolidated cloud service provider procurement in the coming years.

While none of these initiatives have specific timelines, they are an important component to Adel Ebeid’s overall strategy and approach for The City of Brotherly Love’s IT infrastructure. COTS vendors with cloud and virtualization solutions should put Philadelphia on their radar, especially to position for the potential cloud service provider contract.

Need help identifying top IT decision makers and opportunities in the state and local market? Contact immixGroup’s industry-leading Market Intelligence team today to learn about municipalities and specific contacts that have a pressing need for your solution.