Transportation’s wheels on the cloud go round and round

The Department of Transportation found itself at a technological crossroads: maintain the status quo or move to the cloud. The decision, says DOT’s Chief Technology Officer Tim Schmidt, wasn’t hard. Hosting, in general, “was not something that was a real core competency for us.”

So, Schmidt tells FCB, pieces fell into place, it was an opportune time, and after looking at the current labor structure and how the Department was using other contractors, it was off to the cloud.

Privacy and security issues were considered before starting, but just after a few weeks “now we’re already starting to look at security and privacy and the infrastucture security – (and wondering) ‘should we put more out there?'”

In those few weeks, Schmidt says the pay off of the move has included:

• predictability
• consistency of operations
• high availablility
• good user satisfaction

Plus, “the company’s treating us well.”

Schmidt tells FCB they’re working with “a couple of other candidates” and they’ve stood up a “sandbox,” unavailable to the public, to look at it, kick the tires, and “let people hit up against it.” The idea, says Schmidt, it to take it slowly and deliberately.

Schmidt says the key to success with the move will be to keep the process agile “so as we learn more about it, we’ll adjust as necessary.”

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