All States Have a Cloud Roadmap, But Gaps Remain
The 2023 NASCIO-Accenture report found that all states have completed or are developing a cloud strategy and roadmap, and that 88 percent of state CIOs said they’ve accelerated the adoption of cloud in all or some functional areas, which was largely the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sloan said. State CIOs also identified digital government and digital services as the No. 2 priority for 2023; security was first.
That said, 88 percent of state CIOs said that training and skills gaps are preventing them from adopting more cloud services. Security also remains the top consideration for states when looking into cloud solutions and is a major reason organizations hesitate to migrate to the cloud.
Positioning Cloud as a Tool, Not the End Goal
Moore said to think of the cloud as a tool to be successful. Digital government, identified in the report as the second highest priority for CIOs, isn’t a specific technology in and of itself, he said; instead, it’s a way that governments can do things better.
“Cloud is not about cloud. Cloud is about states doing a better job of making their services available and making it easier to serve citizens. It’s more about the consumption model that cloud is allowing organizations to use, which is changing how we buy and then use technology,” Moore said. “All the things we talk about, whether it be cloud or ‘as a service’ models, they all come down to improving services.”
How Arizona Made Services More Reliable
Sloan said that Arizona decided to adopt a cloud strategy after a large dust storm swept through the Phoenix area in 2011, damaging the state’s data center. Another catalyst: An assessment of the state’s infrastructure revealed a number of physical risks to data centers, causing more concern.
“We started to understand the risk and fragility of our infrastructure,” Sloan said. “The real driver … was asking, ‘How do we deliver reliable and accessible services?’”
Instead of continuing to invest in data center infrastructure, the state decided to partner with cloud providers, adopt a cloud-first policy and eventually shut down aging data centers. As of this year, the state has closed 85 of its 90 data centers.
For the workforce, Sloan said change management was the key. The state’s organizations worked to reskill and train workers to prepare for cloud migration and demonstrate a willingness to invest in their workforce. The state also put together a cloud center of excellence, where agencies can share lessons from their own cloud adoption journeys.
“We all need to be good at understanding change, communicating change and helping organizations embrace change,” he said.
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