As a result, applications that reside on a single system may become increasingly hard to access and difficult to expand. Adopting a service-based architecture modernizes applications while allowing them to run across various environments.
But agencies must consider whether a move to the cloud is feasible for some legacy applications. How much time might it take to move data to the cloud? Hours? Weeks? Months? That loss of time could be harmful to government operations and to citizen services.
In a 2022 MeriTalk survey of state and local IT leaders, 87 percent said legacy applications may prevent agencies from delivering modern services.
LEARN MORE: Why traditionally reluctant governments have increased trust in cloud security.
Assess the Risks of On-Premises vs. Cloud
In that same MeriTalk survey, 96 percent of state and local government IT decision-makers said they feel legacy applications and systems may pose a risk to critical infrastructure.
A decade ago, many state and local officials would have stated a preference for housing their government’s sensitive data in their own data centers within their own facilities, operated by their own personnel within the boundaries of their own geographic jurisdictions.
Those factors that might have favored on-premises data centers have changed in recent years, as major cloud service providers — such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure — are more secure than virtually any state and local government agency. And so, the script has flipped on cybersecurity when considering cloud versus on-premises infrastructure.