The rise of cloud computing has broken down numerous technology barriers that persisted for decades. In the recent past, city governments and agencies had been slow to adopt and implement cloud technologies. However, this trend appears to be changing. Industry research shows agencies – especially public safety agencies where “no waiting” is a top priority – moving away from disconnected, stove-piped systems that slow down response, to enterprise information architectures that enable and improve integration, automation, data analysis, situational awareness, and multi-agency collaboration that empowers all users. So why the shift?
The broad effects of urbanization on cities and services, the consumerization of IT, aging legacy systems, a growing lack of technical resources, and tighter budget cycles are converging to push city governments and agencies towards a tipping point, both operationally and technically. City officials and agency leaders are acutely aware that the stakes are high. They know migrating to the cloud is essential for reaching their operational and service potential. It’s essential for actualizing their safe city strategies.
As Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure’s chief technology officer, a big part of my role is strategically aligning and developing technology solutions to meet the needs of our customers and the industries we serve. Our strategy is to migrate away from siloed applications and converge our solutions on a common, cloud-based platform to improve sharing and connectedness of data and processes between agencies and systems.
Our platform will use a service-oriented architecture to bring critical capabilities together. It will deliver a coherent, real-time operational view that leads to actionable insight and service improvement. It will also be flexible and scalable for future operational and technical shifts.
By using the cloud as the backbone for our solutions, we can help customers adapt their IT faster to meet changing mission scope while lowering their total cost of ownership. For cities and agencies, migrating to the cloud closes the gap between “what is” and “what should be,” accelerating the journey they take to reach their full potential.
