Microsoft to provide cloud services for city of Chicago in four year deal

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January 3, 2013
City of Chicago Adopts Cloud Computing Strategy for City-wide Email
and Applications


Reform Is a Major Step in Mayor Emanuel's Ongoing Efforts to Modernize
Chicago's Digital Infrastructure, Making City Department Operations
More Effective and Saving Taxpayer Money

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today that the City of Chicago is
adopting a cloud strategy for all employee email and desktop
applications, a move that consolidates and modernizes the City's
disparate email systems, making city-wide operations more effective
and secure and saving taxpayers $400,000 per year.

"This strategy is an innovative solution for the City, making our
operations more effective and secure and saving taxpayer money,"
said Mayor Emanuel. "We are leveraging new technologies to
streamline and modernize the way we do business in order to provide
the residents of Chicago with the best service at the best price,
which has been a fundamental part of my approach as Mayor from the
moment I took office."

The new cloud system encompasses all email and desktop applications
(such as documents and spreadsheets) for 30,000 City employees across
all City departments. Previously, the City managed three separate
email systems internally, providing challenges to efficiency and
security. With the cloud, the City is streamlining and consolidating
these three systems into one, reducing outages, improving security and
ensuring that all employees who need access to email and desktop
applications have them. Additionally, with this cloud strategy, the
cost per employee decreases by nearly 80 percent, resulting in a
savings of $400,000 per year over the course of a four-year agreement
with Microsoft.

"The cloud strategy gives City employees the ability to do their
jobs more effectively while saving taxpayer dollars, decreasing
duplication among departments and streamlining our operations across
the board," said Brett Goldstein, the City's Chief Information
Officer and the Commissioner of the Department of Innovation and
Technology (DoIT). "The cloud strategy is a major step towards
our goal of modernizing our information technology. Ultimately,
updating the City's digital infrastructure for the 21st century sets
the foundation for innovation that will continue to move us
forward."

This is a major step in the City's overall strategy to modernize its
digital infrastructure to increase transparency and foster data-driven
innovation, both internally and through civic partnerships. On January
1, the City consolidated its IT operations by merging Chicago Public
Libraries and non-emergency public safety IT support under DoIT,
decreasing duplication across departments and allowing the City to be
more effective. Additionally, as part of this overall modernization
strategy, the City has also published hundreds of datasets in a
machine-readable format on the City's dataportal, implemented a new
Open311 service request system that helps to reduce redundancies and
allows Chicagoans to track requests online and partnered with civic
developers to launch and host integrated webpages on the City's
website that fosters online engagement with Chicago residents like
PlowTracker and Adopt-A-Sidewalk.

This cloud strategy represents the first of the City's
"enterprise," or city-wide systems to migrate to the cloud.
The City currently stores and manages some data in a cloud solution,
such as the Chicago Department of Aviation's data related to airline
billing and building plan information as part of the Department of
Buildings' E-Plan review system. DoIT anticipates that all email and
desktop application users will migrate to the cloud by the end of 2013
and will provide guidance and training to City employees throughout
this process to ensure smooth implementation.