How the Public Sector is Embracing the Cloud
The world is changing and Canadians want more from their governments, both in terms of the services they provide and their ability to help our great country achieve its potential on the global stage. Realizing that potential while addressing significant internal cost pressures, providing modern integrated services and investing in an economy of the future is no small task and requires fresh new approaches.
Imagine if there was a service in Canada that was more secure than any individual government’s current computing environment; had enough capacity to accommodate the entire Canadian market’s demand; and could enable global scale scenarios that no single government organization could sustainably fund by themselves … in a matter of minutes?
Imagine no more … that service is called Microsoft Azure and it is enabling global scale, 4th industrial revolution scenarios across Canada today.
One of the most dramatic world-impacting scenarios today is being led by NAV Canada. The Aireon system relies on Microsoft Azure as the backbone for an Internet of Things (IoT) project that connects the world’s aircraft to a global satellite network for safer air travel, lower costs and a cleaner environment thanks to optimized flight routes and lower fuel emissions.
The sheer scale of NAV Canada’s vision made Azure an obvious choice. “Microsoft Azure allows Aireon to scale its capacity essentially at the flip of a switch,” says Claudio Silvestri, Vice-President and CIO. “Aireon doesn’t just need hosted services. They need enterprise-class, cloud-based services.” NAV Canada knows that they can move boldly and with confidence because their future compute and storage demands are covered, regardless of scale.
Modern, integrated government services are being delivered today by the City of Brampton, Ontario. Running a municipality involves a lot of moving parts including: a large, distributed workforce; enormous amounts of information; and a day-to-day responsibility to provide a broad range of public services to more than half a million residents.
Peter Simmons, Brampton’s Chief Corporate Services Officer, sums it up: “The city has a highly mobile workforce. In many cases, the individuals that work inside enforcement, parks, road maintenance… they need access to information at a moment’s notice, at their fingertips, where they can assess the situation.”
All those moving parts rely on vast amounts of data. For most municipalities, budget constraints would make the computing power required to orchestrate these services cost prohibitive. Azure not only makes this capability affordable, it also provides industry-leading security to protect the city’s key systems and information assets from hostile actors.
These and many other customer stories are what make Azure a transformational capability for Canada’s public sector, and its why more than half of our customers have already started to move to the cloud.
Whether the goal is economic growth, broader social inclusion, sustainability or improved governance, Azure makes it possible for Canada’s public sector to achieve excellence in service delivery and reach its potential on the global stage.
To learn more about how Azure can help to advance Canada’s public sector priorities, please visit our website.
