By Jim Welfley
July 4, 2011

Four mayors and a Microsoft Vice President relayed their experience with cloud computing at a best practices forum at the 79th Annual Conference of Mayors in Baltimore. The forum, entitled Understanding the Costs and Benefits of Cloud Computing for Your City, was sponsored by Microsoft and helped demystify cloud computing for the standing room only crowd on hand.

“We live in an information age that has changed the nature of our lives. And it certainly has had a profound impact on city government,” said the forum moderator San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro. “Tight budgets create efficiency. One way many cities have found to create that efficiency is by moving to the cloud.”

As for what cloud computing is, Microsoft Corporation State and Local Government Vice President Gail Thomas Flynn described cloud computing as “the process of offloading omnipresent technology infrastructure to a service provider” who can then “deliver services in a managed fashion.” This process allows cities of all sizes to save money, protect their information and standardize their processes.

Flynn points out that cloud computing has “often been touted as something entirely new, but it’s been in existence for quite a long time.”

Microsoft’s “Hotmail,” for example, has 400 million users worldwide and has been around since 1998. The service provides a powerful e-mail tool without forcing the users to purchase hardware, configure software or hire information technology (IT) professionals. Users can access it from anywhere and it is secured and located in several locations around the world.

The same model holds true for other popular cloud-based services, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail and a host of other services, including powerful, enterprise level e-mail systems used by numerous cities, such as Alexandria (VA).

“Since moving to the cloud, our e-mail is located in multiple secure locations and it is safer than it was in our city,” reported Alexandria Mayor William D. “Bill” Euille. “These locations have to adhere to the highest federal regulations and security standards. Moving our e-mail to the cloud is the most important step we took toward disaster recovery. ”

San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee also emphasized disaster recovery and security as the key reason for moving key data and services to the cloud. “If we’re down, the national economy is down. We understand that role,” he said. “If something happens, we have to get back up and running no matter what.”

Lee continued that cities are taking note after seeing what New Orleans endured at the hands Hurricane Katrina. “New Orleans had no plan, and we’re learning every single lesson from it. Two years ago, I didn’t know what the cloud was. Now I know it is an important part of not just responding, but recovering.”

Mukilteo (WA) Mayor Joe Marine clarified that cloud computing isn’t just for big cities. In fact, it allows Mukilteo, a city of roughly 20,000 people that borders aircraft giant Boeing, the same level of service that residents in big cities are afforded, particularly when filing paperwork with the city. The mayor reports that the process is now streamlined with minimal information going back and forth.

“We are expected to keep up the same services as larger cities but we can’t keep up with technology fast enough. We can’t put in enough servers and maintain them all with my IT staff of two,” Marine said. “Now we can. A small city can’t afford not to move to the cloud. It levels the playing field.”

Throughout the forum, one theme remained consistent: cloud computing has made a dramatic impact on the city’s bottom line. Lee reports that he was able to consolidate 35 expensive, energy draining datacenters down to five. And Euille reports that moving to the cloud has allowed the city to decrease its IT staff by two-thirds while saving the city over $1 million in software costs.

“In short, we’re pretty comfortable being in the cloud,” concluded Euille.