Detroit sh*t shifter's operating costs waste away with Oracle's cloud

The City of Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) – more used to channeling waste away from civilisation – has squeezed out some fluff for Oracle by claiming its migration to Big Red's cloud saved it $1m.

The shift to various flavours of Oracle clouds, which happened in May last year, is estimated to have saved the US city's department 15 to 17 per cent in operating costs, it claimed.

And in what seems to be a favour to Oracle (those discounts don't pay for themselves), and perhaps a way to pat himself on the back for the decision to go cloud, Dan Rainey, DWSD's CIO, said in a prepared remark: "Moving to Oracle's Cloud puts us on a modern database platform for the first time... Oracle is a strategic partner for us and has transformed our platform to be highly available, resilient, and affordable."

The 185-year-old utility in Detroit includes 2,700 miles of transmissions and distribution piping and around 3,000 miles of sewers.

An "improved service delivery" and "better response" to questions about essential services, while not hiking costs, was the objective of modernining its tech plumbing, said DWSD. One would have thought the service was less about delivery and more about removal, but on we go...

"DWSD has reinvested capital dollars, otherwise spent on traditional IT hardware and software, on tools to improve customer service," it said.

The DWSD is now reliant upon: Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service; Oracle Cloud Infrastructure; Oracle Cloud Platform; and Oracle Cloud Applications. All of these will become (prepare to use the DWSD physical infrastructure) "the foundation for its digital transformation".

"Our work with the city of Detroit is an example of how we can quickly help our public sector customers realize greater efficiencies," said Mark Johnson, senior vice president, Oracle Public Sector.

"By reducing their cost structures with modern technology, DWSD can focus business strategies and priorities toward their number one priority – their customers."

Other services under use by DWSD include Database Backup, Integration Cloud, SOA Cloud, the Storage Cloud and the Business Intelligence Cloud. ®