Oracle Cloud Helps Detroit Save $1 Million

Oracle Cloud revolutionizes operations of one of the country's oldest water and sewer systems

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Aug 28, 2018, 08:00 ET

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Aug. 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, (DWSD), a Michigan municipal utility that provides water and sewer services to the residents of Detroit, today announced major decreases in operational costs along with improved availability and performance after transitioning its traditional on-premise data center to Oracle Cloud. In total, DWSD calculated a 15-17 percent decrease in operational costs since it began its collaboration with Oracle.

Oracle works with numerous state governments and local municipalities to deploy innovative solutions designed to provide government agencies more agility and options as they manage operations and deliver constituent services. These new savings for DWSD further highlight Oracle's ongoing commitment to modernizing services that impact citizen services.

"Moving to Oracle's Cloud puts us on a modern database platform for the first time," said Dan Rainey, CIO, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. "Oracle is a strategic partner for us and has transformed our platform to be highly available, resilient, and affordable."

The citizens of Detroit expect improved service delivery and better response to questions about essential services—without the burden of increasing costs. The utility saw an opportunity to meet this need by fully integrating technology into daily work functions to modernize DWSD, enhancing customer service to internal and external users while reducing predictable IT costs. At the same time, DWSD's Oracle Cloud deployment creates greater flexibility to meet changing requirements from the board and the city. Now, the 185-year-old utility relies on Oracle Database Exadata Cloud Service, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Applications as the foundation for its digital transformation.

As a result of Oracle Cloud and other tools implemented starting in May 2017, DWSD has reinvested capital dollars, otherwise spent on traditional IT hardware and software, on tools to improve customer service. Cloud technology has proven essential for DWSD in enhancing the level of performance of its systems, transforming the water utility into an organization that provides highly responsive customer service.

"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."

To support DWSD's efforts to lower costs and enhance the customer experience, the utility is leveraging a number of additional technologies, including Oracle Database Backup Service, Oracle Integration Cloud, Oracle SOA Cloud, Oracle Storage Cloud and Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service.

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The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in-class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.

About Detroit Water and Sewerage Department
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) serves over 200,000 Detroit residential and commercial customers. DWSD's water network consists of more than 2,700 miles of transmission and distribution mains and nearly 3,000 miles of sewer collection piping.

To learn more about the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department or to request water services, make payments, or report water problems, call DWSD Customer Care at 313.267.8000 or visit: www.detroitmi.gov/dwsd.

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SOURCE Oracle