Orange County Seeks Info on Migrating Off Azure

Orange County is looking for ways to migrate away from Microsoft Azure.

Orange County Information Technology (OCIT) has released a request for information (RFI) on what could amount to a large project — migrating all data, applications and cloud services currently hosted in Azure to the selected cloud provider. That would include:

• Application services
• Networking configurations
• Storage
• Databases
• Virtual machines

Much of that would require careful planning and testing. For example, the RFI states that the vendor would need to ensure applications are compatible with the new cloud services, reconfigure them for the new environment and test them to make sure they’re functioning correctly after deployment. OCIT would also require thorough testing and verification to validate the data migration.

OCIT also expects vendors to account for security needs, data backup and recovery, networking configuration and infrastructure setup. The county is looking for staff training on working in the new cloud environment as well as documentation of architecture, configuration and operational procedures.

Azure is not the only cloud environment the county operates in; in its Fiscal Year 2024-25 budget book, the Clerk-Recorder reported moving a system to Amazon Web Services. The county used to host an IBM mainframe but retired the hardware in FY 2022-23 after moving the last application off it.

OCIT’s budget for FY 2025-26 is $132.7 million, accounting for its shared and countywide services funds. The CIO is Kc Roestenberg.

The deadline for questions for the RFI is 4 p.m. Oct. 6. Submissions are due 4 p.m. Nov. 3. The county will accept questions through OpenGov.