Georgia Technology Authority Cuts Portal Costs by 60–70% Through AWS Migration

Overview

Following directives from Governor Brian Kemp to transition state infrastructure to cloud platforms, the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA)—the centralized technology provider for state agencies—identified its Portal application as a priority candidate for migration to Amazon Web Services. The organization aimed to decrease operational spending, reduce the burden of managing physical infrastructure, leverage cloud-native solutions to minimize licensing expenses, and enhance system resilience. The Portal initiative also presented opportunities to refine development workflows, adopt managed database solutions, and streamline operational processes.

GTA partnered with TekStream Solutions, an AWS Partner, to execute the Portal migration. Leveraging services including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), which delivers scalable compute resources for diverse workloads, GTA accomplished the portal transition within 1 year, resulting in reduced expenses, improved availability, and establishing momentum for subsequent cloud initiatives across the state.

Opportunity

GTA operates as the IT backbone for Georgia's state agencies, delivering infrastructure and network management services. The Portal serves as a central hub connecting various state agency systems and facilitating workflows for both government personnel and residents.

Before the transition, GTA maintained an extensive server infrastructure in a data center to support the Portal, creating constraints around flexibility and escalating costs. State leadership recognized the need to shift from on-premises data centers to cloud environments to advance technological capabilities and operational efficiency. "Georgia takes pride in being on the cutting edge of evolving technology and its impact on our economy, government, and daily lives," stated Governor Kemp when acknowledging the Department of Revenue's cloud migration efforts. GTA positioned itself as an early adopter, moving its Portal to AWS and establishing a blueprint that other state entities could replicate as part of a broader cloud transformation strategy.

GTA initiated collaboration with TekStream in September 2021, developing a comprehensive migration strategy before implementation commenced. GTA leadership engaged directly with TekStream specialists to make informed decisions and establish a detailed migration roadmap. The actual infrastructure transition began in January 2022, with the Portal migration completion achieved by September 2022. "When you make a plan and understand all the key elements, it's much quicker than using short sprints where you need to redo steps," explains Troy Allen, vice president of cloud services at TekStream. "If we hadn't done the work up front, the project would have taken twice as long."

GTA benefited from the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (AWS MAP), a structured cloud migration initiative employing proven methodologies refined through thousands of enterprise migrations, which enabled the organization to allocate additional resources toward comprehensive planning. "Because of funding from AWS MAP, we could dig a little deeper than budgets typically support," notes Allen.

Solution

Operating without state legislative funding, GTA must maintain strict fiscal discipline. Previously, the organization allocated approximately $300,000 annually to maintain Portal environments within its data center. The transition to AWS services delivers 60–70 percent savings in infrastructure expenditures, eliminating the need for physical hardware dedicated to the Portal. To optimize infrastructure efficiency, GTA and TekStream evaluated consumption patterns and matched workloads to appropriately sized containers. Through Amazon EC2, GTA gains the flexibility to scale resources dynamically and deactivate instances when unnecessary, directly reducing operational expenses. "This project was successful, met its timelines, and has been very cost efficient for the state," states Chuck Robinson, section director at GTA.

Reliability and responsiveness represent essential requirements for the Portal, particularly given its role supporting major customers such as the Georgia Department of Public Health. Cloud infrastructure enables GTA to allocate resources more effectively and prevent unplanned service interruptions. For instance, rather than facing failures when backup storage reaches capacity, GTA can dynamically expand resources using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)—a suite of managed solutions for establishing, maintaining, and expanding databases in cloud environments. Since transitioning the Portal, GTA has maintained zero unplanned outages. "Using AWS services, we can size our solution better and tune the environment to an application's needs," states Robinson. "Our customers have been very happy and haven't seen an outage."

The cloud environment provides GTA with enhanced security visibility. The organization can customize its security approach based on specific requirements through tools such as Amazon GuardDuty, a detection platform that continuously scans for malicious behavior and generates detailed threat reports.

The Portal's relocation to the cloud grants GTA access to capabilities that foster innovation and agility, previously unavailable in on-premises settings, including sophisticated auditing and security functions. GTA employs Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), an object storage platform designed for retrieving data at any scale from any location, to handle backups, data repositories, and collaborative file access through a unified system. Using Amazon CloudFront, which delivers content securely with minimal delays and rapid transfer rates, GTA can oversee its network segments and eliminate dedicated web servers for the Portal. "We can take advantage of built-in AWS tools and can link to external tools," says Robinson. "We don't need to build a framework and can start using tools right away."

Outcome

For both GTA and TekStream, the Portal migration represents a foundational phase in a larger statewide modernization vision. Georgia's residents and government agencies benefit from an enhanced Portal that proves simpler to operate, maintain, and extend. "We are excited to see Governor Kemp's recognition of Georgia's strong focus on innovation and technology and are honored to join the state's commitment to being at the forefront of emerging cloud technologies," says Judd Robins, executive vice president at TekStream. "As a technology-driven organization, we share the same passion and vision of using technology to enhance the daily lives of Georgia's citizens and are looking forward to working with the state government and local businesses to continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible using AWS services."

Drawing from insights gained during the Portal migration, GTA intends to transition additional systems to the cloud within the coming year, beginning with infrastructure supporting the Administrative Office of the Courts. "Using AWS services, GTA spends less money and uses fewer resources," says Robinson. "Our employees can focus on work rather than troubleshooting, and we have happier customers."

About Georgia Technology Authority

Georgia Technology Authority functions as the primary technology leadership entity for state agencies and departments across Georgia, delivering IT infrastructure services and managed network solutions supporting diverse state operations.

AWS Services Used

Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides object storage with industry-leading scalability, availability, security, and performance characteristics.

Amazon EC2

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) delivers the most comprehensive compute platform, featuring over 600 instance types and flexibility across processors, storage, networking, operating systems, and pricing models to align with workload requirements.

Amazon RDS

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) streamlines the setup, operation, and scaling of relational databases within cloud infrastructure.

Amazon CloudFront

Amazon CloudFront operates as a content delivery network (CDN) service engineered for performance, security, and developer accessibility.

Source: AWS News Blog