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Issue Date: 4/1/2022

Effective Date: 4/1/22

Revision Date: 7/21/23

PURPOSE

The information technology (IT) industry has recently innovated more effective ways of providing external cloud-based services (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS) that couple provisioning speed, flexibility, control, transparency and enticing economic incentives when compared to self-provisioned IT. The role of an IT organization in providing services is rapidly changing from that of an internal provider to that of managing external service providers and brokering services for business units which it serves. The state of Georgia’s enterprise managed IT services include external provisioned services through GTA’s enterprise agreements and DOAS negotiated statewide contracts.  GTA recognizes the relative value and risk of market obtained provisioning as cloud-based solutions continue to gain prominence as the industry standard.

SCOPE and AUTHORITY

  • The authority to establish technology policies and standards is in O.C.G.A. 50-25-4(a)(10) and is explained in GTA policy “Information Technology Policies, Standards and Guidelines” PM-04-001.
  • The authority to establish security policies and standards is in O.C.G.A. 50-25-4(a)(21) and is explained in GTA policy “Enterprise Information Security Charter” PS-08-005.

POLICY

Executive agencies shall use commercial cloud services as the primary enabler for IT modernization. All new and on-premise physical computing infrastructure provisioned in a non-GTA tenant must be reviewed by GTA prior to procurement. The state’s cloud-first strategy will allow a state agency to experience:

  • Faster procurement and implementation of services and resources from pre-contracted vendors.
  • Access to a broader range of cloud services with minimum restrictions that also meet the state’s baseline security and procurement requirements.
  • An established base set of high-level rules to ensure agency compliance within the enterprise environment.
  • The ability to scale data requirements up or down according to the variations in the business while maintaining cost efficiency.

RELATED ENTERPRISE POLICIES, STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES

Cloud Provisioning Standard- Coming Soon

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