Strategic Cloud Adoption Insights From Fulton County
Upcoming Events
Related News
Key Takeaways
From Our Partners
This post is sponsored by NACo corporate partner, Tyler Technologies
Strategic Cloud Adoption Insights From Fulton County
Cloud modernization is often viewed as a path to greater efficiency and innovation, but for Fulton County, Georgia, cloud modernization began as a response to a cyberattack and ended up strengthening the county’s resilience. During a recent National Association of Counties (NACo) webinar, Kevin Kerrigan, Chief Information Officer of Fulton County, shared how the county’s cloud strategy helped strengthen operations and position the organization for long-term success.
Accelerating Recovery Through the Cloud
When Fulton County experienced a significant ransomware attack in early 2024, the impact extended across a large portion of its virtualized infrastructure, forcing many departments to revert to manual, paper-based processes while recovery efforts were underway. County leaders quickly identified the systems most critical to maintaining government operations, including payroll, vendor payments, call center services, courts and justice applications, and property tax administration. With much of the affected environment undergoing forensic investigation, the county faced a difficult choice: rebuild traditional infrastructure or accelerate its move to the cloud.
The urgency of restoring services to residents drove the decision to fast-track cloud adoption. County technology teams worked around the clock, coordinating with business leaders, legal teams, emergency management personnel, and technology partners to identify clean data sources, rebuild environments, and reestablish critical operations. Having previously completed application rationalization and infrastructure mapping efforts, Fulton County had a clearer understanding of system dependencies, integrations, and recovery priorities, enabling teams to act quickly in a high-pressure situation.
Working closely with Tyler Technologies, the county rapidly established cloud environments, transferred critical data, and restored key applications in a matter of weeks. The effort dramatically accelerated Fulton County’s modernization roadmap. As Fulton County CIO Kevin Kerrigan reflected: “One of the biggest benefits I’ve seen is that because we’ve now shifted to the cloud posture, we’re receiving updates routinely … we’re not asking staff to take on the additional burden of testing.”
While no organization wants to experience a cyber incident, Fulton County’s response demonstrated how preparation, strong partnerships, and cloud technology can strengthen operational resilience and accelerate long-term transformation.
Building a More Resilient Technology Foundation
Beyond supporting recovery efforts, cloud adoption provided Fulton County with a stronger foundation for resilience. By moving critical workloads into cloud environments, the county gained greater flexibility to scale resources, improve system availability, and reduce dependence on traditional on-premises infrastructure.
The cloud strategy also strengthened business continuity capabilities. Rather than relying exclusively on local infrastructure, the county could leverage cloud-based environments that support faster recovery, improved data protection, and more consistent access to critical services. These capabilities help reduce disruption when unforeseen events occur and enable county staff to maintain essential operations more effectively.
Cloud modernization has also allowed IT teams to spend less time managing infrastructure and more time focusing on strategic priorities. With greater operational efficiency, technology staff can support modernization initiatives, evaluate emerging technologies, and work more closely with departments to improve service delivery for residents.
A Model for Local Government Transformation
Fulton County’s success was not built overnight. Long before the ransomware attack, the county invested in understanding its technology environment through a comprehensive application rationalization effort. Leaders evaluated which applications were candidates for cloud adoption, how systems were interconnected, and where future technology investments would deliver the greatest value.
The IT team also mapped critical infrastructure, databases, servers, integrations, and data flows, creating a detailed blueprint of the county’s technology ecosystem. When recovery became an urgent priority, that preparation enabled decision-makers to identify dependencies, prioritize workloads, and make informed choices about which systems to migrate first.
Fulton County’s experience reinforces an important lesson for local governments: successful cloud transformation starts with understanding the current technology landscape, aligning technology investments to business outcomes, and developing a modernization roadmap before a crisis occurs.
Today, the county continues to build on that foundation by modernizing core business systems, migrating additional workloads to the cloud, and exploring opportunities for automation and AI-enabled services. Their experience demonstrates how thoughtful planning, strong leadership, and trusted partnerships can help local governments improve resilience, restore services more quickly when disruptions occur, and position their organizations for future innovation.
Watch this on-demand webinar to learn how Fulton County leveraged cloud technology to modernize operations, improve service delivery, and strengthen resilience.