Enterprise Cloud Computing Program (ECCP)

Progress update - March 2025

ECCP roadmap: The program continues to develop its 3-to-5-year strategic roadmap. The draft roadmap is expected to be completed in late February. This roadmap is rooted in the State's Cloud Smart Strategy and incorporates findings from the ECCP vision, agency readiness assessments, customer journeys/service blueprints, and the cloud capability model.   

Design review transformation: Success in executing on the ECCP roadmap depends on delivering services in the most efficient way possible. The current Security Design Review (SDR) process is consistently identified by agencies as a significant constraint. This led us to launch the Design Review Transformation Project. The project seeks to not only re-imagine the SDR process but also incorporate all technical "reviews" into a single process. This includes Security Design Review, Architectural Reviews, Privacy Reviews and others. This project also seeks to build a process where new compliance needs can be added while maintaining a single point of engagement for agency reviews. A steering committee has been established along with a draft charter. We have completed extensive interviews with both WaTech personnel and customer agencies. We are working with Slalom to build both a vision and roadmap to transform this process. 

Cloud Government Network update: The Cloud Government Network (CGN) has been successfully deployed in the lab environment, and the team is now preparing for its launch in the production environment. Alongside this, they are planning the migration of the first service to handle live traffic.  

Learning Platform update: The team continues to make significant progress, providing more agencies and users with access to the Pluralsight learning platform. On Feb. 7 we launched three updates to the Pluralsight Platform, which include a new customized Home Page, learning paths for all 13 Cloud Personas (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) and a new AI Assistant (IRIS).  As of Feb. 25, Pluralsight has been rolled out to over 2,800 IT staff members across 48 agencies. 55% (1,545) have logged in, claimed their license, and have begun their learning journey. We are continuing the work to connect Pluralsight to the state LMS which will enable Pluralsight training completion information to flow into our LMS and display on your transcript. Our next collaboration meeting with DES is scheduled for February 27th.  

Brokerage Update: Deep dive workshops covering various topics are well underway with the Special Attorney General and are expected to be completed by mid-March. The workshops will inform our brokerage strategy for the state and how we enter negotiations with the Cloud Service Providers (AWS and Azure).  

About the ECCP

The Enterprise Cloud Computing Program (ECCP) was created by WaTech to provide leadership, governance, guidance, and resources to accelerate the strategic adoption of cloud technologies across Washington state government.

The overall mission of the ECCP is to accelerate efforts to modernize and transform the state information technology services that Washingtonians require by embracing cloud technology. This is an integral part of WaTech's efforts to create a "connected government" where residents and visitors can access state government services more easily and directly, whether it's getting a license, accessing public health resources, or bidding on a government project.

The program is the outgrowth of a statewide cloud readiness assessment the Office of the Chief Information Officer provided at the Legislature's direction in 2020.

Our Vision: A secure, scalable, and interoperable statewide cloud ecosystem to accelerate agency modernization and provide strategic goals to meet the dynamic needs of Washingtonians.

Our Mission: To modernize and migrate the state's information technology assets to cloud services to accelerate the transformation of critical services for Washingtonians.

The ECC's mission has three focus areas:

• Enable the adoption of cloud technologies - including the development and governance of the state's cloud architecture, policies, and standards - by providing statewide leadership and expert resources.
• Implement a cloud services brokerage function that helps agencies identify and acquire the best solutions at the best prices, and ensures cloud investments are operated securely, efficiently, and in compliance with the state's IT policies and strategic plan.
• Use contracted resources to help agencies identify migration candidates and to plan and implement migration projects.

Program Goals

• Accelerate the modernization of government services by adopting and committing to scalable and sustainable adoption of cloud solutions.
• Enhance statewide security and resilience using cloud platforms, tools, architectures, and standards.
• Shift from a capital expenditure to an operational expenditure model for state IT investment. This would reduce large upfront investments and provide predictable ongoing expenses by paying only for what's used and then scale when needed.
• Improve and optimize cloud operating costs by leveraging pricing at an enterprise scale, with master contracts, centralized services, and transparent "pay as you go" cost metrics.