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Committee approves Oracle hosting and managed-services authorization for customer billing systems
Summary
The Utilities Committee approved an emergency ordinance to authorize hosting and managed services contracts with Oracle America Inc. for the Oracle customer care and billing (CCMB) system supporting Cleveland Water and Cleveland Public Power, citing licensing and cybersecurity reasons.
The Cleveland City Council Utilities Committee approved an emergency ordinance authorizing the director of public utilities to enter into one or more contracts with Oracle America Inc. for hosting and managed services connected to the Oracle customer care and billing system used by Cleveland Water and Cleveland Public Power.
Introduced as Ordinance 3252025 by Council members Casey and Griffin, the measure authorizes contracts for a two-year period with two one-year renewal options exercisable by the director.
The director told the committee the Oracle customer care and billing system manages customer billing, meter reading, meter inventory, customer appointments and reporting, and is integrated with automatic meter reading (AMR), bill printing, electronic bill presentment and payment, and cashiering. “The Oracle customer care and billing system manages customer billing meter reading, meter inventory, customer appointments, and related reporting,” the director said. The director and the department emphasized licensing costs are a major driver: the city must license every user and every customer under the current model, and the department has migrated hosting fully to the cloud for redundancy and cybersecurity reasons.
Chief Lasik explained licensing and infrastructure considerations and noted the system's cloud migration reduces risk from physical server failures while increasing per-user and per-customer licensing costs. “Every processing power, all the memory, all the database licenses, anything in the back, any security that goes with it, and to the director's point, any residential or commercial client, they all are licensed together,” Chief Lasik said.
The committee approved the ordinance and asked the director to continue to bring contract renewals and licensing changes to the committee in advance of any future expirations; the chair noted the department's effort to streamline licensing and hosting but acknowledged the expense. The ordinance record indicates the authorization is aimed at keeping licenses and hosted services current and at supporting cybersecurity and redundancy for the city's core customer-billing systems.
The committee recorded the ordinance as approved and asked staff to return with expiration timelines and summaries when contracts near renewal.
