Colleyville staff outlines Microsoft Azure government-cloud migration and three-year licensing costs

Patrick, an information-technology staff member for the City of Colleyville, told the City Council at its Sept. 16 work session that staff is recommending a migration of the city’s Microsoft licensing and services into the Microsoft Azure Government cloud.

The proposal, presented as a three-year cost analysis, compares continuing with on‑premise servers and perpetual licenses to moving to subscription-based licensing hosted in Microsoft’s government cloud. Patrick said the on‑premise estimate for the coming year would be about $182,463 and that the staff obtained three vendor bids for a full cloud migration and project work.

The cost comparison was presented as: an on‑premise annual estimate of approximately $182,463 for the first year; vendor bids for cloud migration described in the presentation as roughly “127, 180.8” and “124” (as reported in the presentation). The staff recommendation favored “vendor C,” described as locally based and offering on‑site support. Patrick said the three‑year total cost with vendor C remained below the other options when project costs and annual renewals were combined.

Staff explained several operational and security tradeoffs. Patrick said subscription models would move the city from perpetual licenses to a per‑user and per‑device subscription; the licenses include software‑assurance features that will follow assigned users and cover Office updates and new computers while the city continues to pay the subscription. He also said the server hardware the city would replace or buy to keep on‑premise services would be expected to last about five years.

Council members asked about continuity for first responders and backup behavior during outages. Patrick said the on‑premise model depends on local power and that email and other services can stop if local data‑center power fails. He described Microsoft’s Azure government cloud as providing geographic replication and rapid rollover between data centers, and told the council that Microsoft advertises a 99.9% uptime; he also acknowledged that, as with other providers, account compromises can occur when credentials are lost.

Council members asked whether cloud vendor packages cover future upgrade costs; Patrick said the licenses purchased include software assurance and that updates and licensing for replacement machines are included while the subscription remains active. He also said vendor project costs vary — some bids had lower year‑to‑year renewal prices but higher upfront project costs.

No formal decision was taken at the work session. Mayor Foutsen gavelled the meeting and said the council would move into executive session to discuss sensitive items, and staff told members they could receive more detailed, potentially sensitive information in that closed session.

Next steps: staff will provide additional, detailed information to council in executive session as requested; no final procurement action or council vote was recorded during the public work session.