Experts Explain What Every Agency Should Consider Before Moving Public Safety Software to The Cloud

By: Bob Rausch, Director of Technical Operations, National Public Safety Group and Mike Dent, Field CTO, eGroup 

As agencies evaluate the next generation of public safety software, one topic consistently comes up: the cloud.

Research shows that cloud adoption across the public sector is steadily increasing, but progress has been slower in public safety where agencies need to balance modernization with reliability, security, and risk. Across agencies we work with, we see a mixed response. Some are moving forward aggressively while others remain hesitant.

At National Public Safety Group (NPSG) the biggest challenge our agencies face is fully understanding all requirements from multiple perspectives before deciding to move to the cloud.

An Industry Shift

From Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) to Records Management Systems (RMS) and Jail Management Systems (JMS), the shift from on-premises systems to scalable, resilient cloud solutions seems to be accelerating. Most major public safety software vendors now offer either cloud-based or cloud-native solutions.

While those terms are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Cloud-based (or cloud-hosted) solutions are legacy systems that have been moved off-premises into a hosted environment. They still rely on on-premises architecture, just running in someone else’s data center. Some vendors who are providing cloud-based systems offer managed services, so agencies are not having to update the system anymore, though this does bear additional costs. Cloud-native solutions, on the other hand, are built specifically for the cloud. They leverage modern architecture to deliver resilience, faster global updates, and improved performance. The distinction between cloud-based and cloud-native matters for agencies who need to know not just where their solutions are hosted, but how they are designed.

For public safety, cloud-native systems generally outperform cloud-based counterparts in resilience, speed and frequency of updates, and integration flexibility. But, on-premises systems remain prevalent, especially in CAD environments where ultra-low latency is critical.

For many agencies, the perceived benefits of moving to the cloud include:

• Reduced reliance on on-premises infrastructure
• Less workload for internal IT resources to maintain hardware and software
• More frequent updates that deliver new features, improve stability, and strengthen security
• Built-in redundancy and disaster recovery
• Enhanced security and monitoring

From a software vendor perspective, cloud environments enable meaningful improvements in both operations and resiliency. While cloud platforms do not always allow vendors to keep every customer on an identical software version due to regulatory, operational, or regional requirements, they do enable vendors to modernize how software is built, deployed, and maintained. By leveraging cloud-native, service-oriented architectures rather than monolithic virtual machines and tightly coupled legacy components, vendors can isolate failures, deploy updates incrementally, scale critical services independently, and recover more quickly from faults. For agencies, this results in platforms that evolve faster, recover more predictably, and are better designed to support continuous availability for mission-critical public safety systems.

While the cloud can simplify certain aspects of technology management, it doesn’t eliminate complexity, it shifts it. And this is where agencies often overlook important factors in their cloud readiness.

What Often Gets Overlooked

One of the biggest misconceptions we see is agencies assuming that moving to the cloud means fewer infrastructure requirements. Cloud-based public safety systems are only as strong as the infrastructure supporting them, including:

• Reliable, high-speed internet connectivity
• Redundant network paths for failover capabilities
• Sufficient bandwidth to support mission-critical operations
• Security and compliance alignment

Without the foundational elements in place, agencies may experience performance issues, outages, or unexpected costs that outweigh the perceived benefits. And when it comes to mission-critical systems like CAD, an outage or performance issue could be catastrophic.

Beyond infrastructure, there are other considerations that aren’t always top of mind for agencies, including:

• Control and governance: what does it mean to no longer have your critical software systems on premises?
  • Will you have as much access to your data for reporting and data mining?
• Long-term costs: Are infrastructure requirements, subscriptions and connectivity costs fully understood?
  • For cloud-based, you are not only adding managed services, but the added cloud fees.
• Operational readiness: Does staff have the training and processes needed to support a cloud environment?
  • For our customers moving CAD or other mission-critical systems to the cloud, systems relied upon by first responders, officers, and the public, we strongly recommend private, dedicated connectivity options such as Amazon Direct Connect or Microsoft ExpressRoute, depending on the cloud provider in use. These services provide predictable performance, consistent latency, and higher reliability than VPN-based connections or public internet paths. While site-to-site VPNs and public internet connectivity can be appropriate for non-critical workloads, they are inherently subject to congestion, variable latency, and ISP outages. Dedicated cloud connectivity, combined with redundant ISP paths, significantly improves resiliency and reduces operational risk for life-safety systems.

Most agencies simply don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to cloud preparedness, and skipping an early Cloud Readiness Assessment can lead to costly decisions later.

Make an Informed Decision on Cloud Readiness

The move to the cloud is not one-size-fits-all, and it shouldn’t be driven by trends, vendor pressure, or assumptions.

Some agencies are excellent candidates for cloud deployment, and for others, remaining on premises (at least for certain systems) makes the most operational and financial sense. Before committing to a direction, a proper assessment from experienced professionals can provide a clear understanding of an agency’s infrastructure, operational capabilities, and long-term goals.

To help agencies navigate this process, NPSG has partnered with eGroup Enabling Technologies, a leading provider of IT and cloud solutions. Their team specializes in evaluating infrastructure, identifying gaps, and helping agencies determine whether they are prepared for a move to the cloud.

We asked eGroup to share insights into what agencies should be thinking about before deciding they are ready to move to the cloud.

eGroup: What Cloud Readiness Really Looks Like for Public Safety 

Determining whether an agency is ready for CAD, RMS, and other mission-critical systems to operate in the cloud requires more than confirming that a vendor offers a cloud deployment option. True cloud readiness is a combination of infrastructure capability, network resiliency, operational maturity, and organizational alignment.

From eGroup’s experience conducting cloud readiness assessments for public safety agencies, readiness evaluations begin with a holistic review of the agency’s environment. This includes network architecture, connectivity diversity, latency sensitivity, security controls, identity and access management, and operational processes such as monitoring, escalation, and incident response. The objective is not to push agencies toward the cloud, but to determine whether their environment can reliably support systems where availability and performance directly impact public safety operations.

Across these assessments, several infrastructure gaps consistently emerge. Agencies often underestimate the dependency cloud-delivered systems place on network reliability and assume existing internet connectivity is sufficient for real-time, mission-critical workloads. Common gaps include single-provider internet access, limited path diversity, insufficient bandwidth during peak usage periods, and unclear ownership for cloud operations and vendor coordination during incidents.

Redundancy and failover planning is another area where cloud migrations can introduce risk if not properly addressed. Moving CAD or similar systems to the cloud does not eliminate the need for redundancy. It shifts where and how redundancy must be designed. Agencies should evaluate connectivity resiliency as carefully as application architecture, including private, dedicated connections such as Amazon Direct Connect or Microsoft ExpressRoute, redundant ISP paths, and clearly defined failover scenarios.

The most significant risk agencies face is skipping a formal cloud readiness assessment altogether. Without a structured evaluation, agencies may assume cloud deployments inherently provide resiliency, only to encounter performance issues, unexpected costs, operational confusion, or service disruptions after go-live. In public safety environments, these risks directly affect response times, operational effectiveness, and public trust.

A cloud readiness assessment provides clarity, not pressure. It establishes a realistic understanding of current capabilities, identifies gaps that must be addressed, and helps agencies make informed decisions about which systems are appropriate for cloud deployment, when they should move, and what prerequisites must be in place to ensure long-term success.

Cloud readiness is not a single decision or deployment milestone. It is an ongoing discipline that requires deliberate planning, resilient design, and a clear understanding of how technology choices support mission-critical public safety operations.