8 | | APRIL 2022IN MY OPINIONCOST FACTORS ON MIGRATION TO THE CLOUDBy Ashish Jain, CTO, CalSTRSCalSTRS adopted digital transformation as a strategic goal in 2019 to maximize operational efficiency and provide the best possible digital experience to our members. To achieve this goal, CalSTRS is implementing a hybrid cloud operating model to provide cost-effective security, agility, usability, and flexibility as a critical foundation for fulfilling CalSTRS' enterprise strategies. In keeping with our fiduciary responsibility, CalSTRS conducted extensive analysis and determined a single vendor will provide the most cost-effective implementation.CalSTRS' Technology Services Branch, with over 200 staff, is responsible for operating a portfolio of approximately 135 systems/applications to support the administration of pension benefits for nearly one million benefit recipients and over one billion dollars in benefit payments per month. Nearly two-thirds of the application portfolio is already hosted in third-party data centers, many of which are in varying forms of cloud solutions. CalSTRS embarked on a procurement effort during the past year to obtain a vendor partner to assist with
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