State Agency Modernizes Citizen Services on Google Cloud
Replaced a 22-year-old mainframe permitting system with a cloud-native citizen portal — application processing time dropped from 21 days to 4.
A US state agency was running a 22-year-old mainframe system for business permits, professional licenses, and grant administration. Citizens waited an average of 21 days for permit decisions, the agency was facing a legislative mandate for digital service delivery, and only three engineers who understood the legacy code remained — all retirement-eligible.
Apptad designed a phased strangler-fig modernization to Google Cloud. We built a new citizen portal in front of the mainframe using Cloud Run microservices, BigQuery for cross-program analytics, and Document AI for intake digitization. Service-by-service we cut over to GCP-native implementations behind the same APIs, retiring the mainframe in 26 months without a single dropped citizen interaction.
Citizen permit decisions now average 4 days, with 62% issued same-day for low-risk categories. The agency met its digital service mandate, retired the mainframe ahead of schedule, and saved $4.8M annually in licensing and host fees. The new platform is StateRAMP-authorized and shared as a reference architecture across two sister agencies.
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The platforms and partners that powered this engagement. Where Apptad has a dedicated alliance, the chip links to our partnership page.
“We had to modernize without breaking service for a single citizen. Apptad got us there — and the platform is now a model for the rest of the state.”
