Sponsored content contributed by AOC Business Partner: Zendesk
Imagine trying to conduct an orchestra where every world-class musician plays a different song simultaneously. The final music would be difficult to understand, even though each individual performance makes sense on its own. Counties face a similar challenge due to the mandated variation in their operations and functions, centered around the single goal of public service.
Tasked with delivering a massive and diverse list of outcomes for citizens, counties share an ultimate objective, but the digital needs of a public works department differ greatly from those of a health department, emergency response team, or justice system (National Association of Counties [NACo], 2025). Because of these distinct missions and use cases, the technology platforms used across various departments often lack interoperability.
Part of this comes from the sheer weight of history. For the last 40 years, local governments have been building and buying separate, on-premise server-based systems. In the modern cloud era, IT departments are now left with the task of connecting archaic data sets and tape libraries into shiny new platforms. The result? Deep, stubborn information silos that trap data, frustrate employees, burn overhead, and ultimately shortchange the citizens relying on these services (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2025).
The Great “Data Lake” Mirage
Over the past 10 to 15 years, a common proposed solution to information silos was physical centralisation. As counties migrated to cloud infrastructure, organisations attempted to consolidate historical data into centralized data lakes. However, this approach has often failed to deliver expected outcomes, rendering traditional physical de-siloing ineffective.
An analysis of recent implementations shows that this approach relied heavily on manual data uploads, frequently leading to unification failures (ThinkLogic, n.d.). Furthermore, data deduplication errors occurred regularly. Merging and cleaning four decades of disjointed municipal data consumes budget resources and taxes IT personnel, reducing the capacity for strategic initiatives.
Zero-Migration Unification Platforms (ZMUPs)
Future-proofing county operations requires leaving existing data structures in place and ending unnecessary data migration cycles. A practical baseline approach is to maintain data in its original repository.
Modern technology allows local governments to transition to cloud infrastructure while drawing on past, archived, and legacy datasets without complex migrations. These systems are known as Zero-Migration Unification Platforms (ZMUPs).
A ZMUP addresses data within its original source environment. By utilizing standard REST APIs and modern integration frameworks, these platforms securely query 40-year-old servers, reading data in place and presenting it through a single interface.
In-Place Unification Key Technologies
When ushering in the next era of county technology, government leaders should keep their eyes peeled for providers who champion this data-in-place unification strategy. Here is a look at ecosystem players making it happen:
- MuleSoft and Boomi: These vendors provide API-led connectivity to link legacy databases with cloud They read data directly from older servers, avoiding large-scale data transfers to new repositories.
- Snowflake: Snowflake supports federated data sharing, allowing organisations to query and analyze data across diverse systems directly at the source location.
- Zendesk: Zendesk serves as a resolution platform and unified knowledge center for citizen service and internal employee support (Zendesk, n.d.). It uses REST APIs and integration tools to bring legacy data into a single workspace without requiring permanent external data storage within the platform.
Integrating these systems creates a unified connection across departments. A centralized hub adapts to specific agency workflows and reads underlying legacy data, allowing employees to access historical information efficiently.
Capitalizing on Past Investments: Honoring the Data
A primary advantage of a ZMUP strategy is its management of historical data. The architecture maintains access to historical records while providing a cloud interface. Rather than requiring IT teams to select specific datasets for migration, a ZMUP retains all existing data in place.
This approach preserves existing technology investments and uses historical data to support current operational needs and citizen interactions, avoiding expensive long-term storage in new cloud environments.
Cost and Legacy System Retirement
A common question regarding ZMUP architecture concerns the ongoing licensing costs of legacy software systems.
Adopting a ZMUP does not require maintaining active software licenses for retired applications. Data from decommissioned systems can be exported into standard file formats and stored in low-cost archival environments, such as Amazon S3 Glacier, Google Cloud Storage Archive, or Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. These storage options maintain cross-platform readability and API connectivity, allowing the ZMUP to query data on demand while reducing infrastructure overhead.
Through API connectivity, the platform reads standard file formats from archival storage and delivers requested information to users, eliminating ongoing software subscription costs while maintaining complete data access.
Real Counties, Real Wins
Many counties globally have implemented ZMUP strategies. For example, DuPage County, Illinois replaced fragmented legacy systems with Zendesk to support 2,500 employees across multiple departments. Through this implementation, DuPage County reduced its IT service desk response times by 95 percent across ten departments and achieved high customer satisfaction ratings (Zendesk, n.d.).
Similarly, Surrey County Council implemented Zendesk to consolidate citizen inquiries across multiple channels (Zendesk, n.d.). By centralizing data visibility across departments, the council improved service coordination and operational efficiency.
The Bottom Line
Consolidating municipal technology through physical data integration often increases operational complexity (Government Finance Officers Association [GFOA], 2020), and while this practice has been seen as the track towards operating in the cloud while utilizing historical data, the emergence of the API-driven, AI-supported tech landscape available today allows for better options – including leaving data where it is, and focusing on a system that unilaterally accesses historical records without migrating in data. Focusing on zero-migration cloud-based integration solutions allows local governments to access data in its existing location. By leveraging
API-driven platforms such as Zendesk, counties can improve mobility, unify information access, and maintain integration with historical data assets, honoring and protecting the data generated by past investments in historical systems.
References
Government Finance Officers Association. (2020). Does consolidating local governments work?
National Association of Counties. (2025). How county governments thrive with cloud-based solutions.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2025). Governing with artificial intelligence: Implementation challenges.
ThinkLogic. (n.d.). From 30+ disconnected websites to one scalable platform. Zendesk. (n.d.). DuPage County modernizes employee support and CX. Zendesk. (n.d.). Surrey County Council customer story.
To meet publication-length limitation needs, condensed or shortened versions of this article are available on request.
Author Note
Laura Lundahl Baga, MPA, DBA, Zendesk.
Laura Lundahl Baga is a government-technology enthusiast and thought leader in the technology industry. Her professional background includes drafting technology-oriented fiscal notes for legislation, researching policy, overseeing national funding allocations for the federal government, and chairing federal panels for agencies such as USDHHS. She has served clients including the US VA, NOAA, and NASA, directed university research funding development, and directed programs on NATO and US military bases globally. She represents technology companies in supporting the technology goals of government customers.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Laura Lundahl Baga, Zendesk. Email: laura.baga@zendesk.com