Atlanta, Georgia, has a lot going for it – Fortune 500 companies, major sports teams and the largest airport in the world. Dekalb County, a core part of the Atlanta community, plays a big role in city planning. John Matelski, CIO and director of IT for DeKalb County in Georgia, joined Stu Miniman and Brian Gracely, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, to talk about some of the technologies that are helping the county innovate during Oracle OpenWorld 2015.

“Internet of Things, of course, is something that’s near and dear to my heart,” Matelski said. “It’s got a lot of value to our citizens and constituents … and then of course our Oracle ecosystem … We’ve been doing a number of upgrades to a variety of our different Oracle solutions, so we’re really focused on that.”

The county is evaluating options like smart lighting and cameras to monitor traffic patterns and lights to ease bottlenecks and improve safety. Even connected parking and water meters could help the county understand citizen and business use of city resources.

At the OpenWorld event, Matelski said Oracle geared numerous sessions to public sector attendees, from budgets to leveraging Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), but Matelski said he learns just as much from connecting with other attendees.

“I’m actually here to learn about the product roadmap and those kinds of things as it relates to public sector, but I want to be networking with other folks from other industries, find out about lessons learned, best practices, etc.,” he explained.

Security a concern for public sector

DeKalb County moved its 13-year-old email exchange to Microsoft Cloud and is in the process of moving its permitting and planning into the cloud as well. The county also runs Oracle products, including E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and Hyperion in order to facilitate cost savings and county functions. While security is always a concern for public sector, Matelski said that good contractual arrangements and service-level agreements have helped to protect its data and applications.

“DeKalb County is progressive, and we are making a lot of moves to the cloud … we’re looking at how we can leverage cost savings, total cost of ownership, return on investment, and cloud is really where it’s at,” he said

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Oracle OpenWorld 2015. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE