Regulation of the funding source for roads, bridges, school systems, water treatment plants, and even airports has moved to the cloud.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is a self-regulatory organization that oversees how municipal bonds are bought, sold or traded. It sets the rules for a $4 trillion market that is largely responsible for funding U.S. infrastructure, and the MSRB partnered with Amazon Web Services Inc. and Accenture Federal Services to transition from on-premises to the cloud.

“What the cloud has enabled us to do is become a data company,” said Mark Kim (pictured, right), chief executive officer of MSRB. “We serve as the central repository of market data for this $4-trillion market. Thanks to almost infinitely scalable computing power and storage, we now have the ability to leverage cloud tools like AI and machine learning to unlock insight from the vast amounts of market data that we have and deliver that to the industry we regulate and serve.”

Kim spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. He was joined by Chris Copeland (pictured, left), chief technology officer for Accenture Federal Services at Accenture PLC, and they discussed outcomes from the cloud transition and fostering a new culture of innovation. (* Disclosure below.)

Improved speed and system availability

The MSRB was in danger of falling behind the market it was chartered to regulate, according to Kim. A move to the cloud has enabled the regulator to improve system availability and foster a culture of innovation within the organization.

“We have to evolve with our evolving market, and the pace of change is moving faster and faster,” Kim said. “In the first 12 months of operations in the cloud, we achieved over 99.98% of system availability. In our own internal benchmark tests, our systems are running 30% faster.”

Adoption of the cloud has also changed the technology culture within MSRB. The move from an on-prem operation has opened new windows of opportunity for the IT staff and spurred pursuit of creative initiatives.

“We talk a lot about how to infuse innovation into the fabric and DNA of an organization, and I don’t think that personified itself anywhere as well as I’ve seen at the MSRB,” Copeland said. “People were excited about the process, there were competitions going on every day about who was going to get certified. Mark and the MSRB don’t have the luxury of just keeping pace with those they regulate. They’ve got to stay ahead, and if you’re going to stay ahead, you’ve got to have that innovative culture.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Accenture PLC sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Accenture nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE