Socrata

Transparency and security are no longer mutually exclusive.
Socrata uses Hosted Chef to keep government wide open, and secure data locked down.

The Challenge

Socrata is the leading developer and provider of Open Data Services, a category of cloud-based Web 2.0 solutions that enable federal, state, and local governments to dramatically improve the reach, usability and social utility of their public information assets. As a data-publishing and consumption platform at those levels, Socrata manages multiple data centers that handle its Open Data cloud operations including more than 30 customers spanning all levels of government. In order to achieve compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002 more quickly, Socrata needed an auditable, automated and secure system to scale configuration management and compliance with policies.

The Solution

Socrata found its solution in the power and simplicity of Opscode's Hosted Chef (OHC). Operating at increasing scale, manual configuration of servers and nodes becomes impossible, especially with the sophisticated Open Data Platform infrastructure, needed to manage the frictionless flow of Big Data that Socrata develops and operates. Opscode delivered increased speed, efficiency, security, auditability and automation, enabling Socrata to easily and quickly obtain FISMA ATOs, reducing compliance time from months to weeks, and allowing Socrata engineers to focus more on innovation and less on maintenance – major benefits for its customers.

The Results

  • Increased agility and reliability to efficiently manage platform configuration
  • Significantly reduced time to secure authorizations to operate (ATOs)
  • Significantly upgraded Socrata's ability to deploy more capacity, virtually, on demand
  • Repeatable, fully automated infrastructure
"Opscode helped lower the stress of this job. Before Hosted Chef, I spent a significant amount of time tied to a pager to ensure our datacenters were running smoothly. Our team still carries the pager 24x7, but it does not ring as often. We have dramatically increased the level of automation and auditability when we deploy new capacity and that gives us peace of mind. We can focus more on value creation for our customers, and the growth of our company." Paul Paradise, Operations Engineer

Socrata is the leading developer and provider of Open Data Services, a category of cloud-based Web 2.0 solutions that enable federal, state, and local governments to dramatically improve the reach, usability and usefulness of their public information assets.

The Socrata Open Data Platform™ is an information delivery platform that optimizes the management and timely dissemination of relevant information and data-driven services to citizen, professional and internal government audiences, in self-service mode and across multiple channels. Information assets include tabular data, geospatial data, unstructured content and real-time data from government transactional systems of record.

Socrata customers include cities such as Seattle, Edmonton, Chicago and Baltimore, states such as Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma, and federal agencies such as Medicare, SAMHSA and GSA (Data.gov). Socrata is a private company, based in Seattle, Washington, with venture financing from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures. To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.

Learn more about Socrata

About Opscode

Opscode is the provider of Chef, the automation platform for the coded business. Opscode Chef provides the speed, flexibility, and efficiency to compete in the digital economy. By modeling IT infrastructure and application delivery as code, Chef empowers businesses of all sizes to easily scale to meet demand, eliminate down time, manage complexity, and accelerate time to market.