Saint Paul overcomes ransomware attack with help from Oracle Cloud
The Minnesota city quickly restores operations after the attack by going live early with Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service.
United States | Energy and Water
“Even with our legacy systems down, we were able to issue work orders, track labor, and keep crews in the field. Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service proved its strength under the toughest circumstances. This experience reinforced our belief that the cloud is not just about modernization. It’s about resilience, and Oracle Cloud kept the city of Saint Paul operational when we needed it.”
Saint Paul, Minnesota, and other major public sector entities managing critical infrastructure and services are increasingly vulnerable to cyberthreats. When a ransomware attack shut down most of Saint Paul’s on-premises systems, the city faced the urgent challenge of restoring essential operations. Oracle Consulting partnered with the city to accelerate deployment of Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service, resulting in the solution going live ahead of schedule. With the resilience and security of Oracle Cloud, the city rapidly restored work management and labor tracking for hundreds of employees, even while other systems were offline. This rapid response supported business continuity and boosted confidence in Saint Paul’s cloud upgrade efforts.
“Our shared goal was to keep the city running, and Oracle Cloud gave us the platform to do exactly that,” says Andy Knuth, systems consultant for the city of Saint Paul.
Why Saint Paul chose Oracle
Saint Paul launched a multiyear effort to improve infrastructure management, maintenance processes, and field service capabilities. Central to this effort was Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service, chosen to replace aging maintenance management systems, standardize asset management, boost mobile capabilities for crews, and provide accurate labor tracking and union rule compliance.
The project was complex, involving 58 unions and more than 200 pay codes with unique rules, plus planned integrations with timekeeping, financial, and geographic information systems. By the time the ransomware attack occurred, system integration testing was complete with no major defects, and the user acceptance testing (UAT) build was 95% ready, including successful data migration. That allowed for a swift pivot to production during the crisis.
Results
Saint Paul’s implementation of Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service provided substantial business value, which became especially clear during the ransomware attack. When it disabled most on-premises systems, Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service remained fully operational, immediately demonstrating its resilience and business continuity benefits. Within weeks, hundreds of city employees were onboarded and actively using the solution. Essential work management operations continued, and public works and maintenance activities proceeded with minimal interruption while other vital systems were restored.
Operational agility also emerged as a significant benefit: Moving the nearly completed UAT environment to production provided continuity of operations and accelerated Saint Paul’s adoption of cloud-based solutions, advancing the city’s technology roadmap faster than planned. The project highlighted the benefits of a configuration-driven—not heavily customized—SaaS environment, allowing for rapid changes with minimal technical friction and directly supporting the early go-live that kept service delivery stable.
The city’s workforce quickly adapted to the new cloud solution, supported by Oracle Consulting’s on-site trainers. This not only sustained ongoing work and labor tracking but also increased trust in cloud security and resilience among city leaders, underscoring Oracle Cloud SaaS as a strategic foundation for future upgrades and crisis response.
Partners
Oracle Consulting quickly deployed an eight-person team to train city staff and provide 24/7 support, converting UAT to production, triaging time and payroll, and coordinating closely with HR and finance. Within weeks, hundreds of employees were using Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service for work orders, labor, and materials tracking, even while other systems remained offline.
About the customer
Saint Paul Public Works is responsible for the design, construction, and maintenance of the street, sewer, and drainage infrastructure systems in Saint Paul, Minnesota.