Case Study: State of Washington Employment Security Department achieves 3–4× faster systems and a 75% smaller data center footprint with NetApp FlexPod

Washington Employment Security Department: Helping Citizens Get Back to Work

The Washington State Employment Security Department (ESD), which supports roughly 190,000 unemployed workers, needed to modernize a complex, unpredictable IT infrastructure to streamline tax and claims processing and meet a mandated data‑center move. A slow, multiyear rollout of a Next Generation Tax System (NGTS) and limited vendor support made deployments and troubleshooting difficult, and a looming migration deadline increased urgency.

ESD implemented a FlexPod datacenter platform with NetApp clustered Data ONTAP and partner IVOXY, piloting quickly and then migrating 500 servers and ~300 TB of data within the 90‑day window. The new environment virtualized servers from 60% to over 95%, cut the physical footprint by 75% (32 to 10 cabinets), boosted application performance 3–4×, simplified management and recovery with Snapshot/SnapRestore, and is expected to save thousands of hours and millions of dollars while enabling further modernization projects like NGTS and UTAB.

State of Washington Employment Security Department

Josh Swenson

Deputy Director of ITBI Infrastructure Services