Middlesex Water Company, a regional utility with over 125 years of service, provides water and wastewater to more than 150,000 customers across New Jersey and Delaware. As a forward-thinking organization, Middlesex Water continually invests in technology to strengthen data accuracy, operational visibility, and customer service.
Michael Hanna, Senior Project Engineer – Engineering Systems, leads the management of GIS and other engineering systems that feed capital planning, hydraulic modeling, and asset management processes across the enterprise.
“Working in the water utility sector carries a level of responsibility that is unlike most industries. We are delivering a service that communities depend on every single day for public health, safety, and economic vitality. Investing in modern engineering and information systems allows us to make better decisions, plan proactively, and strengthen the reliability and long-term performance of our infrastructure.” -Michael Hanna, Senior Project Engineer – Engineering Systems
By 2024, Middlesex Water’s Oracle Work and Asset Management (WAM 1.9) system had reached end-of-life. The IT department, known for its proactive upgrade posture, identified the need to move to a supported, modern environment. In addition, the company wanted to advance its cloud adoption strategy. Enter: Oracle Work and Asset Cloud Service (WACS).
This marked the utility’s first major step from an on-premise environment toward cloud-based enterprise systems. To maintain synchronization between Esri ArcGIS and the new WACS environment, Middlesex Water also needed to modernize its long-standing integration between WACS and GIS using the Geonexus platform.
“From an engineering systems perspective, Geonexus allowed us to modernize a critical integration without reinventing it. It enabled a cleaner transition to the cloud while keeping our GIS and operational data aligned and usable across the enterprise.”
Middlesex Water began its transition from Oracle WAM to WACS in September 2024, completing a successful go-live on April 1, 2025. In parallel, the team upgraded from GeoWorx Sync (Geonexus 2.0) to GIP (Geonexus 3.0), ensuring seamless data exchange between GIS and asset management throughout the migration, with no synchronization downtime.
The implementation was a collaborative effort between Middlesex Water’s Project team and the Geonexus technical team.
“The Geonexus technical team was excellent to work with. They clearly explained the implementation process, and following go-live, the system has performed as expected with minimal need for support. I have a strong understanding of the platform, and its reliability has allowed the integration to operate effectively without generating issues for our field or engineering teams.”
With the move to the cloud, GIP now integrates published REST services from ArcGIS with Oracle WACS, enabling flexible, upgrade-safe data synchronization without direct database connections.
“Upgrading from GeoWorx to the Geonexus Integration Platform required a different approach, particularly as WACS moved to a cloud-based environment and integrations shifted to REST services rather than direct database connections. While that introduced some complexity, it ultimately gave us far greater flexibility. GIP allows us to connect to different datasets in different ways, supports our transition to the Utility Network, and positions us to scale more easily as our systems continue to evolve in the cloud.”
Since the upgrade, Middlesex Water continues to rely on GIP for its mission-critical data exchange between ArcGIS and WACS — running weekend synchronization jobs that keep asset information current across systems.
Field and office users rely on synchronized data for locating assets, creating work orders, and completing preventive maintenance without knowing the mechanics that take place behind the scenes. The fact that users don’t “see” the integration is the strongest indicator of success.
“From the field technicians’ perspective, the synchronization is essentially invisible. When crews access WACS or GIS, the data they need is already there and up to date. They do not have to think about how the integration works behind the scenes. They simply expect the information to be available in the systems they use. The fact that GIP handles synchronization in the background allows our teams to stay focused on their work, not the technology enabling it.”
The company’s proactive IT strategy and the upgrade to GIP have also positioned Middlesex Water to future-proof its integration environment as it embarks on its next major initiative: migration to the Esri Utility Network (UN).
Middlesex Water plans to complete a pilot UN migration by the end of 2025, with a full transition targeted for June 2026. GIP will again play a key role in remapping integration points for the new data model and maintaining continuity with Oracle WACS.
“Our approach is to implement solutions that are built for the long term. That means investing in technology that can scale as our needs evolve, integrate cleanly with future platforms, and support efficient operations in the field. We want to make thoughtful decisions today that allow us to expand capabilities over time without creating unnecessary complexity or disruption down the road.”
Beyond GIS and WACS, Middlesex Water plans to extend GIP to connect Oracle Customer Care and Billing (CC&B) with GIS, closing the loop between customer outages and communication workflows. The result will be a single, unified view that gives operations teams the insight they need without jumping across systems.
For Middlesex Water, this journey is about more than replacing aging technology. It’s about ensuring each system upgrade builds toward long-term resilience, not more technical debt.
By modernizing WAM to WACS, moving from GeoWorx Sync to GIP, and designing a forward-compatible data strategy, Middlesex Water has created the space it needs to adopt new capabilities without disrupting operations.
The utility now has something rare in the form of a large-scale integrated modern environment.
Geonexus’ platform was built with business logic in mind and allows utilities to connect systems like ArcGIS, Maximo, SAP, and more. The Geonexus Integration Platform opens the door to new possibilities for data integration and asset management, so schedule a demo today and learn how Geonexus can help make the most of your data.
