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The Voice of Business,
Industry & the Professions Since 1942
North Carolina's largest
business group proudly serves as the state chamber of commerce
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December 2004
State Government
Fewer Computers
About to Crash Than Feared
By Steve Tuttle
The
state’s new chief information officer will have some good news to
report to legislators when the General Assembly reconvenes next month.
After completing a first-of-its-kind survey, George Bakolia will be able
to tell lawmakers that there are far fewer old, unreliable software
applications running on state government computers than was initially
believed.
An assessment Bakolia completed in May determined that roughly 2,400
different applications – a shockingly high number — were running on
computers throughout state government. Common sense told him that, given
the state’s unorganized, shotgun approach to information technology, a
large number of these so-called “legacy applications” were liable to
crash at any moment. Bakolia feared that critical state government
services – drivers
license renewal systems, for example – would be wiped out by one of
these software failures.
Bakolia took a closer look at the data the agencies had reported and
found that many had misunderstood the question. “I saw that a lot of
people believed that some utility they had on their desktop or a small
Access database, for example, was an application, which they aren’t. I
found that the true number of business applications that we have in
state government is around 900.” The smaller the number of
applications, the smaller the chance of a major crash.
There’s even better news. Bakolia’s analysis of these 900
applications shows most are OK. “What we are finding is there is no
smoking gun there, there is no crisis,” Bakolia says. “It’s good
to know that we do not have a lot of mission critical applications at
high risk of failure. But there are about 100 that need to be handled
quickly, within the next two years.”
Bakolia believes it’s critical for the state to replace those 100
applications because they have two strikes against them: they’re
pretty old and they’re crucial to the daily operation of some
important state government function. “The typical definition of legacy
applications are those that have exceeded their life expectancy, employ
outdated technology, no longer meet the business or program needs
intended, or can no longer be supported in a cost-effective manner,”
he says. Targeting these legacy systems will be a key recommendation in
the report he is scheduled to deliver to lawmakers on Feb. 1.
The report also will present Bakolia’s two-year plan to modernize and
streamline state government’s IT systems, a key recommendation of the
NCCBI-backed Governor’s Efficiency Commission. A major result of the
commission’s criticism of state government’s IT systems was
legislation passed by the General Assembly in July creating a powerful
state CIO charged with solving those problems.
After a few months in the job, Bakolia says he’s both encouraged and
discouraged by the tasks ahead.
“The most encouraging thing I have encountered is that at least the IT
community within the state agencies realize that we have to work
together. The majority of them are willing to work with the state CIO
office to make improvements and do things more efficiently.”
Particularly, he says, senior agency managers support the effort even
though it means giving up some turf.
He ran into some push-back from agency IT people over the state’s new
approach to buying laptops, printers and other peripherals. Before, each
agency bought what it wanted, when it needed it. Different agencies
bought different brands. Bakolia is pushing standardization of products
and volume purchasing.
“Even though I have encountered some resistance with aggregate
purchasing, there is a buy-in and an understanding that we can save a
lot of money this way.”
He’s most discouraged over the resistance he’s encountered among
agency IT staffers to assume responsibility for computer project
management. They prefer to use vendors for computer hardware and
software projects, Bakolia says.
“We lack project management skills – basic technical skills — in
the agencies and we have to really improve on that aspect. I believe
that while I need outside sources to help me, I think that project
management should be the responsibility of the agency.”
With his initial status report and recommendations to the General
Assembly nearly complete, Bakolia is moving on to the next stage of his
work to improve performance and cut costs in state IT systems. Next, he
hopes to reduce the number of duplicative software applications used by
various agencies to perform essentially the same task. A key target,
Bakolia says, is payroll and other HR applications.
“The challenge to the agencies, and where I think we will encounter
some resistance, is that we are identifying areas if duplication of
programs. The challenge for us is to convince the agencies that all we
need is one business application that serves everyone. There is a lot of
duplication in HR systems.”
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