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Gateway
Association News
March 12, 2010
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
-James Thurber
Southern Region Seminar State Reports
Eight member states gave reports and procurement updates at the southern region seminar, held in Charleston, South Carolina on February 27 – March 2. The following are some highlights of current state IT projects:
Alabama
• data center – audit, standards, security, storage and partnerships
• disaster recovery services – secure VPN access, Web mail, Internet Outlook, Web based voice mail, Web based access to mainframe
• Exchange migration – 18,000 users, 24/7 monitoring, Windows Server 2008, offsite backup
• state network – notification and maintenance, redundant core, redundant wireless connectivity, consolidation, router and switches upgrade
• eGovernment initiative
Arkansas
• manage and align IT resources with: procurement opportunities, cost savings, standardization and governance
• satellite phone system
• interoperability gateway system
• data center: virtualization, usage based billing for shared services, SAN upgrade, improved monitoring
• e-mail redundancy
• proposed new data center – working on funding
• satellite role in business continuity efforts
• “Green IT” initiatives
• enhanced government portal
• ARRA – stimulus implementation, applications for BIP/BTOP funds
• $2.1M award for broadband mapping
Florida
• expanding Centrex VoIP offering
• modernizing business infrastructure
• data center consolidation
• network expansion project
• e-mail consolidation
• broadband stimulus/mapping projects
• E911 enhancements
• upgrades to state law enforcement radio system
• consolidation/cost reduction on Florida Interoperability Network (FIN)
• expanding FIN into state trauma centers
Georgia
• completed implementation of privatization contracts
• IT infrastructure consolidation
• server consolidation: application assessment, equipment refresh, network security enhancement
• supporting stimulus initiatives
Kentucky
• consolidation and virtualization
• VMware implementation: cost savings and customer service
Mississippi
• new data center: improved security, redundant power, cooling and network connectivity
• virtualization: mainframe, AIX environment complete
• enterprise projects: server virtualization, consolidated e-mail, statewide directory services, expansion of service desk, data storage and backup, business continuity/disaster recovery, capitol complex network redesign, VoIP
• telecom management system
• network audit and capacity checks
South Carolina
• division reorganization
• implementing South Carolina enterprise information system
• assisting stimulus programs (broadband mapping and community center broadband access)
• service delivery through virtualization
• wireless broadband service
• government portal redesign
• network communications equipment inventory
• VoIP implementation
• re-bid of expiring statewide contracts
• 800 network re-banding
Texas
• updating state Web portal
• ICT cooperative contracts program
• Texas agency network (TEX-AN): communications commodity services, enterprise shared services, network and security operations center services
• security operations center services
These are just some of the state report highlights. You can access the seminar presentations in the resource library of the NASTD Web site. They are located in the “2010 Southern – Charleston, SC” subfolder of the “Seminar and Conference Presentations” library. You must log in to access the library.
Special Interest Group Spotlight – Business and Service Management
The NASTD Executive Board recently reorganized the organization’s special interest groups (SIGs) to align them with member interests and professional experiences. Recent SIG activity and the results of the special interest survey of NASTD state members conducted in September helped guide the decision making process.
Dan Oehmke, Director for Process Controls and Improvement with the state of Minnesota’s Office of Enterprise Technology, is the chair of the Business and Service Management SIG. Previously, this SIG focused on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and service management issues, but the scope of the group has expanded to include procurement, cost allocation and financial management issues.
Oehmke wants SIG members to help guide the agenda this year. “The specific topics depend on the input of the SIG’s membership,” Oehmke said. “By using the ITIL framework around 24 key processes and 5 lifecycle phases, our goal is to identify meeting topics for the coming year”. He adds that incorporating the new discussion areas makes sense since each maps to one of the 24 ITIL processes for service management.
This SIG can help both state and corporate members address challenges in the work place. According to Oehmke, “The greatest challenge for most of us is getting our colleagues to accept that it’s not about technology, it’s about business. We often see examples where technology starts to overpower the primary business objectives.” As an example, he continues, “ITIL suggests we should have an escalation methodology for incident management, but it’s not prescriptive on how to do that type of escalation. An organization like NASTD is of tremendous value, since we can get on the discussion lists or participate in special interest groups to find out what others are doing and how they’re solving similar problems.”
Given the difficult budgets both state and corporate members are facing, Oehmke believes, “It’s times like these that creative, motivated professionals look to an organization like NASTD to leverage their knowledge and experience.”
You can join the Business and Service Management SIG here. SIG conference call information and other discussions are posted to the community eGroup and its documents are posted in the resource library on the NASTD Web site.
Next Week’s Conference Calls
NASTD’s Midwestern region, Western region and Corporate Affiliate Council all have their monthly conference calls scheduled for Tuesday, March 16. The schedule is as follows:
Corporate Affiliate Council - 11:00 a.m. EDT
Western Region - 2:00 p.m. EDT
Midwestern Region - 3:00 p.m. EDT
You can find out the dates and times of upcoming regional and corporate affiliate conference calls on the NASTD event calendar. Consult the appropriate eGroup for conference call agendas and dial-in information.
Web Site Update – User Profiles and Auto Login
Based on state and corporate member feedback, NASTD has recently made two significant changes to the new Web site.
One of the security defaults on the new NASTD Web site hid the e-mail address and phone number in the member’s profile unless the member changed the “Preferences” to make the information visible.
The NASTD Executive Board has decided to change the system default so that the member e-mail address and phone number are listed in the user profile. The new system default will list both the member e-mail address and phone number in the user profile.
Members will still be able to change their defaults. The Web interface allows each member to control how much of their profile information is available to other NASTD members. To review and modify your profile settings, do the following:
• go to www.nastd.org
• click on the “login to see members only content” link in the upper-right hand corner of the home page
• log in using your e-mail address and password
• click the “Profile” link in the “Welcome” box in the upper-right hand corner
• under “My Profile”, click the “Preferences” link in the left navigation bar
• you can control what information is visible to whom for each of the listed features
• after you’ve made changes, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page
Also, we have disabled the auto login feature for the eGroups on the new Web site. Previously, with the auto login turned on, if users mistakenly forwarded an eGroup message without using the embedded “Forward Message” link, the recipient of the forwarded e-mail could log in to the Web site using the sender’s credentials. With auto login turned off, this security issue no longer exists. However, Higher Logic, our Web partner, still recommends that you forward any eGroup messages using the “Forward Message” link embedded in the eGroup message instead of using your e-mail client.
If you have any questions about these changes, please contact Paul Czarnecki (pczarnecki@csg.org or 859-244-8186).
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