FAQs - General

LATEST ADDITIONS

June 26, 2008

What is the status of Stream 3?

Stream 3 deals with telecommunications contracts for agencies to use on a self-service basis. We previously announced our intent to issue a Request for Qualified Contractors (RFQC) in late May to identify providers who are able to meet our criteria for offering certain telecommunications services.

Since responses to the Managed Network Services RFP (Stream 2) were due on June 12, we decided to delay the Stream 3 RFQC. We want some time to review the proposals for telecommunications services from the potential providers before making a final decision about proceeding with Stream 3. For example, if the providers do not offer a particular service, if a service is not as competitively priced as we would like or we cannot reach an agreement on service levels, then the service will be taken out of Managed Network Services and included in the Stream 3 RFQC. We do not have a projected date for releasing the RFQC, but since it is substantially complete, revisions to add a service will take very little time.

The change in Stream 3 is not expected to affect the previously announced timeline for closing GTA's regional offices. The process is still expected to begin in September or October and continue through February or March of next year.

Has GTA made provisions for the Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) function in the Service Management Organization, Service Delivery Organization or with the external service provider?

The external service provider will perform this function.

Can you explain how agencies will budget for in-scope services? Will IT funding be taken away from some agencies?

Each agency’s budget for in-scope services will be based on the counts of each Resource Unit required by the agency. (Resource Unit refers to the unit of consumption, staffing level or other resource associated with a service.) Agencies that participated in the IT assessment are developing the Resource Unit counts for their in-house services, and GTA is developing counts for the services bought from GTA for all agencies.

GTA will use the Resource Unit counts and the service provider’s pricing for each Resource Unit to identify the agency’s budget requirements for each IT service.

Agency budgets will also be realigned to move the required funding from other account codes to one of the following accounts:

871001 – GTA Computer Bill
871002 – GTA Data Network Bill
871003 – GTA Telecommunications Bill

GTA is working with the Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) to provide the necessary information for budget realignment. If an agency’s existing budget is higher than the combined budget for new services and its retained IT budget requirements, then OPB will move funds from the agency to other agencies that may need additional IT funding.

My agency is thinking about outsourcing all or parts of its network. Should we wait until the state completes its outsourcing initiative?

GTA and 12 other agencies are currently writing the Request for Proposal for managed network services. These agencies will also evaluate the resulting proposals from external service providers, and the contract will be awarded to the service provider who offers the greatest value and best meets the state’s needs. After the contracts are signed, all GTA customers will be encouraged to obtain their network services from the selected service provider. GTA is working closely with the Office of Planning and Budget and the Department of Administrative Services to plan the necessary processes. As these are developed, we will share them with state agencies.

How will GAIT 2010 affect GTA’s customers who are not part of the initial scope?

The consolidation and outsourcing of the state’s IT infrastructure will affect all of GTA’s customers. The 13 agencies in the initial scope will transition IT staff to external service providers after a contract is signed this fall. However, all of GTA’s customers will get IT services from the external service providers, with GTA managing the quality. That means every customer will experience changes in business processes for IT, from budgeting and planning to ordering, billing and IT asset management. We are working closely with the Office of Planning and Budget and the Department of Administrative Services to plan for those process changes.

What will be the approach for defining GTA's service offerings after the vendor is selected?

This process will be defined as part of the development of the Service Management Organization. The guiding principle will be the same as it is today. Offerings will be based upon the ability to deliver value to the State.

Will GTA continue to offer the same cataloged services or will GTA adopt the service catalog of the selected vendor?

This process will be defined as part of the development of the Service Management Organization. The guiding principle will be that GTA is accountable for approving the catalog of offered services.

Our agency is about to redesign our website. Should we delay this because of the possible outsourcing?

Content management customers should continue with site redesigns. GTA has commissioned a content management feasibility study to plan for upgrades, usability enhancements and consolidation of Vignette 6 and 7.3 users to Vignette 7.4 or above. GTA will be announcing onsite demo sessions to discuss plans and new features of the content management system. These demo sessions will be advertised on the login screen of the content management system. Content managers are encouraged to attend these sessions. For more information about the capabilities of this new system and to view demos of features, visit the Vignette Content Management Web site.

Why does Georgia need a technology transformation?

Technology is the underpinning for a well run modern enterprise. GTA recently undertook a comprehensive assessment of state government IT that identified serious problems. These problems include:

The state’s IT spending is uncoordinated and fragmented.
It is difficult – if not impossible – to determine our return on IT investment across the enterprise.
We are unable to meet industry standards and ensure appropriate levels of security and disaster recovery.
The state’s current IT infrastructure is unworthy of supporting the $21 billion, 24/7 enterprise that is Georgia state government.
The current infrastructure must provide critical services to the state and its residents.

Nothing short of a complete transformation will accomplish the amount of change needed to upgrade the state’s infrastructure to the level required for safe and secure operations.

What is going to be different after the transformation?

Redundancy and inefficiencies will be eliminated through consolidation. Workload will be balanced across two data centers allowing for full disaster recovery capability once the transition is complete. GTA will operate as a service management organization. IT services will improve and customer expectations will be established in writing with service level agreements. More transparency will be achieved with better reporting, improved contract management and better accountability.

Why is this important?

The state’s IT infrastructure supports critical functions at all levels of state government, including the large and complex systems that support accounting, revenue collections, public safety operations, education, health and welfare, transportation and every other critical function of state government. Without a stable and reliable IT infrastructure, lives and livelihoods are literally at risk.

What is being consolidated?

Infrastructure services in the scope of this consolidation process include:

Data centers and computing facilities in different state agencies
Servers
Mainframes
End-user computers (desktop and laptop)
Help desks

These services will now be provided by private providers through multiple contracts that will be competitively bid and awarded in late 2008.

Which agencies are involved in the consolidation and outsourcing?

Thirteen state agencies will initially be part of the transformation: Administrative Services, Community Health, Corrections, Driver Services, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia Technology Authority, Human Resources, Juvenile Justice, Natural Resources, Office of Planning and Budget, Revenue, State Accounting Office, and Technical and Adult Education.

Can other agencies opt in as part of the initial transition to external service providers?

No, other agencies will be able to obtain their IT services from the external service providers through GTA after the completion of the transition of the first 13 agencies.

How much will it cost?

No additional appropriations will be required. The transformation will allow greater efficiency and sustainable investment in IT without additional appropriations.

How did the state arrive at this decision to outsource?

The decision was made based on careful, detailed analyses and the facts resulting from those analyses.

GTA leadership first reviewed the results of previous studies. Next, an external advisory firm with expertise in IT assessments (Technology Partners International of The Woodlands, Texas) was retained to do a more detailed analysis at the enterprise level.

A total of 13 agencies participated in the sourcing assessment to determine how they compare with other organizations and with industry standards in provisioning IT infrastructure services. The assessment closely examined agency data centers as well as telecom and desktop services. Recommendations based on the findings of the assessment were presented to the Governor for a final decision.

The assessment is the first comprehensive, holistic study of the state’s IT operations — and the only one to provide a solution. The assessment extended beyond what is going on in Georgia— it also looked at other states and measured our performance against the IT industry.

How was the IT assessment done?

Based upon an extensive and proven sourcing evaluation model from TPI, Georgia’s IT assessment was an exercise in thorough data-gathering and analysis. Thirteen executive branch agencies, including GTA, were selected to be included in the analysis. These agencies represent the majority of IT spending in state government.

Georgia’s IT assessment was designed to:

Examine service delivery and service level targets
Assess business continuity and disaster recovery
Assess condition, life cycle, and cost to refresh and maintain IT assets
Conduct a detailed financial analysis
Answer questions about what to source
Provide executable strategies to the state

In-depth interviews were scheduled with IT staff, leadership and business managers in each of the agencies. Further, the agencies provided in-depth detailed spending data and inventories of equipment and software.

How were agencies involved in the process?

GTA has been focused on agency participation from the initial Request for Proposal for an external advisory firm to assist with the assessment through the entire activity. The assessment service provider selected has a strong agency participation model that has been utilized for the initial decision and will continue to be utilized in the coming phases for bid creation and proposal evaluation.

Throughout the assessment, GTA has communicated regularly with the participating agency heads, CIOs and technical and business staff (see Question #6). Examples of these communications are:

Data gathering began with a training session for over 100 State IT and financial personnel from the Participating Agencies.
Patrick Moore, GTA Executive Director and State CIO, has spoken at every CIO Council meeting and given an update of the assessment process and progress.
Regular updates were provided at meetings of agency heads who report to the Governor’s Chief Operating Officer.

Further, the service provider for the data collection and Business Case creation completed a thorough interview process that had an iterative approach of information review and vetting by the agencies prior to the Business Case creation. Participating agencies have been provided access to both GTA and TPI to ensure all questions were answered and adequate information was collected at each point for the decision making process.

Does outsourcing a service mean that GTA will no longer have any part in it?

GTA will be responsible for managing the external service providers who will be delivering service to participating agencies. It will be GTA’s job to ensure that the external service providers meet their service obligations to state agencies.

For instance, GTA today manages AT&T, which provides the state’s wide area network (WAN).

What role will GTA have if all IT services are outsourced?

GTA will undergo a major transformation from delivering service to managing the delivery of service. GTA will continue to exist as a restructured and much smaller organization.

How will IT security be improved?

A consistent and stable infrastructure provides one of the basic cornerstones to information security. By going to external service providers, the state will be able to enhance the level of security being provided today by leveraging their technical maturity to quickly gain quality and reliability of service.

Further, GTA has adopted federal security standards as the state security standards and has implemented an enterprise security strategy that helps agencies identify and assess their security needs.

How is this different from the previous unsuccessful IT outsourcing effort?

This plan is very different from any previous IT outsourcing effort in Georgia.

Rigorous facts-based analysis prior to decision and recommendation
Involvement of operations and financial data in addition to technical data
High level of agency participation
GTA has and will continue to involve agencies in the data and requirement gathering process, scope and award of the final outsourcing contract to ensure that their actual business needs are met
Market appropriate solution
CCOP was a single huge procurement that the market could not absorb or support. Instead, we have identified multiple service paths within the mainstream technology industry and are sourcing individual parts accordingly

We learned much from the failed Converged Communications Outsourcing Project (CCOP) and have incorporated those lessons into the current transformation effort. For instance, the CCOP proposal essentially tried to drive technology solutions that did not exist in the marketplace to address problems in state government that had not been quantified. Instead, we have conducted an unbiased enterprise assessment based on best practices and have made sourcing decisions based on actual facts.

Will services be outsourced to a single vendor?

No. Specifically, telecom services and infrastructure services will be managed and implemented along different tracks. There has been no effort to artificially consolidate every level of service into one large contract.

How will agencies be involved?

Agencies will be asked to provide a mix of full and part-time staff to this effort. They will play a key role in making critical decisions, evaluating vendor proposals, and planning for the transition of services to external service providers. Starting in mid-January, participating agency staff will be required to be available for a minimum of three days/week on requirements and RFP development.

Are other states making similar changes to their IT infrastructure?

Yes. We have studied the experiences of several other states that are restructuring their IT operations:

According to a recent survey by the National Association of State CIOs, over 76% of states surveyed have either completed consolidation of data centers, are in progress of consolidation or are in the planning phase of consolidation.
States across the country are facing the same issues Georgiais now looking to solve through this current proposal.
Texas signed a contract in late 2006 to consolidate its 31 data centers into two. The transition was completed just a few months ago.
Virginia has outsourced its IT operations and expects to save $30 million annually. Nine hundred state employees were offered jobs by the vendor. None of the work is performed overseas.
Michigan consolidated IT operations under a single state agency and has saved $100 million since 2001. The state is continuing to consolidate servers in three data centers, which involves closing 36 data centers.

Is data center consolidation a nationwide trend?

Yes. A 2007 survey by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers found that most states are moving toward data center consolidation. Of the 29 states participating in the survey, 62% are either planning for data center consolidation or are currently underway, and 14% have completed consolidation. States indicated several reasons for the shift, including disaster recovery, redundancy, cost savings, security and data classification, better access to new technologies for all agencies and aging state facilities.

Are there other national trends affecting state IT organizations?

States will likely face a critical shortage in IT employees in just a few years, according to a 2007 survey by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. The 46 states participating reported a decline in applicants for state IT jobs and widespread difficulty in recruiting new employees to fill vacant positions. Further, anticipated retirements will create a void: nationally, 27% of state government IT employees are expected to retire within the next five years. Almost half of the states are considering or taking action, such as public-private partnerships, consolidation and outsourcing.

What comes next?

GTA will continue its transformation.
Work will also begin on implementing the Governor’s executive order regarding IT security.
Representatives from GTA and other state agencies and subject matter experts are working on procurement activities for outsourcing services, with the goal of awarding the first contracts by Q2 of FY09.