Best Practices in Consumption Management

Best practices in consumption management are already in use in the state’s IT enterprise, and they are resulting in significant operational efficiencies and financial savings for state agencies.

  • Legacy archive tapes – State agencies have collectively saved over $500,000 by carefully evaluating their need for archived data and making smart decisions about long-term retention. One state agency alone estimates its annual cost avoidance at $137,600. Agencies can chose from three options when deciding how to manage tapes of archived data: (1) allow the state’s IT service provider to continue storing all archived tapes, (2) instruct the state’s IT service provider to destroy archived tapes that are no longer needed, or (3) return archived tapes to the agency for storage.
  • Incremental backups – State agencies could collectively avoid about $6 million in expenses for backup and recovery services by implementing incremental backups. After the first full backup, incremental backups involve backing up only existing files that have changed or new files that have been created since the last incremental backup. Incremental backups consume less storage space and take less time.
  • Mainframe infrastructure tuning – Projects aimed at increasing mainframe operating efficiency have resulted in a 4-to-10 percent decrease in computer usage and estimated annual savings of $1 million to $3 million enterprise-wide. The projects involved upgrades and configuration changes to mainframe computers. Agencies also took steps to reduce their mainframe usage, in some instances by tweaking their mainframe applications.
  • Current inventory of desktop and laptop computers – State agencies are urged to maintain a current computer inventory. They can then check their monthly end-user computing services bill to make sure they pay only for computers that are in use and connect to the state’s network. Unused computers that are owned by the agency may need to be disposed of through Surplus Property at the Department of Administrative Services.