NYC DoITT Aims to Save $100M with Data Consolidation

March 2, 2010

The comprehensive plan to modernize and consolidate the outdated and often incompatible data infrastructure at more than 40 City agencies. The consolidation will lower the City’s cost of operations by up to $100 million over five years, reduce energy consumption and emissions, strengthen security, and improve overall IT service quality for agencies. Citywide data center consolidation is one of the primary recommendations of DoITT’s 30-Day Report that Mayor Bloomberg charged Commissioner Post with upon her appointment. The top-to-bottom agency review was used to determine if the agency is structured to achieve the Administration’s goals, and to make recommendations for how DoITT can be adapted to achieve those goals. The Mayor made the announcement at the Department of Finance on Adams Street in Downtown Brooklyn, one of the first facilities included in the data center consolidation plan. He was joined by Mayor’s Office of Operations Director Jeff Kay, Finance Commissioner David Frankel and 311 Executive Director Joe Morrisroe.

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“Today, City agencies are embracing new technology, constantly adding hardware and software to improve services and make information more readily available to the public. Instead of building these systems on the often outdated and varied IT systems that exist at individual agencies, we will consolidate them in state-of-the-art data centers that can both support the growing needs of forward-thinking agencies while saving the City tens of million of dollars,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The consolidation is just part of the agency review I asked Commissioner Post to undertake, and I want to thank her and the entire agency for identifying new ways to save money and conduct business more efficiently.”

“The 30-day report is a crucial roadmap for the City to improve information technology services while reducing costs and energy usage,” said Deputy Mayor Skyler. “DoITT’s efforts to consolidate a core component of the City’s infrastructure, our data centers, is a big step forward in the Mayor’s plan to reduce redundancies in City agencies and bring City government into the 21st century.”

“There is an expectation today that government consistently improve upon the ways in which it serves its customers – whether internal or external,” said DoITT Commissioner Post. “In conducting our 30-day evaluation, we identified numerous ways to better achieve that goal, including large scale programs to improve operational efficiency across the City. We will also undertake organizational, process and policy changes within the Agency to better position DoITT to focus on its core competencies – providing foundational IT support and services and leading the City in developing citywide technology policies, programs and solutions.”

The City’s current IT infrastructure is highly-fragmented, with more than 50 unique data centers now serving nearly four dozen City entities – many of which are located in prime commercial real estate space. The vast majority of these facilities, and the technologies within them, are obsolete, and having dozens of City entities employ the varied capital and skill sets necessary to maintain individual data centers is an inefficient use of resources.

In his State of the City speech, Mayor Bloomberg pledged to achieve cost savings by reducing redundancies within City agencies, including information technology resources. An initial step toward that goal, and consistent with a key recommendation in the 30-Day Report, is the Citywide IT Infrastructure Services program (CITIServ). As part of CITIServ, DoITT will design and build a standardized infrastructure environment comparable in scope and features to those of leading industry IT providers. This environment will provide agencies with the same secure and recoverable data centers that they currently manage individually, but through a shared structure allowing them to realize a number of significant benefits:

DoITT will begin migrating CITIServ offerings – including help desk, hosting, storage, email, virtualization and network services – later this year across the first wave of City agencies, including the Departments of Education, Buildings, Housing Preservation and Development, Sanitation, and Finance.

“Finance collects more than $25 billion in taxes and other revenue, assesses one million properties valued at almost $1 trillion, resolves 10 million parking tickets and sifts through hundreds of millions of bits of data looking for businesses and individuals who don’t pay their fair share each year,” said Finance Commissioner Frankel. “While we have made significant strides to improve the systems that support these core functions, we still rely on technology that in some cases is unnecessarily outdated. We look forward to working with Commissioner Post and her staff to address our IT needs quickly and efficiently.”

Delivered to Mayor Bloomberg one month after Commissioner Post began serving, the 30-Day Report is the result of an in-depth assessment of the agency’s composition and capabilities, informed by an extensive range of conversations with DoITT’s key stakeholders, both internal and external. Based on this input, a set of key themes and recommendations were developed. The themes include “Delivery Strategy” – describing the work necessary to meet the City’s technology needs; “Accountability” – DoITT’s responsibility to ensure timely, efficient and cost-effective delivery of IT services; “Asset Stewardship” – managing the City’s technology resourcesincluding budget, infrastructure, and vendor services; “Workforce Development” – growing DoITT into a rewarding and desirable career destination; and “Professional Profile” – establishing DoITT’s unique brand to connote excellence in IT service delivery and professionalism.

A key recommendation in the 30-Day Report is for the Mayor’s Office of Operations to assume oversight of the 311 Customer Service Center and its web-based counterpart, 311Online. This shift in reporting responsibility, which will take effect on April 1, is consistent with the Office of Operations’ centralized, citywide customer service and accountability mandate. It is intended to ensure that service requests are resolved in the most timely and effective manner, that service level standards are more universal, and that each agency’s accountability is tied to customer service standards.

Other key recommendations include establishment of a reporting structure between the City’s official website, NYC.gov, and the new Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment – the entity resulting from the consolidation of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting and NYC Media. This reporting structure will help the City better coordinate news and information to New Yorkers, through all of the City’s existing and emerging media channels – including television, web, mobile applications and other platforms.

Complementing this reporting structure, DoITT will create an Office of Web and New Media Operations, which will serve as the operational mechanism to deliver and maintain the format, content, and style of the NYC.gov homepage and associated web delivery tools. The office will also further DoITT’s efforts to develop innovative open government, expand the use of technology to support economic development initiatives, and encourage the use of new media.

In addition, DoITT will create a new Office of Telecommunications and Broadband Policy. This office will develop, maintain, and implement the City’s telecommunications strategies, as well as coordinate the City’s efforts to increase public access to broadband technologies through public computer centers, school programs, and expansion of WiFi in parks.

Another recommendation of the 30-Day Report is a renewed focus on vendor management. Accordingly, DoITT will implement a comprehensive vendor management program with appropriate policies, procedures, and standards to ensure vendor accountability and performance.

As a result of this top-to-bottom agency review and the recommendations that followed, Mayor Bloomberg will issue an executive order providing DoITT the authority to establish citywide policies around large-scale technology programs. This authority will enable DoITT to better coordinate and drive IT deployment across agencies for CITIServ and similar citywide initiatives, allowing the City to leverage expertise, personnel, and enterprise architecture practice to avoid duplicative business efforts and improve efficiency.