GETS Update - August 5, 2013 Georgia Enterprise Technology Services (GETS) Update Volume 5, Issue No. 8 August 5, 2013 Paying for what you need, knowing what you're paying for When you talk about being able to access and use Office from nearly any device, anywhere, people perk up. That flexibility suits today's mobile worker. You could say the same of instant messaging and unified communications. We're not there yet, but in coordination with IBM and AT&T, we're considering how those kinds of services might be incorporated into the GETS program. Planning IT services to meet evolving needs is essential, not just for GTA as your IT service provider but for your agencies as IT service consumers, too. It's one tactic GTA uses in its ongoing GETS+ program, a wide-ranging effort to equip GETS agencies to more effectively manage their consumption of IT services and their IT budgets. An article in this issue outlines where we are and where we're headed with GETS+. It's not limited to service alignment. We're also emphasizing provision of information our customers need about GETS services and sound processes for service delivery. I commented in last month's newsletter about our GETS Education program, an important component of GETS+. The education program continued in July with a discussion of storage and backup services. You can read about that storage session below, as well as expansion of the education program topics list and target audience. Reporting improvements, process improvements and service alignment -- all three win attention in GETS+ as we work with our customers to enable effective consumption management for IT services. What it boils down to is consuming just the services you need and confidence you got the services you paid for. That's important in any context, and certainly with the budget pressures we've all come to live with. The Governor's Office has identified effective IT consumption management as a priority. OPB supports it as well. Your agency benefits from having that management capacity. That's more than enough to make it a top concern for GTA, and we're happy to work with our customers to enable it. Thank you for your ongoing support. Calvin Rhodes State Chief Information Officer GTA Executive Director In This Issue Managing consumption of IT services, the informed way Attacking storage expense from all angles Pushing the reaches of the GETS Education program GTA project management training serves state agencies Quick Links Previous newsletters GTA website GETS Customer Resource Center GETS Financial and Billing Resource Center GETS FAQs Managing consumption of IT services, the informed way In the midst of ambitious IT transformation work (now 76 percent complete) and day-to-day operations, a push to better manage IT service consumption now figures prominently in GTA's delivery of the GETS program to state agencies. In recent months, this GETS+ initiative has seen GTA take aim at providing agencies the necessary information and tools for effectively managing IT service consumption and IT budgets. It's a long-term proposition, not one to be addressed and then left behind. Already there are signs of progress. GETS+ wave 1 -- where reporting enhancements, billing improvements and pricing adjustments (e.g. tablets) have been made -- will wrap up soon. The GETS Education program continues into the fall months with sessions on billing disputes, mainframe, voice and LAN/WAN services. And, work has begun to formalize all the IT service consumption guidance into a Consumption Management and Governance program. In this way GTA hopes to help GETS agencies integrate consumption management tactics into routine practice. Careful evaluation of how to best align GETS service offerings with the evolving IT needs of GETS customers is another key goal of GETS+. Some new service offerings are expected to take shape as part of the upcoming wave 2. The specifics remain to be decided, but consideration is being given to how the state might benefit from services such as cloud computing, cloud e-mail, instant messaging, unified communications and more. Add process improvements of all varieties to the themes above, and you have the sweeping effort that is GETS+. It will lead us toward a strengthened GETS program that serves Georgia even more fully. Back to Top Attacking storage expense from all angles In a (price) x (quantity) equation, you have two paths to reducing expenditures. Lower the p. Lower the q. For GETS agencies' storage and backup service expense, GTA shared some good news about the p at July's GETS Education program session. Price per gigabyte of tier 2 storage (the most commonly used in GETS for businesscritical data) will drop in increments over the coming months from about $1.03 to about 65 cents. That reduction, negotiated between GTA and IBM, offers substantial relief to agencies watching their storage expense. Savings can be multiplied by controlling the quantity of storage consumed. GTA offered tactics at the education session for wrangling the q too, where rapid growth is the norm. None is accomplished overnight, but all can be effective through sustained attention. How do you manage storage consumption? First, take care to select the type of storage suited to business needs served via the stored data. Be diligent in enforcing your agency's data retention policies, built on your agency's specific requirements. Store only agency-related data. Monitor personal data folders to ensure they consume no more space than is appropriate. Avoid storing multiple copies of the same data where doing so serves no purpose. Since backup is directly related to storage, managing storage helps manage backup needs. Controlling quantity of storage (i.e. data stored for use by applications) means controlling how much data is backed up (i.e. copied to another location to be preserved and to allow data restoration). The education program -- six sessions now presented and continuing through the fall -- equips GETS agencies with information they need to more effectively manage their IT service consumption and IT budgets. The upcoming August 22 session will be of particular interest to GETS mainframe customers, providing details about that service area. A session on GETS invoice dispute resolution, added in response to agencies' requests, is planned for August 28. Voice services and LAN/WAN services round out the topics for September and October, respectively. Back to Top Pushing the reaches of the GETS Education program GTA hopes to put GETS information in the hands of those who need it. And, while the initial delivery of the GETS Education program has keyed on IT and finance leaders at GETS agencies, there's no intention of stopping the flow there. As a second phase of the program, GETS education slides (and in some cases audio recordings) will be made available via web link to other staff at GETS agencies. Those links will be e-mailed periodically over the next few months to staff recommended by your agency's IT and finance leaders. In conjunction with each subject area (e.g., servers, storage/backup) addressed by these GETS education emails, an informal question/answer conference call will be conducted. GETS subject matter experts will participate to answer questions about a designated GETS service area. Agency IT and finance leaders are encouraged to continue identifying staff, such as GETS invoice handlers, who would benefit from the information. Share those names, agency affiliations and e-mail addresses with GTA to connect your team members with the education sessions. Back to Top . GTA project management training serves state agencies A total of 322 employees from 17 state agencies attended GTA-sponsored project management professional development courses in FY 2013. Sixty-six employees (including a significant number of business and management staff outside IT) from 19 state agencies sought project management certifications. GTA offers two certification programs to state employees. Both are delivered through classroom training at Capitol Hill locations in Atlanta. The project manager certification program emphasizes traditional project management, with a slant toward state business practices. It provides project managers with skills beyond the traditional Professional Project Manager (PMP) credential. The curriculum, assessment, reviews and coaching teach state project managers how to ensure a project delivers a valuable business solution in support of an agency's mission. The project assurance manager certification program readies an agency to perform project assurance activities on its own projects. By equipping agency staff to conduct project selfassessments, the program helps reduce costs of project assurance and independent verification and validation (IV&V). Skills assessments precede professional development courses to determine a participant's specific needs. Course objectives are then tailored to address target areas for improvement. Individual mentoring is also offered. See a course schedule on GTA's website or request information from GTA's Charles Milstead who oversees the programs. Back to Top We welcome your comments about service delivery, the state's IT transformation and related topics. You can submit comments online or call our tollfree number to leave a recorded message.