Big Data on the Range in OK

One of the goals of big data analytics is to streamline and optimize. The state government of Oklahoma realized that and brought in IBM’s analytics chops in an IT consolidation effort that is slated to save the state $15 million over the next five years.

Datanami caught up with Jim Driesse, IBM’s VP of Sales, Government Sector, to discuss how IBM helped the state of Oklahoma consolidate its IT infrastructure.

“The primary focus initially has been on achieving success with a consolidated statewide effort for all [of Oklahoma’s] IT infrastructure,” Driesse said. Once the reshuffling is complete, the state of Oklahoma is reportedly expected to recover 30 percent of their IT budget.

This consolidation comes at a time where institutions like the government are expected to store, process, and analyze more data. Doing that with a clunky, non-uniform, outdated IT infrastructure is at the very least inconvenient and at the most crippling.

However, as one might imagine, it can be slightly more difficult to make such wholesale changes to a government body than to a private enterprise. The key for IBM in Oklahoma was to ensure that the proper laws and statutes were passed in the Oklahoma legislature.

“The first thing Oklahoma did was go to the legislature and pass the appropriate laws and statutes that would align the IT organizations within the state under a single structure and that the state CIO would have authority in terms of budget and in terms of personnel.”

Making such changes more or less requires a person in command with the authority and responsibility to ensure the right decisions are made. “The primary reason for failure that I’ve observed in other states has been that there isn’t really a single focal point that has the authority and the budget and the responsibility to pull off the consolidation.”

In this case, that person, that single focal point, was Oklahoma Chief Information Officer Alex Pettit. Pettit, according to Driesse, has focused on ensuring there would not be much a culture shock as Oklahoma streamlines its IT functions.

“Where I see state governments falling down oftentimes is managing the culture,” Driesse said on how the culture change often hinders consolidation. “What I mean by culture is, using IBM as an example, IBM redefined itself as a company about 12 years ago when we were having severe financial issues…Since we’re in the private sector and a corporation, we can send out memos and emails and tell people how it’s going to be and manage that culture change. In state government, it’s a little bit unique and different.”

With Pettit as CIO at the helm of the switchover, those unique and different challenges were dealt with in a smooth fashion. According to Driesse, the actual physical switches and consolidations are relatively easy. The difficult portion lies in changing the culture of IT in a public environment. “Some characteristics come out of when it’s not done well, and typically one of those things is organizational structure, a lot has to do with culture change, very little has to do with the technology aspect.”

Basically, other states don’t do a good job of convincing their workforce that this IT consolidation is a good thing.

Understandably, people in state agencies tend to worry when wholesale changes like this are made. Settling into one form of IT infrastructure and then having to change to accommodate things like big data collection initiatives can be uncomfortable.

The difference between Oklahoma and other states is that, according to Driesse, other states did not do as thorough a job of managing the ‘culture change’ and convincing their agencies that the new infrastructure was for the greater good. Along with the efforts of Pettit, Oklahoma facilitated such a culture change and eliminated a lot of the political roadblocks that can come into play by first going straight to the legislature and getting the backing and sponsorship of the governor.

As far as the actual technology shift goes, IBM started with folding five mainframes into one. This freed up both valuable storage space as well as personnel. For example, imagining the amount of people required to run a single mainframe, if multiple mainframes are folded into one, the additional workers can be shifted into forward-thinking research and development positions.

“Off the bat,” Driesse said, “we’re going to consolidate five mainframes into one, so you can imagine the savings that will be generated with that kind of environment, particularly on the software side when you have multiple depths of software running on multiple mainframes and they’re doing the same thing relative to their UNIX and power environment.”

Oklahoma is not the only state IBM has or intends to help regarding IT budgeting. According to Driesse, Missouri recently finished their consolidation, while Minnesota is working on theirs.

If IBM can find these states close to the $15 million over five years that they are hopefully to produce in Oklahoma, look for many governments to follow the same route, especially as the demand increases to produce big data insights on a somewhat limited budget.

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