This is pretty close to the Capitol in some areas and might shed a little focus on Northrop Grumman as they have been awarded the big Meaningful Use contract too. This contract was just renewed and the state paid $236 Million for better service from Northrop, and doesn’t sound like it’s there yet. 
CMS Outsourcing Creation of “Meaningful Use” Database to Northrop Grumman in a $34 Million Contract
The article states they had a storage area network failure. Reading stories like this just seems to push the resources available in the cloud just a little closer. According to the article 2 circuit board failures were at fault, hardware issue and they have a fine to pay. Maybe the state legislature in Virginia may think differently about clouds as the US Senate folks don’t get it.
Senate Cuts Cloud Services From Budget That Would Allow for 
Data Center and IT Infrastructure Consolidation–Back to the 8 Track Tapes Next?
Hope they do a better job with the design of the Meaningful Use data base and have disaster preparedness included and if they have not thought about that yet, I’m sure it’s on their minds now. 10 agencies will require huge times down while data is restored….send in the clouds. BD
Highlights of the Revised Contract
Operational Efficiencies
Consolidates and strengthens Performance Level Standards with a 15% increase in penalties across the board if Northrop Grumman fails to perform on clearly identified and measured performance standards. - PAY-UP
Improves Incident Response teams to determine technology failures and expedite repair - FAILED
Institutes clear performance measurements for Northrop Grumman that agencies can easily track - FAILED
Adds new services to contract such as improved disaster recovery and enhanced security features - FAILED
It has been a rough few days for anyone interacting with the state of Virginia following an IT outage that affected 26 state agencies. Can a storage area networking failure really cripple a state’s IT systems?
Virginia’s IT infrastructure, which is managed by Northrop Grumman, has led to a few statements from agencies. Notably, Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles hasn’t been able to process requests for licenses and ID cards. These systems are supposed to be up and running on Tuesday, six days after the outages started to appear.
In a nutshell, the IT infrastructure of the state of Virginia was reportedly crushed by an EMC storage area network failure.
Virginia's IT outage doesn't pass management sniff test | ZDNet
0 comments :
Post a Comment