Filed under: Op-Ed
Washington state Rep. says no to data center, suggests Amazon S3
A $300 Million dollar data center project to house IT operations for the state of Washington has come under fire by two state legislators as half-baked, inefficient and unsound. What's the alternative? Why, putting all of the state's data center operations "in the cloud", of course!
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Calling the proposal a "$300 Million dollar mistake", Rep. Reuven Carlyle suggests that the state, "Utilize cloud services from commercial providers such as Google, Microsoft [ or ] Amazon."
So, you're just going to stick all the state IT in the cloud because in anecdote, it sounds less expensive? Heck, if this really is the future, why don't we outsource "the cloud" itself to a cloud computing company as well? There's really no need for any organization to own infrastructure at all! We'll just sign up for an Amazon S3 account, push the big magic "upload" button and call it a day. Problem solved!
Seriously, do these knee-jerk armchair IT guys think they're the first to look at saving money by not building a new data-center? Do they even understand that much of what the state likely runs would need massive rewriting, porting, new development and a huge testing effort to assure that this wouldn't just be a giant money-sucking fiasco?
According to the letter Carlyle sent to Washington Governor Gregoire, "Public sector IT experts predict that within just a few years up to 50% of government agencies nationwide will outsource most data to the cloud." If that's the reality, someone pass me the blue pill and put me out of my misery.
Cloud computing is certainly here to stay, there's no arguing against that. But, that doesn't mean the data-center is going the way of the Dodo bird. There's a pretty good reason you don't see the Fortune 500 rushing to do this with mission critical or customer facing operations; Control. As a consumer of government services, I should have the right not to worry about the ultimate safety, security and reliability of state data services. As idyllic as "the cloud" is in concept -- unlimited availability, ubiquitous hot and cold running backups and seemingly boundless performance -- the reality is quite different. It takes a massive amount of effort to make things look effortless.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mah said 10:14AM on 7-24-2009
Wow Grant. You're way off base here. Do you realize what a data center is? It's just a cloud owned by the state. Why not consider letting someone else who already has the equipment and trained employees take care of it? A feasibility study could determine if it makes fiscal sense a lot more than your unsupported condescension. States would still have legal control (ever heard of a contract), they could even keep their data in encrypted containers but I can't see much advantage to having the physical control you are alluding to.
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Catriona said 9:15AM on 7-24-2009
Umm. It's not really THAT hard. And it's as secure as the network and security applied to that network which is why I would recommend getting your cloud computing from a REAL network provider like a Verizon. Somebody who has been in that business for a long time ya know?
I think your Chicken Littling here. I really do.
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Grant Robertson said 10:42AM on 7-24-2009
I can understand what you're saying. And hey, we're all entitled to our opinion -- that's why I marked this op-ed -- but if you'll see my reply in the comment below, I think you'll understand my position a little more clearly.
And yes, large scale systems integration *is* hard. Sometimes incredibly hard. That's why these large state, county and municipal projects often go off the rails and end up way more expensive than originally planned for. We don't hear as much about the hassles of cost and time over-runs in the corporate setting because, they simply don't have to answer to the public in the same way a government does. SI is difficult, time-consuming, requires huge amounts of testing, and isn't something to take lightly.
As I agreed below, making a commitment to stick with flexible architectures in the future is one thing. Retroactively sticking everything in the cloud is quite another.
Steve said 10:33AM on 7-24-2009
I've seen my share of state government IT organizations. These guys are supporting hardware and software we haven't seen for 20 years. They are like museums for the computing industry. You can't just port all of this stuff to Linux or Windows and run it in the cloud without spending a ton of money on the conversion.
Should seriously consider it for new applications though.
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Grant Robertson said 10:36AM on 7-24-2009
That's just about exactly what I'm saying. The cloud is no place for retro computing.
I've got zero problem with pushing new initiatives toward open standards, flexible systems, and clustered data-centers. In fact, I encourage it. I just can't imagine that, with all the complexity involved in legacy systems and integration, chucking your data-center out the window and hopping on the cloud-wagon would be anything other than a total nightmare.
Rocketboy said 1:32PM on 7-24-2009
"These guys are supporting hardware and software we haven't seen for 20 years. They are like museums for the computing industry."
Isn't that one of the big problems?
When it's up to the gov't to be in charge of such things, there is little to no incentive to update anything until it gets beyond the breaking point.
Steve said 1:57PM on 7-24-2009
@Rocketboy - We would probably see eye-to-eye very well with respect to government control on things.
With respect to this issue, however, these IT departments typically don't get a lot of budget to work with to "improve"...only to "maintain" the systems that are built. It's not for lack of will or desire. It's the huge dollars that are required to build systems that can handle the volumes of data and transactions in order to support their constituents.
Moving a tax system or a health & human services database from their legacy environment to something more current could run into the 100's of millions for a large state.
My solution would be to make this a non-IT issue by eliminating taxes and entitlement programs...but that is a whole other thread!
Rocketboy said 1:57PM on 7-24-2009
Actually I think we see totally eye to eye on 99% of this, all except the final conclusion. I'd rather we (and by we, I don't mean me, because I'm over on the right coast) spend the money to get a company known for efficiency (and not just the lowest bidder) to modernize the problem then to throw more money down the money hole.
Grant Robertson said 2:01PM on 7-24-2009
Oh Rocketboy. Is that a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" in your pocket or, are you just happy to see me?
Rocketboy said 2:33PM on 7-24-2009
As I've never read a thing by Ayn Rand, I'd say no.
Some things just make enough sense that you shouldn't have to have someone tell you them.
Rep. Reuven Carlyle said 11:03AM on 7-24-2009
Sheesh, Grant, you'd think I was suggesting the state get out of all IT business and hand it over to Amazon. Sorry, dude, I was just saying the state's business plan was not fully vetted and it didn't consider the true financial and technical implications of the cloud or other options (like owning the servers and using someone else's sunk infrastructure of a building, etc.).
The state has 3,500 IT people for the 40,000 employees (not including K-12 and higher ed). That's a lot of people, and we spend $1B a year in WA for technology. I'm convinced 95% of it goes to back end infrastructure instead of front end applications for citizens. We have great back end plumbing and we spend, spend, spend, but we don't have a technology strategy.
I'm just trying to elevate the discussion from a technology and financial point of view, not implying that tax dollars are going to flow back from the state capitol if only we fall in love with the cloud.
Reuven Carlyle
State Representative
www.reuvencarlyle36.com
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Grant Robertson said 11:21AM on 7-24-2009
Hi Rep. Carlyle! Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Ok, so maybe I was being a bit hyperbolic to make a point. I still think there are some major issues to address.
The datacenter project has been on the table for 2 years as I understand it, why only now are you pushing a new strategy?
Why not create a system that encourages private developers and small businesses to develop and nurture eGovernment apps for the benefit of the state? (and, as an added plus, add to Washington's already strong software and design industry). I'm not suggesting some sort of free-love and nickel beer, "hey all you open source developers!" kind of approach -- far from it -- but rather a plan to allow WA to become a test-bed platform development environment for a next generation of government interaction.
I'd say the data-center is too close to being a done deal to put the brakes on now. And pushing more WA dependency on MS, Goog and Amazon is really just going with the flow. Why not take a serious and groundbreaking stand towards making eGov as friendly and easy to use as many current web-apps, but allow the long tail of the private sector to partner with WA to make it happen. If those developers and integrators choose S3 or Google App Engine, or Silverlight as the appropriate platform, so much the better!
Thanks again for joining the discussion. I'd love a chance to turn a longer discussion of this into a second -- and less hyperbolic -- article. Feel free to contact me at me@grantrobertson.com, or have your office contact me, to set up details. As I said on twitter, I definitely do thank you for opening up debate.
Rocketboy said 1:21PM on 7-24-2009
So Grant, you're saying that a gov't agency, who really has no need to fit into a budge or otherwise set dollar amount, would do something more cost effective than a company that does have to make a profit?
Odd.
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Keith said 4:29PM on 7-24-2009
Grant - thank you for this posting, if only because I hadn't heard about it, and I'm glad that I did. This is definitely something I will follow with interesting.
I agree with many of the commenters that you seem to be blowing this out of proportion. To answer your response to Rep. Carlyle, why change direction now, it's because the technology has quickly matured, that's why, far beyond where it has been the past few years. To continue headstrong on a project plan that is dated and potentially reflects expenses that can be reduced given new resources and capabilities is fiscally and technologically irresponsible.
Taking on a GRADUAL strategy of EXPANDING current infrastructure, then eventually moving older infrastructure, into the cloud makes perfect sense today -- for big Fortune 500 companies, and for smaller governments. I don't see anything in here that states Washington's desire to move everything, whole-hog, into a new data center or into someone's cloud. Doing it a little at a time is perfectly sensible, and the smart thing to do, perhaps with an end goal of dropping all existing and "outdated" systems in...oh, let's say five years. Your posting went a little too far and suggested the entire idea was ludicrous. I believe, from your comments, you now didn't mean to go quite so far in that direction.
I think Rep. Carlyle pinpointed the issue, which is that the plan was probably not fully thought out with this possibility in mind, and if it really is that old, this is probable true. I also think you may be misled into how government data centers work. The vast majority of IT roles in state government are subcontracted out to non-government workers. A relative of mine that works for the California government (when they are, in fact, working) stated about 90% of their IT is billed out, and at extremely profitable rates (partly because few companies want to take the risk of being paid in IOUs, but alas, I digress).
So does it really matter whether you're relying on non-government workers to manage physical hardware, vs. virtual hardware? I would say no. It is certainly POSSIBLE, perhaps even LIKELY, that adopting cloud computing resources for SOME aspects of the state government will save the state money and allow resources to be diverted to more important areas.
Lastly, I want to make one side note that nobody else seems to have explicitly mentioned. It would be foolish not to see this at least SOME political motivation behind this, as the three biggest commercial cloud vendors -- all of which were named here -- are either based in, or have a strong presence in, the state of Washington. Now, Amazon is far and away the market leader, so they should be mentioned in any discussion of cloud computing, and Google is a strong contender, so I'm not crying "foul" or anything here. But surely the fine Representative has also considered that some of the state's financial investment in these companies will find its way back to the state coffers in the form of taxes and jobs.
Disclaimer: I, myself, am a resident of the state of Washington, although my opinions are based more on my experience in the software industry (none of the companies listed) than personal impact. Rep. Carlyle does not represent my district.
Cheers.
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Keith said 4:33PM on 7-24-2009
Um....I'm very embarrassed to have to make a small correction to my disclaimer: Rep. Carlyle DOES represent my district. D'oh!
I swear I didn't know that when I wrote my (rather lengthy) reply, though. :-)
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Rocketboy said 9:39PM on 7-24-2009
That's ok, Too Long Didin't Read (anyways)
LOLBBQ!~!@!@!@~!~@
(I kid. I actually did read. And it's a valid point to question how much money was already spent on this deal, and why it's just being brought to the table now. But the fix, if you ask me, isn't to spend more money that may very well be wasted.)
acme said 2:38AM on 7-26-2009
i work for a local government. we upgraded to ie7 literally 2 months ago. and that was a HUGE deal to get them to do that. they take forever to make changes.
50% outsourced infrastructure in the future? my ass.
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Rep. Reuven Carlyle said 8:13PM on 7-27-2009
In response:
The reason I only raised the issue at the last minute--genuinely too late--is because: a) I wasn't in the Legislature last year having been elected in 2008; b) I didn't see the full, actual business plan until relatively recently and was shocked at the lack of analysis; c) I'm not on the Capital Budget committee and didn't go thru the deal in detail until prompted by other forces.
Also, one notation: the 50% use of the cloud is NOT completely an 'outsource' deal versus insource. Those projections come from Public IT folks.
Here's a quote about the cloud that I think is really valuable:
David Cearley, vice president and fellow for Gartner, set the stage by defining cloud computing as "a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-related capabilities are provided as a service to external customers using Internet technologies." He added other attributes to the cloud phenomenon, calling it a service that is shared and metered by use.
Full article: http://www.govtech.com/pcio/articles/702401
Again, I'm not claiming that the cloud is some magic answer, only that since we're buying a commodity we shouldn't continue to pay value-based prices.
I posted a blog update now that the data center is still moving forward:
http://reuvencarlyle36.com/2009/07/26/ok-the-300-million-data-center-gets-built-anyway-but-heres-my-new-challenge/
Those of us in the technology arena owe it to the those in the public arena to be ruthlessly objective about costs, value proposition, business models and technology trends. I was most offended by the state's business plan that simply did not provide the depth of objective analysis about the options to a state owned and operated data center in Olympia.
Reuven Carlyle
State Representative
36th Legislative District
www.reuvencarlyle36.com
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