Administrative systems within the Department of the Interior (DOI) were consolidated onto a single mainframe computer in Denver, managed by the NBC, in January 2001. The consolidation effort was directed by Tim Vigotsky, the NBC Director, early in 2000, and was subsequently approved and funded by the Interior Management Committee (IMC) in May 2000. The objective of the consolidation was to reduce costs and streamline operations by migrating all Federal Financial System (FFS) workload from a mainframe computer facility operated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Virginia to the NBC Denver data center. Several unique bureau applications were also moved from Reston to Denver.
At the NBC data center, items such as additional computing capacity, DASD, software and telecommunications capability were installed and/or upgraded. The appropriate support environments were built, and test data from Reston was transported and installed in Denver. Diverse items such as continuity of operations plans and site risk assessments were also reviewed and appropriately modified.
The careful management and coordination of this project paid off. The systems migration occurred over a holiday weekend. More than a dozen new clients came up as scheduled on the Denver mainframe on the first business day after the migration; only one FFS client was not migrated as scheduled. In addition, the project was completed within the original budget estimate. The Reston mainframe operation ceased on January 31, 2001.
Cost savings for the DOI began to accrue almost immediately with the cancellation of USGS mainframe support contracts and decommissioning of equipment. Cost savings within the NBC were also realized through standardization and uniformity of environments. In addition, over the course of the project, close working relationships between the IT staffs in Denver and Reston were developed that yielded professional and personal benefits for all project participants.
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