Cross-Jurisdictional IT Infrastructure Governance Model Accepted in Nevada

Governor Jim Gibbons announced significant progress in the Nevada Shared Information Technology Services and Infrastructure (NSITS) project Thursday. "A significant milestone has been met with formal acceptance of a governance model for the operation of a collaborative, cross-jurisdictional information technology infrastructure," Gibbons said. "This collaborative will leverage existing infrastructure and future funding to continue to make governmental services available to Nevadans in the most efficient, most secure manner possible."

This project is one of the first of its kind, promising real value to the citizens of Nevada through cooperation between information technology and records management entities throughout the state. Additionally, the collaborative approach should allow local governments with strained information technology resources to leverage assets and infrastructure already deployed by larger entities within the state.

The collaborative is composed of representatives from Clark County, the City of Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the State of Nevada. The intent of the NSITS collaborative is to share information resources between governmental entities to support disaster recovery, public safety and continuity of operations initiatives as well as to provide opportunities of economies, efficiencies and scalability for all participating entities.

"This initiative is consistent with my efforts to consolidate information technology within the State of Nevada as well as to build cooperative Fusion Centers," Gibbons said. "Security and continuity of operations of this state are of utmost importance in the wake of disasters such the recent fires in California or Hurricane Katrina. Collaboration allows us to protect the critical infrastructure and information of state and local governments that otherwise would not be feasible for individual entities."

The governance model provides guidance for the submission of projects for potential collaboration as well as a structure to execute those projects. "This will maximize the information resource investment and reduce overlapping technology assets," said Joe Marcella, CIO for the City of Las Vegas.

"The acceptance of the governance model by the participants represents over two years of discussion, formal analysis and collaboration. Future opportunities for NSITS include items such as enterprise licensing, infrastructure virtualization, master pricing agreements for IT equipment, software and services, and shared data center resources. These opportunities represent only a subset of the possibilities of this type of initiative. The fruits of this labor are yet to come," said Daniel Goggiano, Deputy Chief of Computing, State of Nevada.