Consolidation of IT Architecture and Related Storage Assumes Top Priority for State Agencies, Study Says

The heightened focus on critical infrastructure protection across various government agencies is driving investments in disaster recovery (DR) solutions. Since critical data is dispersed across numerous offices over a heterogeneous storage environment, identification and prioritization of mission-critical data within and across agencies remains a hurdle. Hence, agencies are looking for solution providers that can manage various storage technologies and help in seamlessly transforming the storage environment into a consolidated architecture.

State agencies have functioned in a decentralized manner, and an unconsolidated IT architecture is an added hindrance to the structuring of an efficient DR plan. Consolidation of IT architecture not only reduces redundancy, but also adds the ability to re-allocate and add storage without downtime.

Nevertheless, due to the increase in funds allocated to the consolidation efforts, once agencies have a consolidated IT architecture in place, devising a DR plan will become easier.

"Since the goal of disaster recovery is to minimize costs resulting from loss or damage to IT facilities, the success of any data recovery plan depends a great deal on being able to determine the risks associated with data loss," notes Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Roopa Shree.

All too often, backup/recovery solutions are devised in a vacuum without much regard for the actual needs of the business. Hence, in order to ensure a full proof DR system, it is imperative that the recovery scenario be designed with the agency's needs in mind.

Agencies will look to vendors to provide DR plans with additional services such as need assessment, storage architecture, configuration consulting, and integration planning. Those providers, capable of offering a full range of storage products as well as pre and post-sales professional services can expand their reach in the government markets.

E-governance is a key area that is expected to create a large demand for storage technologies in the next couple of years. Most states are in the process of moving major functions and applications online, and have either ongoing or upcoming budgets dedicated for Web portal development and back-end integration activities.

As states increase their focus on IT consolidation and modernization, increased availability of federal funds will drive spending in the IT and telecom sector.

"Spending is likely to pick up in the next few years as states will be pressured to spend on telecom and IT, because of e-governance, emergency alert systems, health insurance portability and accountability (HIPAA) systems, and intergovernmental communications needs," says Shree. "Since DR is an integral part of most of the IT consolidation projects, there could be a strong growth in demand for DR services."