Government Technology - November 2008 - (Page 4)

departments 32 Hidden Costs Uncovered november 2008 3M PRIVACY FILTER govtech.com j As storage hardware costs drop, information management challenges grow. 34 Seeing Red data management anageme nagem g Red light camera deployments continue despite mixed reactions. S TAT E | L O C A L | F E D E R A L news 8 On the Scene As Voice recognition helps child protective services work faster. BY LESLIE FRIESEN | CONTRIBUTING WRITER 38 For the Record Uncovered one are the days when an agency could store all of its data on a small server. Industry experts report that storage needs are increasing between 30 percent and 50 percent annually. This trend will only soar as the size of multimedia and other file types continues to explode. Fortunately as the demand for storage space rises, the cost of storage media declines. Samsung, for example, currently offers a 1-terabyte hard drive for less than $200. Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi offer comparable disks for similar prices. A standard 500 GB hard drive typically costs about $100. The prevailing thought used to be that there’s no such thing as having too much storage. So with the cost of storage dirtcheap these days, why isn’t the public sector jumping at the opportunity to store everything and anything? Jim Burns, CIO of Alabama, said cheap storage comes with its own problems. “It’s a bad idea to offer unlimited storage because management costs skyrocket and backup and retrieval becomes unmanageable,” Burns said. “Cost of storage media, such as disk, is a very small part of the overall costs associated with an enterprise storage solution. The industry agrees that disk is cheap, but for every dollar spent on disk, it takes about $5 to $7 to manage it.” Hidden Costs GT editors report from the road. G 10 Big Picture 52 Spectrum Reports from the IT Horizon. 40 In the Loop Social networking site helps public employees share knowledge. NOV_08 54 Products secured, backed up and retrieved? H are tape backups corrupted? How m time is spent on manual restores? Ho access and verify the data? Infrastructure Costs The challenge isn’t storing massive amounts of data — the real problem lies in managing that data. IT experts and analysts point to a number of information-management issues facing government agencies: How is data Seiko Instruments USA, Motorola, FoxFury, Logitech Duplicate Data Duplicate data is a huge issue for t and private sectors. For example, bot resources and payroll might utilize 42 Benign Dictatorship 32 56 Two Cents Indiana CIO seizes control of the state’s IT infrastructure, producing efficiency gains and saving millions of dollars. 44 Home-Field Advantage columns 6 Point of View It’s Almost Over Cary, N.C., uses GIS to match young recreational sports players with teammates from their neighborhoods. 12 Four Questions for … Steve Fletcher, CIO, Utah 46 A Better Way to Park California’s wireless parking technology experiments could take the pain out of rush hour commuting. 50 How It Works 58 signal:noise In the Presence of … Me 48 New Tools for Fighting Crime Police encourage community to text-message crime tips. month: NOV_08 next AN AWARD-WINNING PUBLICATION Making Sense of 2008 Which issues changed how governments used technology in 2008? What were the biggest personnel moves? How will the struggling economy shape IT initiatives in 2009? We answer these and other questions next month in Government Technology’s annual Year in Review edition. Silver Folio: Editorial Excellence Award 4 http://www.govtech.com http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - November 2008

Government Technology - November 2008 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for … Forward Thinkers Taking Tech Home Virtual Frontier Hidden Costs Uncovered Seeing Red For the Record In the Loop Benign Dictatorship Home-Field Advantage A Better Way to Park New Tools for Fighting Crime How It Works Spectrum Products Two Cents signal:noise

Government Technology - November 2008

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