State CIO Moves Fast to Improve Data Backup Capabilities

Computerworld - BATON ROUGE, LA.-- Rizwan Ahmed has been the Louisiana state government's CIO only since March. But he moved quickly to capitalize on a change in attitude toward funding disaster recovery projects, in order to fix what he saw as a pressing IT vulnerability for the state.

Both of the state's data centers are located in the capital city of Baton Rouge, which is about 80 miles northwest of New Orleans. "We are not very far from New Orleans or harm's way," Ahmed said. The state does ship its data backup tapes to an Iron Mountain Inc. storage facility, but that also is located in Baton Rouge. "Everything is here," he said.

Rizwan Ahmed, Louisiana state government's CIO

Building a full data center in a remote location would cost millions of dollars and take a considerable amount of time, Ahmed said. In contrast, he expects the cost of constructing the storage-oriented replication center in an existing building at Louisiana Tech to be about $1 million, plus another $160,000 for IT hardware. The center is scheduled to be operational by next year's hurricane season, which starts June 1.

Ahmed, who concurrently served as CIO of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and the state government's group benefits office before taking his current job, said state officials gave immediate support to the electronic backup and replication plan. After Katrina, he added, there was "a little bit of a change" in how the state's finance managers viewed funding requests for disaster recovery projects.

In case the state ever needs to start up full-fledged IT operations at the replication facility on an emergency basis, Ahmed intends to contract with operators of mobile data centers -- preconfigured servers and workstations that can be operated off of trucks. Pilot projects with such companies are being planned, he said.

Ahmed is also talking with IT officials in some neighboring states about the possibility of signing joint agreements to protect data.

Ahmed realized that it was important to capitalize on the momentum for disaster recovery funding generated by Katrina, which is why he put the data replication project so high on his agenda after he became CIO. But he does worry that as time goes by, government officials could put off funding other needed projects. "We have a very short memory," he said.