Independent Viewpoint of Integration between a State Network and a Voluntary Agency Network

1. Independent Viewpoint of Integration between a State Network and a Voluntary Agency Network Benefits to State Benefits to Voluntary Agency Disadvantages to Voluntary Agency

2. Details • Steve Anderson • Independent Contractor working with New York State Office For Technology, on their Network Integration • Disclaimer – the views and opinions that I express are my own observations on the process of integration and in no way can they be construed as the opinion of any New York State Agency or official.

3. Further Questions and Information • Must be directed through David Wallach. • Cannot be directed to any New York State Telephone or email address.

4. Initial Process • Request from various Individual Agencies – Largely Ignored. • Request from Collective Agency Group Association – Not Ignored. • OCFS requests evaluation from OFT of what could be available. • OCFS evaluates legal and fiscal implications of options.

5. Initial Process

6. Initial Process • Security and Network Integrity Issues. • Each Agency will be different so cross representative sample requested of Agencies willing to be part of Pilot. • Rules and various permutations of options laid out in Menu Form for discussion with Agencies.

7. Approximate Annual Costs of Frame Relay Circuit Connectivity to each site 56k $2000 256k $8500 384k $10500 512k $13000 768k $13500 Benefits to State.

8. Benefits to Voluntary Agency • Less involvement with State Help Desk. • Faster connections. • Greater overall bandwidth. • Independent flexibility when changing your internal network. • Add and remove sites with no waiting for State to organize things.

9. Voluntary Agency WAN L A B C State Lan K State Lan Dial-up Modem State Lan Dial-up Modem J State Lan D State Lan State Dial-up Modem Core I State Lan State Lan E State Lan H State Lan F G Drawing 1 Current Configuration Existing situation

10. Voluntary Agency WAN L A B C K Pipe to the State Lan Door J State Lan State Core I D H E G F Drawing 2 NIS Suggested Configuration Integrated Configuration

11. 9 Frame relay Circuits Help Desk Maintenance of 12 sites Total Coordination needed when Agency ad extra sites. 3 Frame Relay Circuits Help Desk Maintenance of 3 sites Agency can move at their own speed when adding or moving sites. Between 2 Configurations

12. Total Annual Cost of Frame Relay + Modem Calls $102,212 Cost Equivalent After Network Integration $30,660 Cost Saving to State on Frame Relay Costs in Example Given

13. Approximate Annual Cost Reduction $71,552

14. Assistance with Configuration and Routing? • With those sort of annual savings just from one Agency, will they assist you to get this up and running? • You Bet They Will.

15. What Do You Need? • An Agency WAN • An Addressable Port on an Agency Router, that is capable of running a NAT Pool. (The issue of IP address ranges needs to be coordinated by the State to avert routing conflicts) • A Thin Client

16. Ongoing Issues • Microsoft design issue – There is no way that you can effect a Password change in one Domain from a different Domain. • Email interoperability – must have compatibility between Agency and State mail systems – Use of Custom Recipient facility within Outlook can be used to automatically send mail directly to the Agency Mail Server, however, reverse lookup back into State Global Address list from within Agency, can only be achieved using LDAP on each individual workstation, if the Agency system is LDAP compatible.

17. Ongoing Issues • Legacy Systems – some ‘In House’ legacy applications may not be TCP/IP friendly, especially those that have been set up to use 3270 terminal emulation, for Mainframe Applications. • Abuse by Agencies of State resources. • Lack of coordination between different departments within the State!