Speaking as an ex-Texas Workforce Commission Systems Programmer (as of a month ago):
-regarding lowest bid - there were only two bidders. And I'm glad IBM won. -16 mainframes - that's boxes. The number used to be 17, but we moved from 3 z900s to a z9bc and z9ec in mid-October, so I guess that's why the number is now 16. And, TWC saved about $600k by migrating to the new boxes, and, since this is supposed to be about money, the powers that be sure put up a fight. Us saving money skews their numbers. -the word was that the whole endeavor was really going to save money at the smaller agencies (cosmetology, or whatever), which which have 4 MS Exchange servers and 6 administrators (which they can easily integrate with others), and then large agencies like TWC would actually take a hit monetarily and performance-wise, but, Texas-wide, it would balance out to money saved. Yeah. -Politics? Well, DPS (Department of Public Safety - the state cops) aren't in the deal (not sure why) and the Comptroller is not in it either (probably the second largest agency, next to TWC). Comptroller is run by very powerful people. Oh, and the legislature is not in the deal either. They know how to put their money where their mouth is, no? Looking at the original Gartner report (http://www.dir.state.tx.us/pubs/datacenter/index.htm), they claimed they could go from 18 to 3 mainframes, and from 2774 to 2382 servers. I would think they could consolidate those servers much better, but I'm just a mainframer. Someone said that they build a datacenter in San Angelo 1.5 years ago - they've had a data center in SA for much longer than that. They tried to move us there 5 years ago (they were able to move Attorney General at that time - that's a mess), but they couldn't meet our SLAs. They moved some of our PeopleSoft HR stuff out there. It will be interesting to see how it all works. In my group they were culling 6 people or so, with about 130 years of combined state service. The state is still going to have to pay their pensions until they die. Not much savings there. I, luckily, found another job, and much better. I wish all my friends much luck. Aaron ***************** On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 09:30:07 -0600, Hal Merritt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >From http://www.statesman.com/ > >".. officials said that as many as 31 data centers, 16 mainframe >computers and more than 7,000 servers at 1,300 locations could be >covered by the contract." > >"...562 state jobs will be affected by the outsourcing but that 41 >percent of those are vacant." > >Interesting numbers. Especially the vacancies. Frankly, taking the >mission out of 27 different agencies and into a single business unit >seems like it ought to save a ton of money. > >Yes, politics are certainly involved in this decision, but this is the >State of Texas, not the Federal government. Many governmental processes >mandate taking low bids. > >- Texas Native and resident. Those are my tax dollars at work. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
