Texas lawmakers look to the "cloud" for storing sensitive government data

[TexasTowelie]

by Edgar Walters, Texas Tribune


What do a warehouse in North Austin and a building at Angelo State University have in common? They hold quadrillions of bytes of data containing some of Texans’ most sensitive information, including health and education records.

The Texas Legislature created the twin data centers in 2005 to consolidate disparate data management operations at dozens of state agencies. But since then, as government programs churned out more and more electronic information about health care, highways, public schools and other key services, the cost to operate the facilities has ballooned.

This session, lawmakers are considering an overhaul of how the state uses its data centers, with an eye toward private tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft that own private networks of remote servers known as a "cloud." Proponents say hiring such a firm to be the official keeper of much of the state's data could save millions of dollars and modernize vulnerable government tech infrastructure. But detractors say the current setup is working fine and that any kind of structural change would be laborious, expensive and potentially risky.

A decade ago, it cost $278 million to run the centers over the state's two-year budget cycle; under the current spending plan, it costs about $489 million to operate them.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/02/19/texas-lawmakers-cloud-storage-sensitive-data/