BILL NUMBER: S8586

SPONSOR: FUNKE
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to require the director of information technol-
ogy services to undertake a detailed study of the comparative qualities
of cloud computing services and state data center operations

 
PURPOSE:

This bill will merely require the Office of Information Technology
Services (OITS) to procure an independent, third party study of various
technology based issues with a particular focus on comparing the ongoing
use and investment in a State-run data center with leveraging invest-
ments in hyper-scale or massive data centers built and managed by
private companies.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 sets the parameters for the study information technology
services is to conduct.

              

Section 2 This act shall take effect immediately.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Governments around the world, including the smallest local governments,
are increasingly concerned with ongoing technology investments they need
to make to provide services to their constituents. Are they secure
enough? Do they protect the privacy of their constituents? Are we capa-
ble of managing these investments on our own? What are the most cost
effective ways to make these investments? These are the questions all
government officials - executives, commissioners, legislators and IT
decision makers - are asking and will continue to ask moving forward.
They should be asking themselves those questions, asking independent
experts those questions, and asking the vendor community those ques-
tions. Answering those questions in a vacuum cannot and will not yield
the breadth and depth of answers necessary for government officials to
make the right decisions.

This bill will merely require the Office of Information Technology
Services (OITS) to procure an independent, third party study of these
issues with a particular focus on comparing the ongoing use and invest-
ment in a State-run data center with leveraging investments in hyper-
scale or massive data centers built and managed by companies like Amazon
Web Services (AWS), IBM, and Microsoft to name a few. It goes without
question that NYS cannot match the economies of scale companies like
that achieve with investments in data centers across the United States
and around the world, but just how much of an advantage do they have? Is
it unreasonable for the State to continue making investments in its own
data center operations or are there other advantages the State has that
offset a lack of economies of scale? Which approach is more secure?
Which approach protects the privacy of constituents better? Which
approach provides the State with better compliance with national data
security standards and requirements such as those required by Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Criminal Justice Information Services
(CJIS), and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Publication 107 5? These are
the questions the study contemplated by this bill will answer and those

answers will help guide OITS on future decisions and the Legislature on
future policy considerations

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New Bill

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.