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May 8, 2009
• Vol.31 Issue 14
Page(s) 27 in print issue
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Top Government IT Concerns
Federal Data Centers Focus On Protecting Sensitive Data & Doing More With Less
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| Key Points
• Budgets are shrinking, so government data center administrators must figure out how to do more with less.
• Energy consumption is a critical issue for government data centers, which must lead by example when it comes to operating energy-efficient data centers.
• Employee training is essential to effective operations and enhanced data security and governance. | | From tax return information to sensitive data collected by the National Security Agency, the government’s data footprint is immense. Data centers run by the federal government face many of the same issues that data centers in the private sector encounter, but the sensitivity of data that could potentially have national security consequences if lost raises the stakes that much higher for government data centers.
Read on to learn more about the issues facing government data centers today and what administrators are doing to ensure those issues don’t morph into more serious problems or full-blown government crises.
 Security
 The security of government data, especially information that has national security implications, is a critical issue for government data centers. At the heart of security issues facing the government, says Jeff Godlewski, field solution engineer manager and technology specialist for CDW-G (CDW Government; www.cdwg.com) is the fact that even though government agencies need distributed, open networks to facilitate information sharing and access, this openness increases government agency vulnerability to cyber attacks.
“Agencies should evaluate network access points and build a multilayered solution to protect each point,” he adds. This multilayered solution, says Godlewski, involves multiple forms of authentication, intrusion detection, prevention software, and DMZs (demilitarized zones).
Inno Eroraha, founder and chief strategist at NetSecurity (www.netsecurity.com), says increasing cyber threats and privacy concerns are two pertinent issues facing government data centers.
For example, he adds, government data centers are now targets for organized crime and even for foreign state-sponsored criminal activities. “Countries like China and Russia are seeking U.S. defense intelligence and national security secrets,” says Eroraha. These activities could lead to the loss of classified government secrets and military/national secret intelligence, a potentially damaging scenario on an international scale.
In terms of privacy, says Eroraha, the loss of data containing personally identifiable information can be extremely damaging to a federal agency (such as the loss and compromise of veterans’ personal data by the Veterans Administration).
Eroraha recommends that data center administrators put proactive security measures in place that emphasize monitoring and constant vigilance for data centers. To address privacy issues, he adds, administrators should implement constant awareness and training programs combined with stringent policy enforcement. In addition, restricting access to confidential, sensitive data on a strict need-to-know basis can help, and encryption ensures that confidential data is not moved around unprotected.
Energy Consumption
Energy consumption for storage in the data center is a paramount concern for everyone in the IT industry, including the federal space, says Will Layton, president of COPAN Systems’ federal division (www.copansystems.com). According to Layton, the increasing volume of spinning disks is creating an energy crisis that is testing the capabilities of traditional approaches to reducing energy requirements for data storage, such as replacing lower-capacity drives with higher-capacity ones.
The overarching issue, says Layton, is the storage of fixed and infrequently accessed “persistent data,” which accounts for more than 75% of all data storage. The management of this persistent data is the key to reducing energy consumption in the data center. Significant energy savings can be achieved using technology that reduces disk power usage by powering up disks only as needed and limits the maximum number of disks that are in use at any one time, Layton says.
Aging Data Centers
Jonathan Bauer, a regional sales manager at Victaulic (www.victaulic.com), sees the efficient operation, maintenance, and expansion of data centers as some of the top issues facing government data center managers. The average data center is 12 years old, he adds, and management teams are constantly challenged to keep up with the government's capacity demands, as well as technological and software advances in storage innovation.
“The majority of data centers will require system expansions or upgrades in the near future, so managers need to consider the current issues related to power, cooling, safety, and security, as well as the increased need to expand and renovate their facilities,” Bauer says. In fact, he adds, new configurations and additional capacity plans for government data centers need to meet extremely demanding schedules, with “no time for downtime.”
According to Bauer, this issue is important because downtime costs in data centers can run anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 per hour, so it is critical that a data center remain operational 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Data center managers need to continue operating while the retrofit or construction work required for a system expansion or upgrade is done.
To address this issue, says Bauer, administrators need to look for ways to keep their data centers productive and efficient while facing increased demand. A good place to start, he says, is cooling, because it represents 60 to 70% of data center power spending. According to Bauer, a chilled-water cooling system could be used as an alternative to air cooling because chilled-water systems have been shown to be up to 4,000 times more efficient in data center applications.
CDW-G’s Godlewski says even as storage technology continues to improve, the problem is many data center infrastructures were designed for older machines. So, he adds, even though data centers may have new server racks running up-to-date fiber cables, the underlying infrastructure does not easily support power and cooling requirements for these new machines. Two solutions Godlewski recommends are consolidation and virtualization, because implementing these technologies can allow government administrators to put more storage into a smaller physical space.
People & Training
Brian Strosser, vice president of enterprise data management for DLT Solutions (www.dlt.com), says properly trained people are important resources for government data centers. The reason for this is properly trained personnel can get the most out of existing data center technology. This is critical in today’s challenging economic climate when administrators are asked to do more with less.
Also, says NetSecurity’s Eroraha, training government employees on security awareness can prevent the loss of vital information to data thieves or even foreign governments interested in national security secrets. Eroraha says administrators should require contractor and government employees who handle sensitive data to undergo mandatory training in this critical area. 
by Sixto Ortiz Jr.
Top Issue: Shrinking Budgets
Perhaps the top issue facing government data centers today is shrinking budgets that are growing disproportionately slower when compared to the rate of data growth, says Brian Strosser, vice president of enterprise data management for DLT Solutions (www.dlt.com).
"With the increase in data, coupled with demands for compliance, retention, and business continuance, flexible and streamlined data center architectures are critically important,” says Strosser.
Budget issues are problematic because data center administrators facing tight budgets must often put plans on hold to modernize and/or update data centers. But because the requirements agencies must adhere to are constantly changing, administrators must store data for longer and longer time periods, causing agencies tooutgrow their data center technology.
Possible solutions for administrators, says Strosser, include the development of flexible technology solutions based on open systems and the leveraging of common protocols and standards, such as XML and Ethernet-based technology that can allow data centers to accommodate increasing data growth while making the most out of current technology. |
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