NYS Forum

Emerging Technologies Work Group Hosts ECM: Part II Seminar

On the morning of Thursday, June 18, 2009 The New York Form's Emerging Technologies Work Group hosted the second in the two-part series of seminars on Enterprise Content Management (ECM).  Held at the Desmond Conference Center in Albany, the seminar, introduced by Duane Averill, Assistant Director of Data Processing at the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal, provided a more in-depth look at ECM and included the sharing of practices and a case study presented by a panel of corporate representatives that included:

• Campbell Robertson, Global Director of Public Sector Strategy - IBM Information Management
• Don Chamberlin, Senior Consultant Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Solutions Group - CGI
• Christopher Sprague - Director, Public Sector Solutions Content Management and Archiving - EMC

Presentations are available at:  http://www.nysforum.org/events/ECM_06-18-09.

PMCOP Addresses Management of Agile Projects

On Wednesday, June 17, 2009 the NYS Forum's Project Management Community of Practice (PMCOP) held a session entitled "Managing Agile Projects".  Held in Albany at the Huxley Theater in the New York State Museum the session provided specific successful examples at the NYS Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and the NY Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA).  The NYSDOT presentation focused on their Roadway Inventory System which won a 2007-2008 Forum Best Practices Award for Management.  The OTDA presentation featured its System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) focused on agile projects and iterative development.

Presenters included:

• Pat Guariglia of COMSYS on the NYSDOT project
• Fred Teti, Rick Ryan and Brian Duncan of OTDA on their methodology

Presentations are available at:  http://www.nysforum.org/events/pmcop-6-17-09.

Security Committee Hosts Virtualization-Related Security Risk Seminar

On June 9, 2009, The NYS Forum's Security Committee hosted a half-day "Virtualization-Related Security Risk" seminar for nearly one hundred participants  at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center.  

Security Committee Co-Chair Deborah Snyder of the NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, welcomed attendees and provided an overview of the benefits and security concerns related to virtualized devices and environments.  Rich Higgins of the NYS Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, facilitated the presentation.  A panel of subject matter experts shared their knowledge and experiences regarding challenges and lessons learned in implementing virtualized environments.  The discussion also covered strategies organizations can use to identify and mitigate risk, ways in which virtualization, when properly implemented, can serve to improve an organization's security posture, and the importance of processes, standards, configuration management and architecture design in assuring secure virtual environments.

The presenter panel included:

• Jay Ranade, Director of Education, Technodyne
• Rob Randell, Senior Security and Compliance Specialist, VMware
• Brendan Fitzpatrick, NYS Office for Technology
• Rajiv Rao, NYS Department of Taxation and Finance

The presentation & resource materials are available at http://www.nysforum.org/events/VirtualizationRelatedSecurityRisks_060909.

If you are interested in becoming involved in The NYS Forum's Security Committee, go to: http://www.nysforum.org/committees/security or contact the Forum at 518-438-7414.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) the Focus of the Presentation by NYS Department of Labor Deputy Commissioner and CIO, Robert J. Vitello

On Friday, May 22, 2009, Robert J. Vitello, Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Technology and CIO at the NYS Department of Labor, was the key presenter at the monthly meeting of The NYS Forum's IT Corporate Roundtable. Nearly 50 NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable member corporations were represented at the meeting which was held at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center.

Deputy Commissioner Vitello's presentation was entitled "SOA:  How to start without an architect, java programmers, Enterprise Service Bus, governance model or budget" and he outlined the what (applications), how (collaboration) and why (lower cost) associated with the pursuance of SOA.  He also discussed the key elements of enterprise SOA including development, testing, staging and production.

Much of what Deputy Commissioner Vitello presented is representative of the work that a team of state agency CIO's are pursuing together as a SOA "collaborative partnership".  The agencies involved in this collaborative SOA initiative include the Departments of Labor, Health, Mental Health, Motor Vehicles, Tax and Finance and the Offices of Children and Family Services and Temporary and Disability Services.  The CIO's from these agencies that comprise the collaborative meet every Friday to discuss their ongoing efforts, its progress and future direction.