Application management uncovers surprises in Nebraska

Managing hundreds of applications is a big task for a state government, and Nebraska Chief Information Officer Ed Toner tells StateScoop in a recent video interview that sometimes it also uncovers some surprises.

In doing research interviews with state agencies, primarily to find redundant infrastructure, Toner says one agency, which he did not name, discovered one of its most critical applications did not have a back-up in place. Setting aside time for application management allowed the state to find areas where applications could be eliminated or consolidated, but also where they could be better supported, he said.

Toner said the state is using Gartner’s “TIME” model to classify all the state’s servers into the categories of “tolerate,” “invest,” “migrate,” and “eliminate” and found 265 servers the state is now focused on migrating or eliminating.

Two-hundred sixty-five may not sound like a lot of servers, Toner said, but he pointed out that Nebraska state government only has about 2,000 servers in total.

Nebraska CIO Ed Toner talks about his team’s greatest accomplishments of 2018:

Toner on his state’s open data projects:

Toner on the technology he’s most excited about: