Oracle Insight

By Brian Berryman OIT

The Maine Office of Information Technology recently hosted the Oracle Insight Solution presentation by representatives from Oracle Corporation.  The Oracle Insight Program provides a comprehensive look at the way companies do business, in an effort to identify feasible, credible, affordable solutions that help organizations to achieve their strategic goals.  Oracle has completed Insight program activities with more than 600 customers in a range of industries, including high technology, life sciences, industrial manufacturing, professional services, financial services, retail, and many more.

OIT began the Oracle Insight Program in September of 2007, with a week of interactive discussions with key business and technical personnel from OIT and several other agencies.  The goal was to identify obstacles to our success, and to highlight a number of ways that technology, people, and processes can come together to form solutions to help us deliver on strategic objectives, both during the strategic consolidation of OIT and beyond.

A brief summary of the key findings:  

  • Shortage of data center space
  • Broadly heterogeneous software platforms, which must be supported
  • Infrastructure for high availability not in place
  • Infrastructure for centralized monitoring and management not in place
  • Staff spread too thin for current infrastructure
  • Limited training resources
  • Agency technology directors are reluctant to consolidate based citing historical performance

Some of the recommendations specific to Maine are : 

  • Construct highly available infrastructure
  • Stop being reactive
  • Outsource management of non-strategic platforms

  • Achieve system migration goals through staff augmentation

  • Alleviate space constraints in data centers

  • Achieve economies of scale through system consolidation

  • Improve adherence to standards

  • Protect sensitive data

  • Refine service levels available

  • More training and cross-training

Currently, a schedule is being formulated to begin addressing these findings and start to create standardized system environments that address the critical deficiencies.  These environments will also provide the basis for enhancing our Service Level Agreement offerings to our business partners.  Going forward, we will be providing periodic updates on the progress of our efforts.

f you'd like more information about the findings and recommendations from the Oracle Insight Program, please contact Brian Berryman at 624-9945.