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The middle of summer is often a time to disconnect and enjoy a well-deserved vacation. While that may be the case for some, our OIT teams are taking on the most important work to date in our effort to remediate technical debt in state systems and applications. The state mainframe powers applications that provide critical services to Coloradans but this decades-old technology has become unreliable and expensive. To remove the risk of the mainframe failing and interrupting the delivery of critical services to Coloradans, OIT will soon be shifting to a vendor-hosted solution for mainframe storage and operations.
Keep reading for more information on the mainframe project and how you can connect with the team to get the latest.
The eFORT Relocation Project team has been hard at work for over a year, driving towards a goal to empty 80 of the original 160 occupied racks at the eFORT Data Center by the end of the fiscal year (June 2023). As of June 30, 83 of the 160 occupied racks are empty (65 racks since July 1, 2022)! That is a huge win for the entire team, and we want to congratulate them for their hard work.
The team was back at it in July and successfully migrated the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) out of eFORT on July 14 and 15. The Department of Revenue (DOR) will be migrated on August 12.
Keep an eye out for updates on your agency as the team continues working to exit eFORT and identify systems, servers and hardware for decommissioning or migration to the cloud or the Lakewood Data Center. With each successful move out of eFORT, we are consolidating physical IT assets, expanding the use of cloud infrastructure, and becoming more efficient in how our state data is collected, stored and used.
Safeguarding the state’s IT assets against potential threats is a significant part of OIT’s mission, which is why we’re excited to share a huge win for the network and project teams from last month. The first Identity Services Engine (ISE) implementation phase was completed for 11 state agencies! The program began in 2019 but like many initiatives in 2020, was paused for higher-priority projects. Thanks to the tech debt remediation effort, the program restarted at the beginning of 2023 and was completed in June – over a year ahead of schedule!
Why is ISE so important?
Without ISE, anyone could connect to the state network and resources, making us more vulnerable to data breaches and cybersecurity attacks. Having ISE enabled allows only authorized users and devices (e.g., state employees and that hardworking printer on the first floor of your agency’s office) to access the state network. OIT also has more visibility over network activities, allowing us to detect suspicious behavior and respond more efficiently.
With phase 1 completed the project team is ready to start focusing on phase 2. This phase includes ISE policy configuration for each use case and brings more agencies into the enterprise ISE. Stay tuned for the next steps!
We’d like to introduce the Statewide Voice project, which is part of the Network and Security Optimization Phase 3 initiative. With this project we will upgrade our VOIP phone services from Cisco MIPC to the new Cisco Webex DI platform, allowing us to move off the old, outdated phone system to a more reliable and secure one. The team plans to make the change for those affected on September 22, 2023 and is working to map out each phase to ensure a smooth transition.
What is VOIP?
VOIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol. VOIP allows us to make calls using the internet (e.g., computers, smartphones) rather than phone lines.
 After months of planning, we are quickly approaching a major milestone in decommissioning the state’s 30-year-old mainframe.
The team is now working with state agency partners to prepare for the mainframe migration. This week application integrations are being tested in a mock mainframe environment. It’s a critical step in the mainframe decommission process allowing OIT and the vendor to create a copy of the new mainframe environment without interfering with normal operations. Testers ensure that connections, existing applications and services on the state mainframe will also work in the new hosted mainframe. At the same time, data on the mainframe is also being moved to the vendor’s hosted environment. Once this step is complete, the mainframe will be ready for the final move to its new home!
Watch for updates from your IT directors and leadership as the project progresses.
 The hosted mainframe migration and stabilization effort is the “lift and shift,” a copy of the current mainframe to a third-party hosted mainframe environment. After that is complete, our onsite mainframe will be decommissioned. This work is separate from the modernization projects. More information will be shared as plans come together for the modernization effort.
For more information on the migration and upcoming Q&A sessions, check out this month’s Hot Topics section below!
There have been some changes to the overall timeline for moving TIBCO Cyberfusion off of the current mainframe and replacing TIBCO Cyberfusion with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud and the TIBCO Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution.
The existing TIBCO Cyberfusion file transfer application will be migrated to the vendor-hosted mainframe during the decommissioning. The application conversion from Cyberfusion to the AWS Cloud and TIBCO MFT is targeted for completion in September 2023. Once the conversion to AWS and TIBCO MFT is completed, the TIBCO Cyberfusion application will be removed from the State’s vendor-hosted mainframe.
The Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) remediations of Salesforce vulnerabilities were completed over the past month. The team has remediated 91% of the identified Salesforce vulnerabilities across all agencies.
The overall project is 78% complete and on track for completion by the end of September 2023.
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