 A Look Back at 2023
The Tech Debt Remediation team finished 2023 strong! The team contributed thousands of hours to achieve significant successes in our tech debt remediation efforts. We wanted to share some major highlights to celebrate a job well done.
- The mainframe is stabilized. This tremendous accomplishment in July of moving to the hosted-frame environment means we are officially off the legacy mainframe!
- Moving out of a leased data center is showing savings.
- 17 of the 26 original tenant agencies (65%) were migrated out of the eFORT Data Center in 2023.
- We decreased the number of racks in eFORT by 45%, representing a 43% decrease in the total occupied data center space.
- The average power usage for 2023 was 12% lower than it was for 2022.
- Core Network Refresh has built a stronger technology infrastructure.
- Network routers reaching the end of life have been upgraded for OIT-supported agencies at 37 locations across the state. Network & Security Optimization (Phase 2) is complete.
- Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) upgrades have been completed on the phone systems at 16 OIT-supported agencies, making them resilient to potential outages.
- More secure endpoint access control and network device administration was achieved through Identity Services Engine (ISE) upgrades at 11 OIT-supported agencies (CDA, CDLE, CDOT, DNR, DOLA, DOR, DPA, GOV, HCPF, OIT, and Treasury).
- The phone systems for the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) and the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) were replaced. The new phones are on a more reliable and secure platform.
- Wi-Fi was upgraded to OIT’s enterprise wireless environment for the Department of Revenue (Lottery), the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA), and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Having agency buildings connected to our secure Wi-Fi service creates a consistent and reliable internet connection for all state employees and building visitors regardless of the agency or location.
- Network and Security Optimization Phase 3 increased state network security and availability.
- Internet bandwidth was increased from 10 GB to 20 GB for all OIT-supported state agencies, allowing state employees to connect to a network with a smaller chance of connection issues, buffering, or long load times.
- Network security upgrades include a dedicated firewall that filters out malicious traffic before crossing the network perimeter for the 26 OIT-supported state agencies.
Looking Forward in 2024
The Tech Debt Remediation team rang In 2024 with the launch of Tech Debt Remediation Phase 2. Phase 2 includes six projects focused on enterprise identity services and ServiceHub Phase 3.
The Enterprise Identity Services Program is working to establish a statewide single identity, single sign-on that would be used for all systems and applications. This program includes many needed improvements for the identity services application that will make it efficient, more secure and simpler to use for all state employees.
The ServiceHub Phase 3 program focuses on adding three critical modules to the existing ServiceHub platform: telecom asset management, incident management forecasting, and cloud insights. This work builds upon OIT's ability to provide the best service to employees and partners and furthers the goal of a modern, secure digital government for all Coloradans.
In addition to our Phase 2 efforts, we are excited to share a few of our anticipated upcoming major milestones.
- The eFORT migrations are nearing completion, and OIT migrations will begin after the CDHS migration is completed in February 2024. The team is on track to exit before the lease ends in January 2025.
- The mainframe modernization and improvement projects related to critical applications are slated for completion by the end of June 2024.
- The Salesforce Security Vulnerability Remediation project will be completed in early 2024.
- The Statewide Voice project has scheduled the final cutover date for February 2024. This means that MIPC phones will be upgraded to the Cisco Webex DI platform which has enhanced service availability and support efficiency, minimized service interruptions, and lower maintenance costs.
While this is just a sampling of the important work being done to remediate tech debt across OIT and the state, we are confident that 2024 will be a great year for our teams working with our agency partners with even more successes than 2023. We look forward to sharing it with you each month.
The team ended 2023 working hard with our agency partners to ensure a smooth transition of CDLE’s physical assets and servers from the eFORT Data Center to the Lakewood Data Center. On Dec. 9 and Dec. 10, 2023, they worked overnight to ensure the successful move. A big shout-out to those who made this happen!
The team is now focused on the upcoming CDHS eFORT migration, scheduled for Feb. 16 and 17, 2024.
The project team is forging ahead with the work needed to migrate Cisco MIPC phone systems to the updated Cisco Webex DI platform on Feb. 9, 2024. A large part of the preparation work has been lightening the workload for the migration, first with deleting voicemails older than six months* that started last week and soon putting a freeze on request intake for MIPC voice users from Jan. 19 to Feb. 14.
Later this month, the RedSky (MyE911) application will be deployed on computers with Jabber. This app allows emergency responders to see the location of the user when help is requested from 911. It also lets users easily update their location in real time. An information notification will be sent to agencies soon on what to expect with the deployment.
*Voicemail deletion excludes litigation holds identified by agencies
OIT continues working with Lumen to update their network equipment needing upgrades at roughly 400 locations across the state. The refreshes (or upgrades) to the network equipment will make it more reliable while opening up modernization opportunities, including easier integration with newer tech, better user experience and cloud capabilities.
At this time, the teams have successfully completed 66 edge router refreshes with 55 currently being planned out in the coming months.
 With the migration of the mainframe to the vendor-hosted environment completed, the team is now focused on modernizing and improving several critical applications. Modernization and improvement include incorporating IT Service Management (ITSM) into the new mainframe environment, leading to a better customer experience for our agency partners. We will also be one step closer to ensuring Coloradans will continue receiving life-sustaining benefits and support from our agency partners while setting the foundation for a modern, cost-effective, agile digital government in Colorado.
The EBT Modernization project made significant progress over the past several months. Google (our selected vendor) has begun user acceptance testing (UAT), including testing integrations of the modernized application with critical applications and systems. The integration testing includes financial systems, county benefits systems, and the state’s current accounting system. The team will continue UAT leading to a planned test launch of the new application in April. The team is on track to meet its go-live goal of May.
The SIDMOD Modernization Project team is working with agency partners to develop and test critical user interfaces with applications including Trails and CBMS. They are preparing to begin testing and bug fixes in the new environment starting in March. The modernization remains on track to go live on July 1.
The Salesforce Security Remediation project has remediated 100% of the identified vulnerabilities, and the project is 99% complete. The only remaining agency is CDOT, and the team continues to work with testers to ensure a successful deployment of the security fixes for CDOT. The team is on track to complete this project in early 2024.
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