Department of Education Forming New, Mobile-Friendly IT Infrastructure Plan

More organizations are revamping their traditional IT infrastructure to favor new technology that allows for greater mobility. Not to be outdone, even major government departments are making this move, like the U.S. Department of Education.

This move toward mobility is designed to replace the department's current IT infrastructure, known as EDUCATE (Education Department Utility for Communications, Applications, and Technology Environment). EDUCATE was implemented in 2007 by Perot Systems after they won the bid for $400 million. At the time, this was a bold move because it effectively transferred oversight of the infrastructure from the government to a contractor.

Today, the U.S. Department of Education has a new set of priorities that they would like to see out of their infrastructure. According to Jason Gray, Chief Information Officer for the Education Department, the technology landscape has changed so much since 2007 that a revamp is in order. Gray says that these new infrastructure objectives should encourage innovation, optimize the cost to benefit ratio, and show flexibility to make integrating changes in requirements simple.

These objectives are spelled out in a new infrastructure plan named PIVOT (the Portfolio of Integrated Value-Oriented Technology). Unlike the previous model, PIVOT looks to have each aspect of the infrastructure (like oversight, hosting data, printing, network services, technical management and integration, and mobile services) written up with its own contract.

The primary goal of the Department’s new infrastructure is increased mobility. They look to achieve this by moving away from a permanently established office space, and instead, take advantage of teleworking and hoteling (where workers use mobile devices to move about an office instead of being limited to their desk). This kind of move is in line with a federal government initiative to reduce its real estate footprint. In keeping with this goal, PIVOT has the potential to free up 6,200 workers from the traditional office environment.

There are lots of benefits to be had by the U.S. Department of Education from a move like this. What about your own IT infrastructure? Has it been updated in recent years to take advantage of the advancements of mobile computing? Or, are you still doing business like it's 2005 with a workforce tied to their desks and limited to bulky workstations?

To revamp your own IT infrastructure, give Macro Systems a call at (703) 359-9211 and find out what we can do for you.