California agencies and departments soon could be charged reduced rates for the services they use in the statewide data center.
The California Department of Technology is re-examining and considering changes to the cost recovery model that supports the data center and has been in place the last 30 years, Chris Cruz, chief deputy director of operations for CDT, said Monday.
Currently, the data center recovers almost all its costs via chargebacks to agencies and departments. Over the years, both vendors and agencies have lamented that those charges sometimes are considerably more expensive than what they could buy from other providers outside the government.
"Cost has been a big issue with our customers, as it has in the vendor community, because we have to pass those costs along in order to recover appropriately," Cruz said.
Cruz said the rates could be driven down by using a combination of General Fund expenditures and other revenues. CDT has put a budget proposal in front of the Department of Finance for an "across-the-board" cost reduction for its services, he added.
Standardizing technology could also drive down rates. Cruz said the Department of Technology is working on an enterprise architecture vision for the statewide data center.
"What we want to do is address, before we start building 'houses,' that we have the necessary blueprints in place build the house correctly, build it efficiently and ensure we have the right levels of services in place to execute change," Cruz said.
The rate reduction is currently scheduled to go into effect in January 2017, pending approval from the Department of Finance, according to Richard Rogers, deputy director of the Engineering Division.
