Troux case study cdcr
- 1. Public safety is the number one objective of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), one of the largest government correctional institutions in the country. With approximately 50,000 employees and 245,000+ inmates and parolees, it was evident to CDCR’s Director, Enterprise Information Services (EIS), Joe Panora that the EIS team could be central to supporting this mission. Panora recognized early that an Enterprise Architecture (EA) could convert the Department’s IT investment into a strategic differentiator. He embarked on an EA program using Troux and is already seeing positive returns. CDCR is benefiting from accelerated decision-making based on real-time data linked to the Department’s objectives and new initiatives that reduce spending, minimize risk, and maximize agility. Not Business as Usual The State of California, like many governments around the world, has been financially disadvantaged for some time due to State budgetary constraints. As California’s largest State department, CDCR is continually under pressure to streamline operations and more tightly control costs. This made it even more challenging for Panora to manage the consolidation of multiple departments in the mid-2000s. The EIS team found itself governing and managing terabytes of data as well as a complex array of hardware and software with few enterprise procedures and a lack of enterprise-defined technology standards. Siloed business programs across CDCR were duplicating efforts and expanding platforms and applications based on local requirements. Inaccurate, redundant or partial data led to inconsistent answers to ad hoc questions, and stymied project modeling and quality assurance. Lack of a structured hardware and software inventory hindered effective cost analysis and planning for consolidation, reuse or retirement. Panora knew there had to be a better way. “We needed to take a hard look at our environment and create a baseline,” said Panora. “We had to get our hands around what we were inheriting from the departmental consolidation and what we needed to support. That was the impetus to move forward, put a framework around this, and adopt a true Enterprise Architecture program for managing our IT assets.” That’s when Caroline Bigelow, Chief Enterprise Architect, partnered with Troux to expand EA into a mature strategic program. “EA needed a tool that allowed CDCR to strategically align IT investments with business strategies and functions, exposing new opportunities for CDCR,” Bigelow explained. Her goal was to have the CDCR EA Program recognized for strategic leadership. EIS has taken steps to operationalize and roll out strategic IT and business initiatives using Troux tools, and the implementation has already yielded impressive benefits. BY THE NUMBERS Adults: 245,000+ offenders, in prison and on parole Facilities: 33 adult institutions, 40 camps, 5 prisoner mother facilities Youth: 1,000+ juvenile offenders in 3 youth correctional facilities and 1 camp Staff: Approximately 50,000 employees Budget: $9.25 billion CASE STUDY California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation CDCR uses Troux to Reduce Complexity, Control Costs and Speed Decision-Making CDCR: Troux Case Study • Page 1
- 2. Setting Standards First, the EIS EA program established a common set of technology standards for personal computing. “Troux standard reports enabled us to mature past tools such as PowerPoint and Word, allowing more efficient and effective architecture analysis and enterprise communication,” said Judith Christensen, EA Program Lead. “Today we have standards established and we are retiring and migrating legacy hardware and software technologies out of our environment.” Currently, standards have expanded to all areas of IT including network, infrastructure, telecommunications, applications and databases. The ability to directly influence and achieve standards compliance has led to significant progress, explained Ray Roa, Enterprise Technical Architect. “As a result of being able to steer to standards, we are achieving at least 80% adherence to current standards,” said Roa. “The ability to publish a catalog streamlines the process and makes compliance much more efficient, which saves time and money.” “These major initiatives have fiscal implications for the Department,” added Panora. “The real-time analysis that we gather using Troux tools allows us to improve our procurement processes – as IT can more accurately map out life cycles for its assets – and as a result, be more accurate in our budget forecasting.” Application Consolidation CDCR’s application portfolio was another area targeted for improvement. CDCR programs often created one-off applications to satisfy local requirements. EIS recognized that by using the capabilities provided by Troux, they could identify application redundancies, retire non-essential applications and create a centralized pool of solutions that could be re-used across the Department. “With Troux, CDCR was able to identify opportunities for improvement such as the consolidation of nine disparate mission-critical applications into four existing enterprise solutions, avoiding wasted effort and resources, said Bigelow. “The EA team is also using Troux to analyze an additional 55 systems for consolidation or retirement opportunities, moving CDCR closer to its future architecture state.” CDCR: Troux Case Study • Page 2
- 3. Going forward, CDCR is able to prevent the implementation of redundant applications using Troux capabilities to align the Department’s business functions to existing solutions. “Now that we have fewer one-off technologies and applications, our support staff is more efficient and can respond to more requests because they already have the skill set,” said Panora. “We can now focus on training our IT staff for new technologies, brought as a result of new projects, which makes them more valuable. Our time to market with enterprise solutions is now dramatically reduced – we are able to realize solutions much faster for the business.” Speaking the Same Language CDCR is maturing its Enterprise Data Dictionary utilizing Troux’s Information product module. “Information is key to any organization but is especially important when dealing with public safety,” explained Ed Wiebe, Enterprise Data Architect. “Using Troux, CDCR will be able to integrate data elements with other architecture components, providing huge analysis benefits when analyzing CDCR’s data landscape.” Classifying data and governing its use provides the basis for proper security controls and enables CDCR data stewards to better understand and share information — ultimately improving Departmental decisions. EA has populated the enterprise data dictionary with over 8,000 unique data elements from core Departmental applications. State Leadership CDCR stands out as a leader in strategic information technology (IT) planning. In today’s economy, where government is challenged with broad mandates and growing budget deficits, it is clear that a well-executed Enterprise Architect (EA) program which delivers transparency and tightly aligns IT to the business is fundamental to maintaining high quality and cost-efficient service delivery. Driven by fiscal, operational, and technological necessity, CDCR established an EA strategy to analyze and make better decisions across a wide range of operational and transformational initiatives. With implementation of CDCR’s EA strategy underway, they are in the process of sharing their approach of leveraging EA to maximize strategic planning and operations with other State agencies. CDCR: Troux Case Study • Page 3
- 4. learn more at www.troux.com Copyright ©2012 Troux Technologies, Inc. Troux, all products prefaced by the word Troux and the Troux logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Troux Technologies, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other products mentioned are either registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective corporations.201206 AMERICAS HEADQUARTERS: Troux Technologies 8601 FM 2222, Building 3, Suite 300 Austin, TX 78730 USA Tel: +1 512 536 6270 Fax: +1 512 231 8796 Email: info@troux.com EMEA HEADQUARTERS: Troux Technologies, UK 268 Bath Road Slough, SL1 4DX UK Tel: +44 (0) 1753 725660 Fax: +44 (0) 1753 725661 Email: emeasales@troux.com GERMANY: Troux Technologies GmbH Landsbergerstr. 302 D-80687 München Germany Tel: +49 89 452 1326 0 Fax: +49 89 452 1326 29 Email: emeasales@troux.com CDCR uses a Troux based solution. The Troux Usage Guidelines serve as the architectural foundation. These guidelines have been validated by the community of State enterprise architects. As a result of the emergence and validation of the guidelines, there has been an increase in inter-departmental collaboration and the development of centers of excellences throughout the State. “CDCR’s EA success was possible because we had a strong mandate, executive leadership and the dedicated efforts of our entire EA core team, technical architects, and subject matter experts,” said Bigelow. “I feel very grateful to be a part of the CDCR EA team.” • More than 80% of IT procurements now aligned to CDCR approved standards • 9 disparate mission-critical applications consolidated into 4 existing solutions • 8,000 data elements loaded in Enterprise Data Dictionary from core Department applications TROUX RESULTS