Ashley Kasper

Electronic Data Retention & Security Summary

The purpose of this document is to summarize project highlights and provide recommendations for further actions for the Electronic Data Retention and Security initiative.

Project Objective:
To redefine the process for storing and retaining electronic data to flat line the cost of data storage and tighten the level of security on A&I intellectual property through accountable data management practices.

Project Scope: 
All in scope data older than two years to be archived or purged, retention policy permitting. The retention policy for A&I will be revised to incorporate electronic data and will be expanded past state and national programs to account for all A&I business units. A policy to archive data upon the close-out phase will be implemented by the SDO through change management methodologies.

Measures of Success:

-State and National Electronic Documents and Storage:

• Identified and Inventoried
• Purge or archive all data outside of contract requirements
• Reduce overall storage

-Clip Storage

• Identify storage costs
• Reduce storage of clips outside of program contract

-Update Retention Policies and Boiler Text

• Critical Program Records Management Policy
• PM- Electronic Files Storage & Disposal Policy
• A&I group State & National Services Records and Materials Retention Policy

Project Highlights:

• Project Timing: August 2012 to January 2013
• Project Scope: S&NS, OQ, QCI, SS Finance, TMRS, PSC
• Anticipated Result: cost avoidance and cost reduction in regards to storage costs by server
• Collaboration occurred with Data Security & Business Continuity office (DSBC). The DSBC was responsible for:
  • Collecting inventory asset sheets of all program electronic storage
  • Developing flowcharts based off inventory sheets

Accomplishments:

• Reduced Electronic data storage on IC and Austin servers by approx. 100 GB
• PSC and Puerto Rico program team archived and purged the largest amount of data.
• Standard Archive Process created
• Developed archive instruction process use by program teams and PTUS Helpdesk teams

Recommended Next Steps:

Policy Development

• Update retention policy guidelines to allow for electronic data allocation for BU’s and A&I Supporting Shared Services. Engage contracts & proposal teams to rewrite data retention policies to incorporate electronic data and require retention policies for all BU data; not just state and national.
• Implement entitlement reviews of data with program teams to minimize the risk of a data security breach as per recommendations by the Data Security Business Continuity (DSBC) office. Remove or archive electronic orphaned data from closed business unit contracts.
• The DSBC team has been working on policy development in collaboration with the A&I SDO team. For efficient execution and resource utilization, it needs to be completely transitioned to the TUC and DSBC team.

Process Development

• Analyze utilization of the servers to determine required allocation. Reduce the allocation in cases the present storage allocate is utilized below 25%. The SDO has been working with Matt Olson to determine the utilization and the possible cost savings. Various teams that handle storage, like S&TS and Application Management, can collaborate to execute this successfully.
• Once the current utilization of servers is thoroughly analyzed, implement a change management process that will allow DR&S policy to be accepted and implemented by the BU’s and supporting shared services for storage allocation. Additionally, rewrite archival process with Pearson Technology and implement the policy. The policies developed by DSBC & TUC need to be implemented and checked for compliance by the S&TS.