The Virginian-Pilot
©
RICHMOND
State computer problems that have prevented the Department of Motor Vehicles from processing or renewing driver's licenses and ID cards in person in the past several days should be resolved by today, the agency said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Gov. Bob McDonnell has directed the DMV to extend hours at its service centers because the outage affected 35,000 to 45,000 customers.
All 74 DMV locations will stay open later - until 6 p.m. - today and Friday, and select service centers will offer extended hours Saturday. In South Hampton Roads, the Chesapeake and Virginia Beach Buckner locations will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. that day.
Those announcements came Wednesday afternoon as McDonnell's office gave word that computer functions are being restored at affected agencies.
Failure of a major data-storage center early on Aug. 25 has been identified as the cause of the roughly weeklong service disruption that affected 26 of the state's 89 agencies.
The hardware problem inhibited access to data and some software applications at a number of agencies, including the DMV, the state Taxation Department and the State Board of Elections.
McDonnell this week called for an investigation into the technology meltdown, which he called "unacceptable."
That inquiry has the support of Northrop Grumman Corp., which has a multiyear contract to upgrade Virginia's computer systems, a company executive said in a statement Tuesday.
Recent problems come after Virginia this year extended the deal, valued at more than $2 billion, that was originally signed under then-Gov. Mark Warner.
Northrop Grumman came under scrutiny last year amid complaints about cost overruns, missed deadlines and poor service quality.
The issue that arose last week initially caused
13 percent of the state's storage servers to stop working.
As of Wednesday morning, McDonnell's office indicated all state agencies affected by the outage had received access to their computers, though not all issues had been resolved.
The DMV will make most licenses and ID cards that expired during the service interruption valid for an extra 20 days, and the Virginia State Police will grant a reprieve through Sept. 30 on enforcement actions against motorists whose licenses lapsed on or after Aug. 25.
Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
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With all the medical records
With all the medical records soon to be on computer only, gives one reason to pause and think, what happens when it is the computers with the medical records that goes down for days?
Spread the wealth around
Just remember that Northrup Grumman, who came up with the computer system for VA's ugly high tech Driver's Licenses, is one of the main US defense contractors. Do you think that the state got ripped off with its unreliable computer system? As a federal tax payer you don't even know the half of it. Next time give General Dynamics a bite of the pie.
Same old stuff ... different day....
Years ago the "data processing department" was under the the Chief financial officer of most corporations. Over the years management in most companies realized the "computer department" was important enough that it needed it's own position to report to management and Chief Information Officer or CIO was born.
But most companies still don't get it. They get someone who is a good manager with an MBA to be their CIO.
A CIO who doesn't understand computers down to the chip level and doesn't have a very good understanding of various operating systems can't make the necessary intelligent decisions.
Of course the sales people still sell to the CIO's and CFO's and CEO's who don't have the necessary skills and education to know when smoke is being blown.
And hence we have situations like this. Northrup Grumman is no more a information technology company than Mattel toys.
It's so sad.
Any true computer professional worth their time wouldn't have let this happen.
It's rough enough for people working at DMV, and those people who are trying to get something done there, let alone all the other government agencies affected by this, but it really casts a shadow on all of us who actually KNOW what we are doing.
All that's going to happen here, is they are going to waste money, and not even make sure the job gets done right.
The ONLY way this never happens again is, they actually hire someone who KNOWS what they are doing. Don't look at degrees, look at real experience. Do they actually KNOW the operating systems, have they every worked with critical backups, do they even know they dif between a differential backup, a copy backup an incremental backup, or an image backup? Do they understand what the purpose of multiple mirrored data centers, utilizing separate data transport providers, on different power grids, online battery backups with generators, and the ability to failover to either datacenter without the end user even knowing that something occured.
People with real experience understand these things, managers with degrees won't.
Pay NG now or pay them later?
To paraphrase a famed commercial, seems strange that right after Northrup Grumman failed to convince the state to give it more money on their contract, that the system crashes. Now that's capitalism at it's best. You pay me now or you pay me later. That privatization of government functions is really working well there ain't it? Wanna bet NOBODY pays for this massive failure, except the taxpayers.
Good Job.
Let's see, I applied to Northrup Grumman, and quite frankly I am glad they didn't contact me. As a computer prefessional, I can flatly state, this kind of problem doesn't happen, if proper planning and execution of those plans are put in effect immediately.
Mirrored data, system backups, are all a part of any effective Data continuity and restoration solution. It doesn't matter if you use an ultrium drive like I do, or a huge tape library.
Proper backup solutions are necessary to any server storage solution, and if someone has dropped the ball and implement a solution without proper testing, and documented procedures in the even of any failure, then shame on them.
Add Me To The List..
..of "I'm glad they didn't contact me" as well.
The supposed IT staff they have are filled with supervisors, managers and project management leaders who bring nothing to the contract but useless paperwork and overhead! No one I spoke with had "any" Microsoft certification whatsoever!
I agree with your comments 100%
Best wishes!