Social Security Administration's Data Center on Last Legs
The data center the Social Security Administration relies on is in danger of catastrophic failure.
By
Ainsley Jones | Feb 15, 2011
The Social Security Administration is currently operating on a slippery slope. The agency's current data center, which provides social security payments of up to $60 billion each year to more than 50 million senior citizens, is in danger of "catastrophic failure," Nextgov reports.
Kelly Croft, Social Security's deputy commissioner for systems, told two House subcommittees that the 30-year-old National Computer Center is plagued by an inadequate heating and cooling system, parts for its UPS are no longer made and its water pipes are clogged and corroded, reports FierceGovernmentIT.
The data center's replacement, the National Support Center, is five years away from being built and is behind schedule, says DatacenterDynamics. According to Croft:
In the event of an NCC failure, we can currently recover all critical workloads at the SCC within four days. Next year we anticipate being able to reduce that recovery time to one day.
