The National Computer Center As Currently Planned May Not Be Needed?

I recently talked with Ephraim Feig, who used to be Social Security's Associate Chief Information Officer for Vision and Strategy. He was let go after working at the agency for only about a year and a half. Social Security also dramatically reorganized its Information Technology (IT) management shortly thereafter. Although Feig was happy to explain, I was at a disadvantage since I am a lawyer, not an IT expert.

I know more about how bureaucracies operate so I first concentrated on how it was that he came to leave Social Security. My understanding from Feig is that he and others in IT at Social Security were asked to meet with personnel at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House, and did so. Thereafter, Feig continued to be in contact with OMB. He talked with them about his vision for Social Security. Feig's superior, Frank Baitman, Social Security's Chief Information Officer (CIO) was aware of these contacts but the Commissioner may not have been aware. Feig does not profess to know exactly what happened to bring about the IT upheaval at Social Security but his contacts with OMB, which his supervisor, Social Security's CIO, was aware of, probably had something to do with it. Baitman, Feig's former boss, has also recently left Social Security.

Feig  was hired to develop vision and strategy. Social Security's planned National Computer Center was a major part of the vision and strategy for Social Security's IT future that was in place before Feig came to work at the agency. Feig disagreed with the National Computer Center, at least in the planned form, thinking it was overkill. He believes that because of the rapid development of computer hardware that mainframe computers would not be needed and that "commodity hardware" could handle Social Security's IT needs. Basically, the same process that puts more computing power in the smart phone in my pocket than I had in my desktop ten years ago has been happening in the datacenter world. However, Feig never talked with OMB about the planned National Computing Center, although the Commissioner may not have known this.

In what may be a not completely unrelated development,  the New York Times ran an article yesterday on plans to close 800 federal government data centers which are no longer considered necessary.

You may recall that just five months ago, Social Security was being questioned at a Congressional hearing, because it was not further along on the National Computer Center project. Neither Feig nor Baitman testified at that hearing but the man who, in effect, replaced Baitman, Kelly Croft, did testify. The House of Representatives had held another hearing on the same subject just a year before that.

One of Social Security's biggest IT problems is that it has many legacy systems written in COBOL, an antiquated computer language. It is virtually impossible to hire workers who already know COBOL. The Commissioner has talked frequently about the need to update from COBOL to modern computer languages. One of the major things that Feig was working on was planning this transition. Feig told me that Social Security has no existing plan that he is aware of to make this transition. Feig did acknowledge that Social Security is not the only large entity that still runs a lot of COBOL. Many banks still have major legacy systems running COBOL.

Feig is taking a break at the moment before considering his next career move.

By the way, you can see a video of Ephraim Feig talking about his vision while he was still working at Social Security.