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where they rob infrastructure to handle more mission-critical functions in program areas, and effectively outsourcing big func- tions can pay huge benefits to us." Outsourcing such functions does un- fortunately come with a little negative bag- gage. Jones said it will take some time to overcome the natural apprehension to look- ing outward for assistance, because agency staff are used to relying on their colleagues for network support or related help, and a degree of comfort is built into knowing help is a couple of doors down the hallway. But Jones said he's concerned about something else entirely. "I'm much more nervous about flight risk," he said. "I'll probably lose some good network administrators before DIR can fully consolidate those services for us. When people get nervous about their jobs, it's likely that I'll lose really good folks with institutional knowledge, and either have to not replace them or have to augment them with outside contractors - which might be at some expense." Still, the D1R is taking suf- ficient time to do its home- work regarding agencies' concerns, Jones observed, and isn't strong-arming agencies during the negotiations over the service contracts. "I do like what I see, and that is an agency seeking a lot of input from the agencies that are going to be impacted by its actions, which is some- thing you don't always see in government," he said. The DIR is also taking its time in. determining which functions mayor may not wind up under its control. At first glance, agencies will re- tain application and develop- ment staff, and the DIR will absorb agency IT staff mem- bers who run basic functions common to all agencies. "Then there's some folks in the gray area, like data- base administration," Jones said. "Some of those folks will stay with agencies. Some of those will not. DIR has gone back agency-by-agency, looking more precisely at what made sense to outsource, and what didn't." Enterprise Blueprint Who gets to do what is something best decided by everybody affected, said Olson, and it's natural for agencies to wonder which functions they'll lose and which they'll keep. "This isn't something DIR makes a decision on," Olson said, adding that an interagency work group has been meet- ing with agencies to discuss the issue. "We have to have that involvement from the agencies -let's all agree what's in the box when we define data-center and disaster- recovery services. We're fleshing those de- tails out now." Olson said agencies have wanted to move toward a consolidated IT environ- ment, but were frustrated by the lack of a plan from which all participants could work. The Texas Association of State Sys- tems for Computing and Communications and similar groups worked hard to try to build an enterprise approach, he said, but those outside-in efforts weren't matched inside state government. The message Olson and his five division directors are putting out to agencies is that this consolidation isn't going to take the form of a set of mandates handed down from on-high. "This is not about increased authority for DIR," Olson said. "It's about increased responsibilities and shared responsibilities with us and the state agencies. We have to do it together. It's not a DIR-down kind of thing. If we do that, it's going to fail, and we won't have that infrastructure of the fu- ture to really build on. "It's clear to us, and I think to all the agencies, that we have to work together very closely as we move forward in all these different areas."*,