Meet Charles De Sanno, Executive Director of Enterprise Systems Engineering for the Department of Veterans Affairs. As the leader of over 6,300 IT employees, 175 data centers and 400,000 desktop computers, De Sanno manages one of the largest IT installed base of systems in the United States.
De Sanno spoke to Washington Exec about the shift to secure mobile devices for the federal government workplace, the future of mobility in U.S. government and business, as well as the personal assistant aspect of smartphones.
WashingtonExec: Could you please tell us a little about your background and responsibility at VA and what you are doing in terms of mobility?
Charles De Sanno: I am the Executive Director of Enterprise Systems Engineering for the Department of Veterans Affairs and responsible for the engineering of systems platforms and enterprise infrastructure which include mobility, data centers, cloud and virtualization technologies, telecommunications – both data and voice, midrange systems, mainframe systems, desktops, etc. VA is the largest civilian agency in the federal government, second largest cabinet level organization – and one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world. We manage approximately 360,000 desktop systems and more than 100,000 mobile devices, including laptops, phones and tablets. As far as mobility is concerned, I have been charged by the Department CIO, Assistant Secretary Roger Baker, to implement mobility infrastructure to improve the level of service to our veterans.
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Mobility is probably the most significant thing to occur in IT in the last 10 years.
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WashingtonExec: You’ve been in the industry for a long time; how do you think mobility scales when compared to different innovation breakthroughs like the Internet or personal computers or cloud computing?
Charles De Sanno: Mobility is probably the most significant thing to occur in IT in the last 10 years. Why is that the case? Mobile devices collapse the personal computer, Internet, cloud, voice and data networks into a handheld device. These handheld devices – phones, tablets, slates and now ‘phablets’ (a phone/tablet sized device – such as the Samsung Note) – are the convergence points of all IT components and productivity right in the palm of your hand – or the right form factor for the user. These devices are becoming so powerful that I have launched a plan to replace a number of desktop computers with tablet and slate devices.
We can already see, for instance, the phasing out of laptops in favor of tablets. Obviously, the importance and revolution brought on by the PC and Internet era are significant. Cloud is more of ubiquitous, must-have technology – especially as it relates to elasticity. Consider though, mobility converging all of these technologies. The current productivity data we have is positive. Cost saving, efficiencies and empowering the end user to rapidly make decisions with presented data are all attractive.
WashingtonExec: That falls under the consumerization of technology and I feel like that is what everyone likes to talk about. It is kind of like “bring your own devices.”
Charles De Sanno: What’s important is to realize in the future these devices will be personal assistants on steroids. Years ago there was a movie called “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise. In the movie, focused advertisements, personal messages and the like were delivered to people as they walked about. This focused or tailored type of delivery of information, based on personal trends, or the streaming of important information to you for business or family purposes, regardless of where you are, is going to be commonplace. We already see this being implemented today.
However, the focus of and reliance on these features will be exploited in the near future. The personal assistant aspect and the consumerization of IT are very important for us because we believe that it goes hand in hand with the ‘bring your own device’ desire and the necessity for enterprises to prepare, because employees are going to depend on a single device to operate as their personal assistant to lead their lives and also help them be productive and function in business. Staff will not want to carry multiple devices for various functions. It is unnecessary. We certainly see BYOD as very critical for organizations to save money, also. In VA, I’m leading an effort to engineer solutions that ensure we have the ability to embrace these technologies and allow us to securely place VA information on these devices through sandboxing technologies. We would secure an agreed-to portion of the users’ personal devices for VA applications and information when they enter the boundaries of the VA network encrypted.
WashingtonExec: How is security affecting your implementation of these devices?
Charles De Sanno: The landscape is always changing in IT. Successful CIOs embrace change and find a way to say ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’ At VA, our CIO Roger Baker states eloquently that he doesn’t want to be a ‘CIO NO;’ he wants his organization to take the posture of saying ‘yes’ and finding a way to allow technological advancements to occur in secure fashion. The ‘CIO YES’ ensures an organization embraces change instead of prohibiting it. Why? Users will simply start bringing in their own devices, demand the use of them in the workplace, and the CIO and his organization at that point will have to play catch up. The consumerization of IT has illustrated this concept time and time again. Why is this important and how does it relate to security? Many organizations concentrate on hiding behind security concerns as a way of saying ‘No!’ to these types of advancements.
There is always a balance to strike with security. It must be enough, so innovation can thrive and the organization uses advancements in technology, while we protect the sensitive information of our clients and the overall infrastructure from security exploits or penetration — but not so much that it makes employees less productive by having to navigate various layers of security controls as a hindrance. Security for all technology should be mostly ubiquitous allowing people to use innovation and technology as a whole to perform well in their jobs and translate into better service with a keen eye to an organization’s bottom line. Many years ago, the ‘C level boardroom’ understood IT’s rigidity in regard to security and archaic means of prohibition of technology. These days, it’s quite the opposite. Organizations, including my own, are looking for ways to cut costs and enhance productivity while providing better service to our clients. All of this is accomplished, or aided, by the use of advancing technology. No longer is it sufficient to recognize emerging technologies after others have embraced it. To obtain the ‘edge,’ if you will, you must also be predictive and set plans in place to embrace before your competitors. Having said that, we have engineered ways in which we can embrace mobility in secure fashion, allowing our providers of care and benefits to be more productive, more efficient and, more importantly, allowing them to provide better service to veterans.
WashingtonExec: What are the elements needed to implement the successful and safe mobile ecosystem?
Charles De Sanno: Lots of times organizations are distracted by the ‘shiny object.’ Do not misconstrue what I said above. Certainly, organizations must not implement technology for ‘technology’s sake.’ It’s not about what is ‘sexy’ – it’s about improving your bottom line posture. Efficiencies, effectiveness and service delivery rule the day. The most important thing is to understand what your business drivers, your application requirements are and how mobile devices can both fit that need AND enhance it. If it makes you more efficient, provides better service or improves your bottom line, then it is something you should consider. If not, an organization should not. Balance out the access equation with the cost efficiency of end users, the security profile, your application development life cycle overhead — meaning how much it costs me to develop applications on these platforms — and then your manageability capability of this new infrastructure. This is basically the ecosystem.
You need to have people in place who are responsible for all of what I just said, some of whom are different than people you already have in place to run traditional IT systems. Lots of times when I speak to other organizations they ask what I have done in VA, making VA one of the leaders in mobility. First, and to further the ecosystem point, you need sponsorship and embracement of the technology roadmap. Mobility was included in this vision for the right reasons. Business lines embraced the direction because they envisioned benefit. We knew which applications would be required on these devices to allow us to be more successful in meeting the bottom-line objectives. We studied the cost effectiveness of investing in this new endeavor. We looked at all aspects of security, delivery of service, development of applications, testing, break fix, contracts to obtain such technology and the ancillary required systems such as Mobile Device Management (MDM) software. Then and only then did we act, execute and deliver successfully. This ecosystem is required for success. Like any IT project, user acceptance is key, and in the Washington VA Medical Center—where we have a lot of this technology deployed—we see the positive results of our collective good planning and work. This started with a vision by the CIO and our business lines – specifically the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) – and is now blossoming.
WashingtonExec: What are the most challenging elements?
Charles De Sanno: The most challenging elements of all of this would probably be the manageability and security of the mobile devices and having a very strong strategy regarding that. In addition, ensuring that people are taking these devices seriously; they are not toys; they are powerful clients on corporate networks – some potentially having client or corporate information on them. In VA, we steer away from that and ensure our devices are encrypted. Frameworks need to be established to ensure that they are always available, that when they break or are lost, we have staff servicing or replacing because continuity of business is very, very important to us.
As far as the other aspects or challenges are concerned, everybody wants one! As of now, everybody cannot have one. Perhaps in the future these devices will be issued to every employee. However, today it is not appropriate. These are expensive devices. There needs to be a link to strong business requirements and the bottom line for business. In VA, Roger Baker has clearly stated that issuance will be requirements-driven, showing clear benefit if issued. Is the procurement a wise IT investment, given the fiscal constraints of organizations these days? If the device improves the bottom line—service to veterans—we should consider its purchase. I would say the same for any technologies, not just mobility. While we may believe this technology is new, I view it, as I stated previously, as a client on our network. This client should be as secure and available as any other client we provide our end users.
WashingtonExec: Do you see the US as a leader in mobile?
Charles De Sanno: I think the US is a leader in mobile application creation, delivery and business use. I think that there are a lot of other countries that certainly have robust wireless infrastructure and many units deployed exploiting social and personal productivity applications. Then again, there are a lot of countries that are lacking infrastructure.
I think that in the development of applications that allow people to be more productive, both in the enterprise and in their personal lives, others may be second to the US. As far as technology and the underlying infrastructure go, there is some variability out there. The United States continues to build out networks and ensure that networks are more capable of providing more bandwidth, better resiliency, etc. Things are coming along in that regard.
As mobility continues to clearly show value on many fronts, US businesses will have steady demand for use of these devices. I see continued competition in the vendor community to produce quality devices, applications, infrastructure and tools to ensure US companies and government organizations are operating more effectively and efficiently.
