AWWA IMTECH51434

The explosion in information management applications and demands within water utilities has resulted in significant expenditures for personnel, administrative infrastructure, hardware and software to support these needs. A more significant expenditure, however, is the long-term commitment being implicitly made for the hardware, software, and personnel required to maintain these systems in a rapidly changing information management environment. Qualified personnel required for database maintenance and application development are difficult to find, retain and afford. An alternative to handling information management internally is to contract out to an external data management company. In such cases, the external company handles all data management functions including interface development, data hosting, database management and backup. Utility personnel then enter and retrieve data through a dedicated interface or a browser interface over a secure internet connection. This paper presents several examples of the use of outsourced data management. The paper also discusses issues that must be considered when outsourcing data management functions.