A state weighing half a million terabytes – Newspaper Kommersant No. 159 (7360) of 08/31/2022

More than 500,000 terabytes of data are stored in state information systems, but they are difficult to use for making managerial decisions, the auditors of the Accounts Chamber concluded based on the results of the analysis. They noted the isolation, fragmentation and inconsistency of the collected data, the “patchwork” of information systems and their narrow departmental or sectoral focus. The White House responds to this by saying that the unified digital platform Gostech will help solve the problem of disunity of systems, while the Ministry of Digital Development says that work is already underway to systematize their data.

The Accounts Chamber, as part of an expert and analytical event, assessed the state of federal state information systems (GIS) in terms of the success of the process of digitalization of public administration. In total, federal government agencies and their subordinate institutions have 630 FSIS and 512 other information systems. On average, one department has nine FSIS and eight other databases. The total volume of these data stores is 510,976 terabytes. The total costs of federal information systems since their inception amounted to 296 billion rubles.

The general conclusion of state auditors about the state of the received array of information is disappointing: the isolation and fragmentation of the data of state information systems (GIS), as well as the incoherence of the composition and structure of information, do not allow for their direct involvement in managerial decision-making, including at the government level. “Data compositions and structures are described in different ways not only within one agency, but also within individual systems, and in some cases within different subsystems of one GIS. The completeness and quality of the information vary greatly,” comments Danil Shilkov, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber. Because of this, according to him, it is impossible to compare and bring together a description of the composition and structures of state data, to determine where and what data is located, and to understand how they could complement each other.

The joint venture notes the lack of standards and data models that will meet the needs of GIS in case of their migration or integration into single platform solutions. “Narrow (departmental or industry) thinking in relation to data and their real value acts as a deterrent to the transformation of public administration,” the auditors conclude. The practice of creating “departmental wells” with the formation of “departmental-centric” data leaves no room for mutual exchange of information in order to increase the efficiency of managerial decision-making, the joint venture believes.

Also noted is the technological and architectural disunity of GIS, as well as their “patchwork” as a result of many years of decentralized informatization. The systems were created and developed in the form of non-standard isolated applied solutions in the absence at the legislative level of uniform criteria for choosing technologies and architecture. “This complicates the integration of systems with each other and does not allow optimizing their costs,” the joint venture concludes.

Kommersant was told in the office of relevant Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko that they were familiar with the contents of the Accounts Chamber report. They noted that for several years there was an active development of information systems, but now there was a transition to a new stage: “We are solving the problem of unifying the requirements for GIS and data formats.”

The Ministry of Digital Development also conducted an inventory of all GIS. “A key experiment on Gostech has been launched, within the framework of which we are testing the development of approaches to digitalization and unification,” the office explained. They noted that the phased transition of the main systems to Gostekh, the decommissioning of obsolete GIS or their merger into platforms will solve the problem of “patchwork” identified by the Accounts Chamber. This platform should ultimately provide a uniform description of the composition and structures of all state data.

The Ministry of Digital Development explained to Kommersant that the work to systematize the huge number of elements found in all GIS is already underway, and it is divided into several stages – the process begins with the most demanded data. We are talking about those that are used as part of the provision of public services, to perform functions or to carry out interdepartmental exchange. “All measures for systematizing data should be built into the processes of public administration, it is necessary to control the quality of GIS data, as well as the timeliness of eliminating incidents with data. This is also the task of the National Data Management System (NCMS),” the Ministry of Digital Development noted.

Venera Petrova