Chesapeake (Virginia) launches $3.5M computer upgrade
Posted by Mike on Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The City Council voted to approve funding to upgrade a computer mainframe system that’s more than 35 years old.
The $3.5 million technology upgrade will bring the city’s business into the Internet age, ending the need to rely on 2.6 million lines of coding necessary to update the website.
The city’s chief information officer, Peter Wallace, had warned that Chesapeake’s information technology was long out of date and recently said he was worried about a future “total breakdown” related to antiquated technology: police radios that couldn’t send alerts, power outages shutting down the city’s information grid and a technology work force retiring with no one qualified to replace them.
COBOL, the program the city has been using, is not taught in schools anymore, which makes hiring new employees a challenge, Wallace said.
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