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Following the rain on 20 July in Vilnius, following the flooding of the Registry Center’s servers, the services provided by this state-owned company were broken.
They were restored in a matter of days, but e. restoring the health system took more than a week.
Without this system, medical institutions would not be able to upload electronic documents, write electronic prescriptions, or perform other functions. Patients with electronic signatures cannot buy drugs from pharmacies.
Other systems managed by the Registry Center were able to recover more quickly because they had backup databases in other locations.
The eHealth system did not have one, so it took eight days to restore it. A backup data center was to be installed here at the end of this year.
When examining the public procurement system, 15 minutes found more national authorities without such a data center.
Purchase – after accident
On July 24, the State Health Insurance Fund (VLK) announced a public procurement for a feasibility study to evaluate the installation of a backup data center. The agency says this purchase was planned earlier and is not related to the crash at the Records Center.
In total, the institution manages 19 information systems, six of which are at the state level. These systems include the Registry of Insured with Compulsory Health Insurance, the Information System of Compulsory Health Insurance “Sveidra” and others.
VLK claims that these systems are constantly being transformed and technologically improved.
“It is emphasized that the information systems managed by the health insurance funds are necessary not only for the activities of the health insurance funds, since these IT tools serve for the operational and fluid work of the institutions, the exchange of data not only in Lithuania, but also in the countries of the European Union. ” 15 minutes in the response of the institution.
The data center of the State Health Insurance Fund was installed in 2012, but it does not have a backup data center from which to restore the operation of all systems almost immediately.
VLK uses a separate server located in another building to store backups only.
ME. health, so your data was saved, but it took up to eight days to restore the system.
VLK explains that plans to acquire a backup data center are not related to the latter e. health system: these deliberations take place over several years.
“VLK has been trying to establish a backup data center for several years in a row. At that time, the Information Society Development Committee recommended that a feasibility study be carried out and that the choice of a solution be evaluated in terms of profitability before establishing a data center of this type or using the services of existing centers ”, states the response.
Neither in the ministry
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) also does not have a backup data center.
The data center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stores data from the Lithuanian EU Information System, the Consular Procedures Management Information System, and the Ministry’s own system connecting administrative functions.
The documents that define the operation of the systems managed by the Ministry contemplate possible periods of inactivity, ranging from sixteen to twenty-four hours.
“There have been failures in the information system, but they have never been related to natural phenomena or their consequences and they have always been corrected within the established deadlines.
Of course, any interruption of the information system generates inconveniences, but the institutional capacity made it possible to handle these cases in a professional manner and without compromising the quality of the activities ”, it is written. 15 minutes in the response of the institution.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that its main data center was installed several years ago, has fire protection systems and is installed on the ground floor of the building in a special capsule that does not affect natural phenomena or their consequences.
The ministry also stores data backups separately, but does not have a backup server.
It states that movement restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic have delayed the installation of a backup data center abroad to ensure the viability of the ministry’s electronic communications networks. They are scheduled to be implemented later this year.
Meanwhile, in Lithuania, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not intend to have its own backup data center; it will wait until it can join the state.
“The ongoing process of consolidating the state information resource infrastructure should provide opportunities to use centralized state data centers established for these purposes,” the response reads.
Centralization is happening, but is it fast enough?
The state has been implementing a project to consolidate information resources for the past few years.
It also includes data consolidation in centralized data centers. There are currently two of these, and two more are planned to be installed for later installation.
“If all the data were stored in a common public cloud system, it would be more efficient in terms of cost, management and risk management.” 15 minutes said Mindaugas Ubartas, head of the National Association of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Infobalt Sector.
So far, since July, the transfer of data to centralized centers has started from seven institutions: various ministries, the State Tax Inspectorate, Customs and others. This allows you to back up your data and have a backup server in case the main one goes down.
According to the legislation, the different information systems in the country have different deadlines within which they could resume operations in the event of a breakdown.
However, Ubart finds it intolerable that there are still institutions in the country that do not have backup data centers.
This seems abnormal to me. When the data center stops working, any activity stops. Imagine a business structure that could afford not to work for a week.
“It just came to our notice then. When the data center goes down, any activity is shut down. Imagine a business structure that could afford not to work for a week.” 15 minutes M. Ubartas said.
“Companies can somehow assess the risks and here it is a question of survival or not for them, and the public sector can also forgive that e. health does not work for eight days, “he added.
The head of Infobalt affirmed that in the public sector today, the information system servers are not located in adapted premises, and that decentralized maintenance is a problem, especially in municipalities or their subordinate institutions.
According to him, such a situation can be blamed for the fact that they are installed with EU money.
“Most of the IT systems in the Lithuanian public sector were developed with EU money. In doing so, with European funding, one of the requirements was to have the product physically purchased, not to rent it or have it in another way. It was that blind money that served the bear that today in Lithuania we have a lot of data centers built in “home-made” conditions, “said the director of Infobalt.
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