The Social Security Administration is working on finding a new backup site for a data center to house 450 million earnings and benefit SSA documents.

Right now, it has no backup, and a crash of its existing site would paralyze the SSA for at least a week while it transferred data to a commercial facility, according to congressional testimony last week. SSA and the General Services Administration are looking for space for a new data center that would be funded by $500 million under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to an article in nextgov.com.

Building a new center off campus would cost $748 million, compared with $803 million on campus, Patrick O'Carroll, the inspector general at SSA, told the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. However, building a facility on an existing campus might cause a disruption of existing services onsite, according to Booz Allen Hamilton, which is studying the issue.

"Since an on-campus project would be a significantly different undertaking than an off-campus one, there is a sense that apples are perhaps being compared to oranges, and that these differing factors need to be considered more carefully before a decision is made as to whether a new data center [on campus] is a viable option," O'Carroll said.

This is one case where there is no time to delay a decision on this issue. Carroll said an alternative SSA center must be fully functional, "restoring critical functions within 24 hours of a disaster, with less than one hour of data loss."

For more on the SSA's backup center:
- see this nextgov.com article

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