About Us |
The bureau’s mission is to provide competitive statewide technology services to meet the needs of State agencies, boards and commissions and other constituents including local governments, public safety agencies, schools, libraries and hospitals.
The Bureau of Communications and Computer Services:
- Manages the planning, procurement, managing, maintaining, and delivering of voice, data, wireless, video, Internet, and telecommunications services to all state government agencies, boards, and commissions, and state supported institutions of higher education in Illinois, as well as other governmental and some non-governmental entities. As part of the Information Technology and Telecommunications Rationalization, BCCS centralized infrastructure functions previously devolved in certain agencies.
- Operates the Central Computer Facility, which provides mainframe processing systems and support for most state agencies.
- Manages the Illinois Century Network, a service that creates and maintains high speed telecommunications networks providing reliable communication links to and among Illinois schools, institutions of higher education, libraries, museums, research institutions, state agencies, units of local government, and other local entities providing services to Illinois citizens.
BCCS provides voice, data, wireless, video, Internet, and telecommunications services to all state government agencies, boards, and commissions, as well as many schools and universities, libraries, hospitals and local governmental bodies across Illinois. The bureau also manages high-speed radio and wireless computer networks for use by Illinois public safety agencies.
Since 2003, BCCS has made significant progress in its multi-year effort to "rationalize" the State's Information Technology infrastructure - to coordinate and streamline the myriad communications systems used by State agencies.
For example, the bureau is working to reduce the number of disparate e-mail systems used by State agencies from 43 to a single, unified system. The move is designed to produce greater operational efficiency by speeding communication to, from and between State employees.
Altogether, the IT Rationalization initiative involves the consolidation of:
- 18 data centers, 1,500 servers and 500,000 data storage tapes
- 55,000 desktop and laptop computers used by State employees
- 30 agency-specific IT Help Desks into a single Customer Solution Center Service Desk
Upon completion, BCCS will manage the State's "boxes and wires" and enterprise-wide software applications, while agencies will continue to manage agency-specific applications.
For its success in maximizing the efficiency and capability of the Illinois Century Network - the State's IT backbone - BCCS earned a 2006 Computerworld Honors Program Laureate Medal.
Please visit our communications section to view recent copies of our newsletter and informational brochure. The about section includes an organization chart and information about the different business units within the bureau. And the contact information section includes a list of all managers with phone numbers.
To provide superior service to all of our customers, BCCS is divided into business units:
BCCS Business Units
- Agency Relations
- Business Services
- Chief Operating Officer
- Chief of Staff
- Enterprise Program Management Office
- Chief Information Officer
- Infrastructure Services
- Enterprise Business Applications and Services
- Network Services
- Service Engineering
- Chief Technology Officer
Organization Chart (PDF, 19KB) 
(updated January 03, 2008)
Agency Relations
Under the direction of the Agency Relations Manager, Agency Relations Liaisons (ARL) establish and maintain productive and efficient Customer relationships, and serve as proactive advocates and facilitators focused on anticipating and achieving each Customer's legitimate business needs. The ARLs number one goal is to know and understand the customer's needs and requirements and assist BCCS resources in their communications with our customers. ARLs must have a working knowledge of the products and services that BCCS offers.
The Agency Relations unit primary focus is customer relationship management, event coordination and marketing and communications for BCCS.
AR Agency List (PDF, 122KB) Revised 12/24/2007[BCCS Business Units]
Business Services
The Division provides management of all BCCS fiscal operations. It administers the Communications Revolving Fund (CRF) the Statistical Services Revolving Fund (SSRF), and the General Revenue Fund (GRF) for educational technology (Illinois Century Network). It also provides mail services, building management, office equipment and EDP inventory and property control services for BCCS.
[BCCS Business Units]Chief Operating Officer
The Chief Operating Officer serves as a policy formulating administrator in planning, directing, implementing and administering the Customer Management group. The Customer Management group is focused externally on providing quality services to the customer - ensuring that BCCS services meet the requirements and expectations of its customers and users. Customer Management is the single point of contact for customer service requests, service provisioning, and incident management. Customer Management is comprised of the following units:
Customer Solution Center (CSC)
The CSC serves as the central point of contact for our telecommunications and information technology customers. The CSC serves as a Service Desk to handle process and manage incidents and requests for services.
CSC Organization Chart 12/18/2007
Communications Management Center (CMC)
The CMC is responsible for all Tier 2 trouble resolutions, network surveillance and ongoing technical support. The CMC is operational 24x7, and handles the after hours provisioning calls of the Customer Service Center (CSC). The CMC is located in the JRTC in Chicago.
Field Operations / Regional Technology Centers (RTC)
Field Operations is responsible for maintaining nine Regional Technology Centers located throughout the State and assisting the Network Services to maintain Illinois Century Network Point-of Presence (POP) site throughout the State. Responsibilities are varied and include circuit termination, VOIP, video conferencing, wireless, fiber, UPS, and for dispatching employees for repairs at POP and constituent sites. Field Operations performs Tier 2 and 3 technical support for the CMC and directly to customers. Other responsibilities include customer consultation, customer and distribution router configuration, ongoing maintenance, head-end router installations/troubleshooting and performing equipment installation/recovery at all customer sites. [BCCS Business Units]Chief of Staff
The Chief of Staff serves as advisor to the Deputy Director on strategic, operational and problem resolution issues, serves as primary resource between the Deputy Director and senior management, performs special projects related to BCCS operations and serves as spokesperson on behalf of the Deputy Director on internal and external issues. Additionally, the Chief of Staff directly oversees the Workforce Development and Logistics and Procurement work groups. The Workforce and Development and Logistics unit coordinates and facilitates internal personnel paperwork, workforce training development and implementation, workforce logistics, and physical security. The Procurement unit coordinates all Bureau purchase requests and contract renewals including Request for Purchases, Invitation for Bids and Requests for Information.
[BCCS Business Units]Enterprise Program Management Office
The Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO) is responsible for maintaining and managing the Enterprise Project Portfolio which includes the twelve (12) Consolidated Agencies and each of the CMS Bureaus. The EPMO also develops and implements consistent, standardized, enterprise project management policies, processes, and shared services as well as other related project management support activities. The EPMO directly manages large, complex (Tier 3) projects, and oversees all other projects that meet the criteria for IT Governance (Tier 2). These roles and responsibilities are executed at the direction of Department management.
[BCCS Business Units]Chief Information Officer
The Chief Information Officer serves as a policy formulating administrator in planning, directing, implementing and administering the following business units.
Risk Management
Risk Management is responsible for compliance, recovery, change management, and PKI. Risk Management also assists Department executive management and law enforcement personnel with criminal and compliance investigations by gathering technical evidence and by supplying security expertise.Infrastructure Services
The mission of Infrastructure Services is to provide continuous oversight, operation, and support of the State of Illinois’ information technology infrastructure to ensure availability and performance consistent with customer business demands in a quality and cost effective manner. The Infrastructure Services Division is divided into the teams listed below:- End User Computing - responsible for the management of Desktops, Laptops, Printers, and Scanners for the Consolidated Agencies. This includes daily operation, maintenance and break/fix tasks. Major initiatives assigned to this team include Microsoft Enterprise Deployment and Desktop/Laptop Refresh Deployment.
- Data Center Operations
- Mainframe Services - responsible for the mainframe operating systems, database systems, and software installation, maintenance, and support function/services. It is divided into two teams: Database and System Programming.
- Midrange Computing
- Midrange WinTel - responsible for the configuration and monitoring of the Department's Intel based servers running the Microsoft or Novell Operating System. Additionally, this group is responsible for the merged agencies' Intel based servers running the Microsoft or Novell Operating System.
- Midrange Unix Services - responsible for the configuration and monitoring of the Department's Unix environment. Additionally, this group is responsible for the merged agencies Unix servers.
- Enterprise Storage and Backup - responsible for the oversight and management of Storage and Backup Systems on all Platforms.
- Enterprise Production/Operations
- Library Services - responsible for media initiation, inventory, tracking, lifecycle management, and business continuity media management.
- Production Control - responsible for computer job scheduling and monitoring.
- I/O Control - responsible for the operation and monitoring of the large volume printers.
- Command Center Operations - responsible for providing continuous monitoring and operation of the Department's computing resources to ensure availability, performance, and support response necessary to sustain customer business demands.
- Vendor Management - responsible for ensuring effective and efficient management of vendor contracts/licensing and compliance with vendor agreements regarding infrastructure products and services.
- Quality Assurance and Methods - responsible for defining, implementing, and measuring policy, process, procedure and standards to ensure infrastructure service delivery meets agreed upon customer requirements and expectations.
Enterprise Business Applications and Services
The Enterprise Business Applications and Services (EBAS) Division is responsible for the development of Information Technology systems, which are available for use by user agencies and by CMS divisions and bureaus.
[BCCS Business Units]Network Services
The Division of Network Services is responsible for management and oversight of the Illinois Century Network (ICN), Local Area Networking (LAN) for select agencies, the Illinois Wireless Information Network, and all engineering responsibilities related to State of Illinois telecommunications services. The unit consists of four sections: Design and Security, Network Operations, LAN Services and Enterprise Network Support.
Design and Security
The Design & Security team is responsible for establishing architectural standards and methodologies for implementing and supporting wide-area and local-area enterprise systems and services. Design and Security staff designs complex network and network service configurations. In addition to this work, staff performs project management and participates in network, network service, and telecommunications related projectsNetwork Operations
Network Operations is responsible for installing, maintaining and managing the ICN Backbone including backbone circuits, egress circuits, routers, firewalls, switches, fifteen Point of Presence (POP) sites, WAN monitoring tools and WAN services. Additionally, Network Operations provides tier 3 Network Support to other staff within Network Services.LAN Services
LAN Services is responsible for entering rules into the firewalls and monitoring security violations. Additionally, this group is responsible for the merged agencies LAN network, which includes: firewalls, routers, switches, hubs, IDS and wireless switches. Until the physical consolidation of the merged agencies, the LAN network infrastructures are being maintained under the respectful agencies policies.Enterprise Network Support
Enterprise Network Support is responsible for design and support of State Agency network access. Responsibilities include installation and support of access routers, WAN switches, VOIP, video conferencing, fiber, DNS, and Internet. Network Integration also performs tier 3 technical support for the CMC and directly to state agencies. [BCCS Business Units]Service Engineering
The Service Engineering function is both internally and externally focused. Service Engineering is comprised on the following units:
Service Level Management (SLM)
SLM is responsible for the development, publication, management and periodic review of; (1) BCCS Service Catalog (2) Service Level Agreements (3) Service Level Reporting and (4) Service Improvement Programs. SLM works internally across all BCCS shared service teams to ensure agreed upon customer service levels are met. SLM is responsible for the periodic review and evaluation of service levels with customers. When needed, SLM will initiate and manage customer centric service improvement programs to ensure services are meeting agreed upon performance levels.Business Process Engineering (BPE)
BPE is focused on partnering with customers and internal shared service teams to ensure cross-agency Infrastructure Technology Service Management Framework (itSMF) processes are developed and implemented. BPE and shared service teams will continuously measure and enhance processes to determine how work is best accomplished to fulfill BCCS’ organization mission and achieve targeted performance goals. BPE will closely collaborate with Risk Management and other internal shared service teams to ensure processes adhere to and meet required audit controls. BPE priorities are set by department leadership.Chief Technology Officer
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for driving the overall internal IT strategic direction for State of Illinois. This includes developing multi-year IT Strategic Plans, setting IT Enterprise Architectural direction for state ad ensuring that all internal IT strategic initiatives support the overall state business strategy. The CTO also provides leadership for major developmental initiatives around multi-agency shared services. The CTO also is responsible for oversight of the Enterprise Architecture and Strategy team.Enterprise Architecture and Strategy
The Enterprise Architecture and Strategy team has established an IT and Telecommunications Governance model to help oversee rationalization, standardization, centralization and consolidation efforts. The Governance model is a set of political processes, driven by business and technology principles to ensure that IT investments meet the following objectives:- Alignment of IT/Telecom with the Enterprise goals and realization of the promised benefits;
- Use of IT/Telecom to enable the enterprise by taking advantage of opportunities;
- Optimize use of IT/Telecom resources; and
- Management of IT/Telecom-related risks.
The Architecture Rationalization Board (ARB) is a “cross-Agency authority established to facilitate the IT and Telecom Governance of the State of Illinois". The intent of the ARB is to assure alignment of the IT portfolio, and adherence to standards concerning the deployment of IT and Telecom. It is not intended as a review process to challenge or critique Agency direction. The goal is to assure that Agency initiatives are aligned with the State of Illinois IT Master Plan, and that the resultant products conform to established IT Standards and architecture.”
The Enterprise Architecture and Strategy was developed to ensure that “IT investment decisions are aligned with EA&S vision and goals and deliver outcomes that keep in step with the accelerating pace of business changes. Working with the Executive Team and the ARB, EA&S help create the IT Strategy and Enterprise Architecture vision, develop standards and reference architectures, create IT transition plans, and provide assistance to the central IT organization.”
Technical Reference Model (TRM) Domain Owners & Enterprise Architects [PDF, 30Kb]