TESTIMONY
Vanessa Hunt, Senior State Executive at IBM, on The Response to Remote Learning Login Issues in New York City Public Schools
1:33:35
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4 min
Vanessa Hunt discusses IBM's handling of a significant remote login issue in the New York City Department of Education, ensuring continuous student and teacher access.
- Hunt outlines IBM's longstanding partnership with New York City Schools and emphasizes the importance of the relationship.
- She explains the technical challenges faced on February 13 due to exceeding contracted login capacities and denies any failure of IBM's technology.
- IBM took immediate action to resolve the login issues by significantly increasing the capacity of its IBM Security Verify system beyond contracted levels.
- Hunt proposes a long-term solution involving an auto-scaling system to meet future demand and highlights collaborative efforts to develop an action plan with the Department of Education.
- Throughout her testimony, Hunt reaffirms IBM's commitment to supporting New York City public schools and students.
Vanessa Hunt
1:33:35
Chair Joseph, members of the committee.
1:33:38
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today on a matter of great importance to all of us at IBM.
1:33:44
My name is Vanessa Hunt.
1:33:45
I am IBM's senior state executive for New York, and I have worked with the city of New York in many capacities for the past 17 years.
1:33:54
I would like to start by underscoring that IBM is a New York based company, and for us, the New York Public School System is more than just another client.
1:34:02
For many IBMers, New York City Public Schools is the system where our own children learn and grow.
1:34:08
We take our work for the city school system personally, and we recognize the special responsibility that comes with delivering technology and support of nearly 1,000,000 students their families and their dedicated educators.
1:34:23
The New York Department of Education uses IBM Security Verify, or ISB, as its remote login and identity management system.
1:34:31
It allows students and teachers to securely access the department's online resources including its remote learning platform.
1:34:39
We understand how frustrating what happened on February 13th was to the school system, students, families, and educators.
1:34:46
It would be a disservice to them not to identify the true root cause of this event, and it was not a failure of IBM Technology.
1:34:54
In fact, IBM has routinely supported this platform at levels far beyond what was designed, tested, and contracted.
1:35:04
Our contract which was signed in 2019 established a simultaneous use threshold of 400 transactions per second.
1:35:10
That's simply a gauge of how many users can log in at any given time.
1:35:15
IBM has on multiple occasions increased the capacity of this system far beyond the contracted levels at no added cost to the DOE.
1:35:23
To meet the school systems' evolving needs.
1:35:26
ISV is like a secure door into the DOE systems.
1:35:30
Over time, by adding more users and applications behind that door, the department was increasing the number of people trying to come through.
1:35:40
Demand that was easily managed with 400 transactions per second in 2019 often required a 1000 transactions per second in recent years.
1:35:50
We continued to highlight that demand growth to DOE while also supporting the system as good partners.
1:35:57
The department's use of ISV was simply not contracted to support nearly 1,000,000 students and their teachers logging in at the same time.
1:36:05
On February 13th, the Department of Education had a closet door when it needed a barn door.
1:36:11
At over 2000 transactions per second, Everyone tried to rush through that door at once.
1:36:16
Balancing the traffic over time would have resulted in a better outcome.
1:36:21
Thanks to the strong partnership between DOE's staff and IBM.
1:36:25
The remote login issues were resolved and the system successfully processed over a million logins that day.
1:36:31
IBM has taken additional steps in response to what happened on February 13th namely increasing the ISV login capacity to more than five times our contracted level and keeping it there.
1:36:44
Our team has worked hand in hand with the DOE to put in place short and long term solutions to ensure that the understandable frustration students and teachers felt that day does not happen again.
1:36:55
I'm very encouraged by the way our teams have come together over the past 3 weeks to learn and apply the lessons of this event.
1:37:01
We have delivered with the DOE a detailed action plan with next steps that should be taken to ensure a seamless remote login experience, and I thank them for their partnership.
1:37:12
Long term, we continue to recommend that the school system transition to an auto scaling ISV solution, which can automatically throttle to meet the volume of user demand.
1:37:22
We have shared with the DOE team that implementing this long term plan will require updates to our contract for the school systems use of ISV.
1:37:30
And we very much want to participate in any future snow day and remote learning drills or simulations.
1:37:36
IBM is proud to be a New York company and I cannot stress enough how committed we are to our partnership with New York City and the New York City public schools.
1:37:46
Thank you again for this opportunity to share our perspective, and I'm happy to take any questions.