By: Hinojosa S.B. No. 266

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to the review of information technology systems used by a state agency for compatibility with open standards.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Section 441.203, Government Code, is amended by adding Subsection (m) to read as follows:

(m) The council, in cooperation with the Department of Information Resources, shall:

(1) review each state agency's existing information technology system to determine whether the system is compatible with open standards; and

(2) consult with and provide assistance to state agencies on:

(A) enhancing the state agency's information technology system to achieve compatibility with open standards where appropriate; and

(B) identifying and recommending information technology systems that are compatible with open standards and recognized best practices, including:

(i) open standards for document formats for creating, exchanging, and maintaining electronic texts, presentations, and spreadsheets, to replace outdated systems that are to be retired or upgraded;

(ii) open standards for database systems based on the Structured Query Language (SQL) standard defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), to replace outdated systems based on nonrelational database technologies that are to be retired or upgraded;

(iii) recognized best practices for the structuring of data held in databases or disk file systems used by mission-critical transaction processing applications, such that the data is held in normalized relational data tables, to replace outdated methods of data organization based on nonrelational or highly nonnormalized data models, other than data warehouses and business intelligence applications, that are to be retired or upgraded;

(iv) open standards for computer programming languages used for the development and maintenance of applications, such that the programming languages used shall conform to standards recognized by national or international standards bodies, to replace applications developed in outdated programming languages that are to be retired or upgraded; and

(v) open standards for operating system hardware interface layers, such that operating systems used in mission-critical applications are not tied exclusively to a single brand of computer hardware or to a single type of microprocessor, to replace outdated systems that are to be retired or updated.

SECTION 2. This Act takes effect immediately if it receives a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution. If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this Act takes effect September 1, 2009.