There are countless ways that state-government buyers would like to use data capture and storage technology to manage assets and operations.

In Iowa, for example, the powers-that-be would like to capture the business logic of Web sites, and the information they contain. To do that, Gillispie proposes the use of "blobs"--binary images in a single server database--and "Web-spidering."

"Using blobs would allow us to maintain all of the original scripting in a database so it could be retrieved and restored as needed," he says. "Web-spidering is a technology that begins with a single Web page, then branches out to subsequent pages through the links connecting them. The spiders automatically capture participating state-agency Web sites at specified intervals, providing a historically accurate snapshot of government activity."

Information-Sharing Tools

After 9/11, government purchasers demanded more information-sharing tools to deal with potential security threats. That changed the way state agencies began to view the concept of public service. The thinking goes like this: If law-enforcement agencies can operate better with more information being made accessible to all, why can't agencies such as social services, health and taxation do the same?

"We have many diverse business units and many diverse technologies, and each has a unique way of sharing data," Delaware's Jarrett says. "This makes it almost impossible to identify who's sharing what and where. Just as difficult to identify are the many data replications taking place and transformations needed to share data. We need to standardize how we exchange data and interact with our applications--to understand the relationship between our business units."