Access Database Health Check - Measuring Risk

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Oakland County is committed to digitalizing government by implementing high-quality, high-value technology solutions for its citizens and users. While operating under a fixed budget, technology portfolio investments must be assessed and prioritized major factors used in the prioritization process including business need, risk reduction, operational efficiency, information security, financial benefits, process improvements and legislative/legal requirements. Oakland County Information Technology (IT) utilizes the Master Planning process to prioritize projects. A tool developed in 2017, known at the County as Tech Debt Check has been used successfully in Master planning efforts to assess health and measure the technical debt (risk) of applications at the county. With the success of the Tech Debt Check tool and its use for project prioritization process, Oakland County IT developed a tool to assess the health of Access databases at the county for year 2021. Access databases are scored based on application criticality, data classification, version, and data storage. Understanding these factors helps IT Inventory Access databases at the county and assess the need for migration to a more secure database product.