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Home My WebLink About101-Staff Report.pdf SARATOGA CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: October 21, 2009 AGENDA ITEM: DEPARTMENT: Administrative Services CITY MANAGER: Dave Anderson PREPARED BY: Leo Salindong DIRECTOR: Mary Furey IT Analyst Finance & Administrative Services Director SUBJECT: IT Support Contract Renewal with ZAG Technical Services RECOMMENDED ACTION: Accept report and approve renewal contract with ZAG Technical Services. REPORT SUMMARY: In April 2009, the City of Saratoga signed a six month trial contract with ZAG Technical Services (ZAG) to assist staff in providing technical support for implementing current and proposed critical IT projects. Utilizing contract services to supplement staff in such projects is essential in meeting proposed needs and attaining results of the highest quality in a timely manner. Staff interviewed multiple vendors and received informal bids focusing on reliability, price, and expertise in various IT services. ZAG was selected based on the criteria and their knowledge in IT support services for government technological needs and goals. During the last six months, ZAG’s services were utilized to assist staff in completing various high priority projects while also helping to maintain server stability to minimize downtime. With more and more of our application software accessible via the internet, it is crucial that the City’s network remains stable and reliable. ZAG’s familiarity and involvement with a wide variety of server infrastructure setups provided valuable feedback and guidance for evaluating, installing, and configuring the City’s necessary server room hardware and software upgrades. Such upgrades include installing a new tape backup system to properly handle the City’s data backup duties. Important data including all electronic scanned files, department drive folders, and City database files are now backed up daily according to schedule. ZAG is continuing to work with staff in implementing the City’s new backup software in order to deploy effective backup strategies for reliable data protection. After installing the new tape backup system, ZAG recommended local documents from each desktop be transferred to a centralized server to improve the daily backup process. Previously, backup software would individually connect to each desktop on the network and back up all the essential data. However, if the desktop was turned off or if connectivity between the server and desktop was lost, data would not be properly backed up for that night. With ZAG’s recommendation of migrating local documents to one centralized file storage server, nightly backups now run more efficiently by backing up only one system each night rather than fifty systems. Another project completed with ZAG’s assistance is the upgrade of the antivirus software. Staff realized the City’s current antivirus software was outdated and needed to be upgraded, and that failure to do so would result in various viruses and spyware entering the City’s network compromising the data and potentially destroying crucial information. As staff researched information on this project and gathered proper procedures for the upgrade, it became clear that the upgrade was more complex than expected due to new configuration updates between the software and server. Fortunately, ZAG had expertise with this software recently implementing it at another client location. ZAG assisted staff with the upgrade and provided information on how to configure the software to protect the City’s network from harmful viruses. In addition, ZAG examined the City’s spam firewall to ensure correct configurations and settings were in place and staff’s concerns that large amounts of spam emails were entering the network while legitimate emails were being blocked out. ZAG reviewed the firewall settings and made recommendations on how to reduce unwanted spam messages. ZAG also applied new rules to prevent legitimate emails from being tagged as spam and advised staff to monitor the firewall daily to keep up with current spam trends and changes. ZAG has also worked extensively with the City’s email server, conducting audits to the email system, and making necessary improvements to ensure server stability. All email messages now get scanned by both the City’s firewall and antivirus software before entering the network. ZAG also analyzed the email security settings within the network, as well as remote access allowed from the Internet. With proper configuration, email communication for the City has now expanded with compatibility to the latest Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and iPhone connections. ZAG is currently in the process of working with staff to properly archive city emails based on the City’s newly adopted retention policy. ZAG addressed these concerns by implementing an email archiving system that will transfer email messages away from the email server to another server for storage. The new features will prevent our email server from failing due to limited storage space and will allow for faster email search queries. Staff can now search the entire email system at once rather than search each individual mailbox, thus making Public Records requests quicker and more efficient. As staff prepares for upcoming projects focused toward increasing overall user productivity, it has become evident that certain tasks have been neglected due to limited time and resources. Microsoft releases critical Windows updates on a monthly basis repairing various security flaws within its software. Staff normally researches the updates beforehand to check compatibility issues that may occur with City specific software. As an example, Microsoft might release an update for Windows that could affect the overall performance of our Financial software system. With staff focused on other various tasks, installing updates without proper research may cause instability within the network. To help prevent such accidents from occurring, ZAG now assists staff in researching Microsoft’s latest updates and verifies them on a test environment. If any issues occur during the installation in the test environment, ZAG notifies staff of the potential issue and provides recommendations to resolve the problem before network deployment. With staff time focused on daily tasks and planned upgrades, staff hopes to accomplish future projects with the assistance of ZAG’s services. Below are proposed high priority projects to be addressed this upcoming year: PENDING PROJECTS Estimated Time Estimated Cost ($165/hr) Implement new Email Archive software *Ability to save emails for future Public Records requests. *Incorporate to have in conjunction with new adopted retention policy. 20 hours $3,300 Email Server Upgrade *Upgrade email server from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010. *New server would provide more stability & address issues faced with current system. *Improve e-communication for the City based on the Electronic Communication Policy. 40 hours $6,600 Active Directory Upgrade *Upgrade current Active Directory from 2003 to 2008. *Properly store computer information and data securely on network and domain. *Improve current conditions of deploying software and security protocols for the City. 15 hours $2,475 Failover for City Internet Access between Primary and Backup Lines *City has a backup internet line in the event our primary line goes down. *However, to have all systems & services back online, it is a manual process of switching each server to secondary network. *Project creates automatic transfer between the lines so network will be back online in minutes. 30 hours $4,950 Trusted/Untrusted Wireless Setup At City Hall *Centralize all wireless connections to one to 20 hours $3,300 enhance security and protection. *Separate City network from public to allow public access if needed at City Hall. Server Room Reconfiguration *Research and install new UPS battery Backups to ensure compatibility with Emergency Power Backup project. *Assist IT staff in properly rearranging server room and racks. 10 hours $1,650 Emergency Support Services *Provides dedicated telephone support line and on-site IT support services for emergencies. *Guaranteed emergency support: 2 hour telephone response, 4 hour max dispatch of engineer to site from receipt of support call. *Provides on-site backup support to City Staff if needed. $12,000 ($3,000 per quarter) Future Potential Projects *Windows 7 Upgrade of all desktops *Remote Online Backup Services *Virtualization – Virtual Machine Servers *Disaster Recovery plan $25,725 TOTAL $60,000 FISCAL IMPACTS: ZAG Technical Services operate under an hourly service rate. For all projects, servers, and upper-tiered technical support, the rate is $165/per hour. For lower end general desktop support, ZAG charges $80/per hour. Payment of emergency support service guarantees staff dedicated access to ZAG emergency support; however standard hourly rates apply in addition based on level of support when requested. Council allocated $60,000 in the IT Services Fund budget for technical support and assistance in fiscal year 2009/10. Unused contract funding will be carried forward to Fiscal Year 2010/11. CONSEQUENCES OF NOT FOLLOWING THE RECOMMENDED ACTIONS: ZAG’s current contract will expire at the end of the month and the City will not have dedicated technical backup support if an emergency were to occur. In addition, current and future projects will continually be pushed back and delayed due to limited IT resources. ALTERNATIVE ACTION(S): N/A FOLLOW UP ACTION(S): As directed. ADVERTISING, NOTICING AND PUBLIC CONTACT: None ATTACHMENTS: N/A