Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
36 <br /> Virtual Server Hosting Shelves and Physical Servers: <br /> The County should continue to invest in the consolidation and virtualization of its server environment, <br /> which requires additional virtual server hosting shelves and replacement of physical servers. In server <br /> virtualization efforts, many small physical servers are replaced by one larger physical server, to <br /> increase the utilization of costly hardware resources such as CPUs. Server Virtualization allows for a <br /> reduction in the total number of servers. As a general rule, one virtualized server can replace up to <br /> ten servers. By enhancing its virtual server environment, Orange County can improve its total cost of <br /> server ownership through reduced hardware maintenance costs, and reduced energy costs. In <br /> addition, the movement to a virtual environment is essential for disaster recovery. <br /> Storage Area Network Expansion: <br /> As governments continue to collect data and information at an exponential rate, and subsequently <br /> store that data within the information systems, computing resources become strained. Orange <br /> County should invest in a Storage Area Network (SAN) expansion in order to house the data off the <br /> main technology resources, thereby extending their usefulness and reducing future expansion costs. <br /> Upgrade and Standardization of Microsoft Software: <br /> As the County continues to invest in technology to gain efficiencies, increase effectiveness, and <br /> enhance transparency and accountability, standardization becomes more critical. Stand-alone <br /> systems are still being used across Orange County departments, limiting the utility and cross- <br /> functionality of data sharing and importation between business units. The first area of <br /> standardization should be concentrated on the MS Office Suite and Operating Systems. By moving to <br /> a County-wide standardized platform, there will be substantial increases in speed of deployment of <br /> systems, speed of upgrades, continuity between departmental offerings, and responsiveness of the IT <br /> department to customer needs. The County has two options related to upgrading the Microsoft <br /> environment. Option One is to procure the Microsoft Enterprise Licensing Agreement, which will <br /> allow the County to remain current with respect to Microsoft versions. This option is more costly than <br /> the County's previous model of upgrading only as needed. The second option is to upgrade all County <br /> devices to the current version of Microsoft by procuring individual licenses for each machine. This is a <br /> more cost-effective option but it does not ensure that the County will stay up-to-date on its Microsoft <br /> offerings. <br /> 34 <br />