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Criticality with newer applications <br />The County is currently experiencing significant issues with its email vendor, Fiscal distress has <br />forced the vendor to cut back significantly on support for certain products deemed not in the <br />company s long term strategic interest, including their email product. The manifestation of this <br />for Orange County has been a notable decrease in email stability due tc defective software <br />releases and inadequate assistance from the vendor. The County's IT staff is planning a <br />transition to a newer system that will provide greater stability and vendor commitment, <br />Enterprise level email systems perform optimally with a Storage Area Network. <br />Similarly, other County applications, such as the GIS system, are currently constrained with <br />existing hardware. By implementing a Storage Area Network, enterprise functionality can be <br />achieved with the GIS system and information can mare effectively be shared among County <br />departments and local municipalities., Now that the County is moving more toward database <br />applications, the performance, reliability and data retention capabilities of a Storage Area <br />Network become increasingly critical. <br />Efficiencies <br />Another benefit of a Storage Area Network is the ability to use lower cost servers, By replacing <br />aging application servers with new servers that have no local data storage, the costs of servers <br />are reduced by up to 50%, This extends the service life of servers while allowing much quicker <br />recovery from hardware defects, <br />The Storage Area Network will streamline many of the IT Department's data management <br />duties, while providing mare reliable, flexible and efficient data storage for County staff, While <br />the incremental efficiencies are difficult to aggregate and quantify, anecdotal input from various <br />departments suggests a significant amount of time across all Orange County staff is spent <br />addressing data management and system availability, time which would be greatly alleviated <br />with the implementation of a Storage Area Network. <br />Information Technology Committee Review <br />The ITC has discussed the need for enhancing the County's server network, most recently at its <br />November 29, 2005 meeting, A memo from the ITC Chair on behalf of the committee endorsing <br />the proposed SAN acquisition is provided as an attachment to this agenda item. <br />Authorization to Purchase <br />The attached equipment and services list reflects the proposed purchase in order to address <br />the aforementioned needs, The vendor, 4Front Systems, Inc. has been awarded a contract for <br />such equipment by the State of North Carolina; therefore the County is not bidding the items <br />separately. <br />FINANCIAL IMPACT: The estimated capital outlay for the Storage Area Network based on <br />State contract prices is $92,522.20. This includes hardware, software, implementation services, <br />training and maintenance for the first three years. The funds for this purchase have already <br />been appropriated by the BOCC in the FY 2005-06 Information Technology Capital Project <br />Ordinance. <br />RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board authorize the purchase of <br />the Storage Area Network as outlined in the attached equipment/services list from 4-Front <br />Systems, Inc, Raleigh, NC; and authorize the Purchasing Director to execute any paperwork <br />necessary to effect the purchase, <br />