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Home My WebLink About2007 07 23 Consent 211 Purchase Equipment and Software For Diaster Recovery Solution Email System COMMISSION AGENDA ITEM 211 Informational Consent X Public Hearing Regular July 23.2007 Regular Meeting ~~... f - ',- I Mgr. /' Dept. Authorization REQUEST: Information Services requests authorization to purchase necessary equipment and software to provide an immediate disaster recovery solution for email system. Funds for this project are already budgeted. PURPOSE: To obtain authorization to purchase necessary equipment and software to provide a high availability and disaster recovery solution for email delivery. CONSIDERATIONS: Information Services (IS) continuously strives to provide reliable service to Public Safety and other City departments. The City relies heavily on its Microsoft Exchange email server to conduct business on a daily basis. The City's email server is a mission-critical communication tool which provides more than just email; it serves as a calendaring system, a way of organizing and maintaining contacts; and a way of organizing, assigning, and maintaining tasks. Departments throughout the City depend on the Email Server for a variety of reasons. For example, the Fire Department uses Microsoft Exchange for the following: · Scheduling services for personnel that provide seryices in the community for the Citizens of Winter Springs (blood pressure checks, CPR classes, car seat installations, facility tours, educational classes, smoke detector checks, etc.) · Staffing purposes to post vacations, long-term or temporary absences, training. · Scheduling of vehicle maintenance, equipment and stations. CITY OF WINTER SPRINGS CITY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING - JULY 23, 2007 CONSENT AGENDA ITEM 211 Page 2 of 3 . Scheduling of special events which involve departmental interaction with citizens such as the Highland Games, 4th of July, Tree Lighting, Fall Festival, Dancing Under the Starts, etc. Additionally, the Police Department relies upon the same email system to deliver Amber Alerts and other security notifications to all its officers. In February of this year, the Microsoft Exchange mail server experienced a hardware failure that took several days to fully recover. During that time, some departments experienced intermittent email outages while others experienced total inability to access shared folders and calendars. This was devastating to those who rely so heavily on those features of Microsoft Exchange for their day to day operations. In an effort to achieve greater reliability, operational efficiency and to enhance the City's ability to more quickly recover from a hardware failure, the Information Services department has budgeted for a redundant e-mail server solution. What this means is having two servers perform the same function accessing the same data so that if one fails due to hardware/software issues there is no interruption of service to the end users. This solution is required for a variety of reasons which include prevention of single point of failure, cost savings and improved functionality. The benefits of this solution include decreased downtime; comprehensive protection from spam, viruses and phishing attacks; the possibility of moving to unified messaging with the ability to check email, voicemail and faxes in one location and infrastructure consolidation are a few of main benefits of this solution. In addition to the above information this solution will provide the needed capability to deliver e- mail to the handheld devices in the field using the Accela Wireless application. One of the requests made by the KIVA users was to have the ability to have inspectors receive e-mail in the field. The Accela Wireless application does not provide this functionality and instead relies on third party applications to provide this service. As an alternative to using a dedicated e-mail delivery application for the handheld devices, Information Services wishes to utilize the new technology offered in Microsoft's Exchange 2007 product. This new technology is called Direct Push and uses a protocol labeled Active Sync. Devices capable of receiving this protocol can communicate with Microsoft Exchange directly without the need for third party dedicated applications to send and receive e-mail. While this is a redundant solution the implementation will enable us to redeploy current servers and reduce the cost of replacing aging devices. This solution will also give us the ability to utilize a wider variety of mobile devices that run Windows Mobile software instead of the Blackberry devices. Expenses are as follows for a 2-server implementation: Consulting $10,800 (2) Servers $ 9,530 Software $21,106 $41.436 CITY OF WINTER SPRINGS CITY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING - JULY 23, 2007 CONSENT AGENDA ITEM 2 I I Page 3 of 3 Software consists of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Windows Exchange Server Enterprise 2007, Windows Enterprise Exchange CAL The money will be distributed in the following line codes: 1341-64200-10034 $17,712 1341-53180-10034 $10,800 1341-55278-10034 $12,924 Total $41.436 The money within this department budget is allocated in the following manner: General Fund Water & Sewer Storm Water Development Svs Total $36,464 $ 2,486 $ 414 $ 2,072 $41.436 In conclusion, this solution will enable the IS department to better support the users within the City and provide a more functional messaging solution. This will also give us the ability to move towards a unified messaging platform. But most importantly, it will provide the City with a more reliable email system with built-in redundancy and provide disaster recovery at the same time. FUNDING: No additional money is being requested. Money required for this project is already budgeted within the 1341 Special Projects budget. RECOMMENDATIONS: We recommend the Commission approve this project. ATTACHMENTS: None. COMMISSION ACTION: