Title
a. Approve and authorize the Contracts Purchasing Officer or the Contracts Purchasing Supervisor to execute a State and Local Agency Server and Cloud Enrollment Agreement with Insight Direct USA, Inc. (Insight), a Microsoft licensing reseller, for the purchase of government services, data storage subscriptions and associated maintenance/support, for the period of December 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017 in the maximum amount of $1,000.00; and
b. Accept non-standard contract provisions as recommended by the Director of the Information Technology Department.
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors:
a. Approve and authorize the Contracts Purchasing Officer or the Contracts Purchasing Supervisor to execute a State and Local Agency Server and Cloud Enrollment Agreement with Insight Direct USA, Inc. (Insight), a Microsoft licensing reseller, for the purchase of government services, data storage subscriptions and associated maintenance/support, for the period of December 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017 in the maximum amount of $1,000.00; and
b. Accept non-standard contract provisions as recommended by the Director of the Information Technology Department.
SUMMARY/DISCUSSION:
Since 1985, the Information Technology Department (ITD) has been backing up County data locally to tape, and storing a second copy of the data tapes offsite at a secure facility operated by Iron Mountain. With the County’s move to server-based applications and away from mainframe-based systems, the amount of data stored, the disk space required, and number of tapes required to store County data has grown exponentially. Although tape technology has improved over time, there are still occasional tape media and drive failures. In addition, the current data backup process is extremely time consuming, requiring significant investment of ITD staff resources.
ITD seeks to purchase Microsoft data backup software subscriptions and associated maintenance/support to implement a new backup solution which will enable the County to move away from using tape as a backup media; instead, ITD would use these products to store all County data on highly available disk storage. Microsoft data backup software and services support ITD’s project 1930-104, Virtual Server Farm Upgrade; the purpose of this upgrade is to store a copy of all backed up data in the Microsoft Government Cloud to facilitate recovery of data services should a disaster render the County’s existing ITD infrastructure useless.
The proposed agreement is with Insight Direct USA, Inc. (Insight), a Microsoft licensing reseller, for a one-month subscription, between December 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017, of the Microsoft Azure Government Shared Server product. This will allow the County to begin to populate the County’s data storage container on Microsoft Government Cloud, in advance of a separate three-year agreement which will take effect on January 1, 2018. The three-year agreement for the Azure Government Shared server product and other Microsoft products, will be presented to the Board separately. Beginning early migration of the County’s data in December will reduce the cost of operating a tape-based, backup solution, will set the stage for an efficient and seamless transfer of all stored data next year, and will enhance ITD’s readiness to keep County data services operational in the event of an emergency.
The proposed Agreement is non-standard for the County, but is based upon a standard agreement that Microsoft uses throughout the state and nation for governmental bodies. The Director of ITD recommends that the Board accept the non-standard terms as the benefit to the County from modern, efficient and reliable data backup is significant.
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
County Counsel cannot approve due to the following non-standard provisions: non-standard payment terms; non-standard termination for cause and early termination provisions; absence of insurance and lack of indemnity protections for the County. Risk Management does not approve non-standard insurance and indemnity provisions. The Contracts/Purchasing Officer has approved use of Insight as a re-seller, and purchase of Microsoft products in order to maintain continuity of County I.T. data services and network access.
FINANCING:
Funding for the increased agreement amount is included in the Information Technology Department FY 2017-18 budget, under Appropriation Unit INF002, Budget Unit 8439.
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS STRATEGIC INITIATIVES:
The execution of the proposed Insight Agreement furthers the efficient administration of County business and improves County technological infrastructure by enabling the County to efficiently back up County data, to recover County data in the event of accidental override, deletion or disaster, and to continue to provide secure mobile workstations that support County Departments.
__Economic Development
X Administration
X Health & Human Services
X Infrastructure
X Public Safety
Prepared by: Sandra Shaffer, Management Analyst III, 759-6957
Approved by:
________________________________________Date: _______
Eric A. Chatham, Director of Information Technology, 759-6920
Attachments: Insight Direct USA, Inc. Agreement
Attachments are on file with the Clerk of the Board