M E M O R A N D U M
To: Honorable Mayor and Town Council
From: Rafael G. Casals, Town Manager
Date: July 18, 2018
Re: Renew and Extend Interlocal Agreement with Miami-Dade County for Information Technology (IT) Support and Maintenance Services
REQUEST
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A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF CUTLER BAY, FLORIDA, AUTHORIZING THE TOWN MANAGER TO RENEW AND EXTEND THE TOWN’S INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH MIAMI-DADE COUNTY FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT SERVICES; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE.
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BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
Information Technology (“IT”) services play a vital role in innovation and cost effectiveness for the Town, as thirty-two (32) employees are able to become more responsive to residents’ needs.
On July 19, 2017, the Town Council adopted Resolution No. 17-61, authorizing the Town Manager to enter into an interlocal agreement (the “Agreement”) with Miami-Dade County (“County”) for IT maintenance and support services.
Since the inception of the Agreement, the Town and County have worked tirelessly to streamline efficiencies across the board for all Town Departments; with goals and milestones including:
§ Modernization of the Cutler Bay Town Center Network. The new network design has improved management and security of the network switches, virtual environment and transitioned Wi-Fi service back to an in-house managed environment; these changes reduce down-time and increase functionality and performance of the network in order to support new services such as VoIP and desktop virtualization. Additionally, Power-Over-Ethernet configurations, which will allow for the implementation of certain peripheral services such as Voice
over IP (VoIP) phone handsets (which will draw power from their network connection as opposed to traditional power outlets); all Ethernet ports provide one (1) Gigabit per second (GBPS) connectivity, allowing for increased network performance; quality of service is now enabled on all ports, allowing for the prioritization of critical network traffic; Network Access Controls are enabled on all ports to lock down and allow only authorized Town users/employees to access the Town's network while also allowing public internet access to the citizens of Town when visiting CBTC and utilizing the free Wi-Fi.
§ Re-Design Town Internet Connectivity at the Cutler Bay Town Center. This project established connectivity to the secure Miami-Dade County Data Center and provides internet service that leverages the secure Miami-Dade County Information Technology infrastructure. Miami-Dade County can upgrade and provide higher bandwidth to improve performance as Town of Cutler Bay business requirements grow to meet the needs of the community. The new internet network design includes redundancy in case of service provider service failure, to ensure mission critical internet services are not interrupted.
§ Cybersecurity and Firewall Redesign. Town Firewall was redesigned to provide a fully redundant and automatic failover solution. The mission critical function of the Firewall requires high availability to ensure daily operations of Town regardless of any single failure. The re-design implemented by Miami-Dade County Information Technology Department provides the Town with improved protection against cyber threats.
§ Re-Design, Installation and Configuration of Town-hosted VMware. The Town’s virtual server and data backup environment has been migrated to the Miami-Dade County Data Center. The new server virtualization services provide improve high availability, redundancy, eliminate the 2nd floor data room cooling and power costs at Cutler Bay Town Center and provide a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) for the Town in the event Town Hall is affected by natural disaster or other emergency events. The Town's critical data and servers will be hosted by Miami-Dade County, in a facility categorized as a Main Data Cat5 Center.
§ Procurement and Migration to Microsoft Office 365 Subscription Services. This project allows for all thirty-two (32) Town employees to work on the same platform and version for word processing, email, reports, etc. The implementation of this subscription service greatly reduces the annual cost of license renewals for IT software, support and maintenance, while ensuring that the Town follows industry best practices in order to maintain more secure, efficient, reliable and state of the art IT infrastructure through the use of productivity tools and file storage to better serve the residents of Cutler Bay.
§ Migration onto Desktop Virtualization (VDI) Services. The migration of all thirty-two (32) Town employees onto a virtual environment optimizes efficiencies by reconfiguring all workstations to thin-client solution, making it possible for users to connect to their desktops and applications from anywhere, anytime and from any internet capable device (including iPads, tablets, laptops, PCs, Macs, etc.) Key benefits include data security and compliance, cost reduction in hardware maintenance and repairs, increased productivity, green computing, simplified management of software upgrades, and business continuity and disaster recovery.
Looking forward, Town Staff and County are working to further improve on Town-wide efficiencies through the redesign and modernization of the existing IT infrastructure and audio/visual components of the Town Hall Council Chambers. This project will greatly enhance the public’s experience at all Town Hall meetings held therein, while also enhancing the experience for those members of the public viewing and listening to the meetings remotely. Additionally, another goal moving forward is implementing an online payment processing system, which is a growing need of the community. Town Staff believes that renewing the existing interlocal agreement with Miami-Dade County Information Technology Department and extending the term for an additional five (5) years will be in the best interest and welfare of the Town.
RECOMMENDATION
We recommend that the attached resolution be adopted authorizing the Town Manager to renew and extend the Town’s interlocal agreement with Miami-Dade County for Information Technology (IT) maintenance and support services.