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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 08-22-1995 - X-C 1 1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS Action Agenda Item No X-C, ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: August 22, 1995 SUBJECT: Data Processing Report ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT Data Processing PUBLIC HEARING YES NO X -------------------------------- ------------------------------- ATTACHMENT(S) INFORMATION CONTACT Report Keith Brooks, ext 2276 TELEPHONE NUMBER Hillsborough 732-8181 Chapel Hill 968-4501 Mebane 227-2031 Durham 688-7331 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PURPOSE: To receive a follow-up report on progress in use of automation by Orange County departments and options/plans for further computer enhancements. BACKGROUND: At the June 5, 1995 meeting, the Board of Commissioners received a report on the County' s automation plans. At that meeting, and during budget work sessions later in June, the Board asked staff to consult with an outside, third party to provide a review of the County' s plans. Staff and Commissioner Willhoit met in late June with staff from the UNC Data Processing Department. The attached report summarizes the outcomes of that discussion and lays out the staff' s plans in the next few months to proceed with various steps of the automation plan. RECOMMENDATION: The Manager recommends that the Board receive the report as information and provide any additional comments about the County' s direction in automation improvements. L 2 M E M O R A N D U M To Orange County Board of Commissioners John Link, County Manager From: Keith Brooks, Data Processing Director Re Updated Status of Data Processing Date: August 3, 1995 1. Meeting with UNC staff In late June, County staff and Commissioner Willhoit met with staff from UNC's Administrative Data Processing. Attending from the County in addition to Don Willhoit was Keith Brooks, DP Manager; Jane Sparks, Systems Analyst; Don Webster, Microcomputer Specialist; and Rod Visser, Assistant County Manager. Present from UNC was David Jenkins, Director of Administrative Data Processing; Joel Dunn, Manager Communications; and David Laudicina, Systems and Programming Manager. The County provided the UNC group a copy of the May "Status of Data Processing" report prior to the meeting. The UNC group were very knowledgeable of the equipment we are currently using in the County with the exception of the old McDonnell Douglas system, and even there, they were familiar with the "PICK" operating system which it supports. UNC is currently using IBM RS60001s very similar with the one we are currently using. They are also supporting a large number of IBM compatible PCs and their software standard is the MicroSoft Office Suite of software. UNC also supports several PC LANs running Novell Netware and connected to the RS60001s. The UNC group were very supportive of the upgrade path proposed in the May status report. They consider the RS6000 series a very reliable, powerful, and flexible system to use as the base for the County's move into the Client-Server environment. Client-Server is an environment where the clients (county staff) are using LAN based PCs connected to a Host server (RS6000) to perform their daily functions. This configuration provides the desktop automation tools, such as word processing and spreadsheet, and access to the County legacy systems, such as General Ledger and Tax Collections, from the one device located on the workers desk. 3 2. Timeline for RS6000 upgrade As proposed in the May report and strongly supported by the UNC group, funding for upgrading the current RS6000 to allow the migration of all existing mainframe applications to a Client- Server environment is available in the current 1995-96 DP budget. This will move the County to a new UNIX based Client-Server environment which will greatly enhance our connectivity to the PC LANs, the GIS system, the E911 system and outside agencies. The final payment to IBM for the current lease/purchase will be August 1995. IBM has priced two upgrades for the existing 530H as outlined below: 1. Upgrade Model 530H to a Model 580H Double memory size to 64 Meg. Add second 2GB disk Cost for this upgrade $30,836 This doubles the internal speed of the processor, doubles the memory size and doubles the disk size. 2 . Upgrade Model 530H to a Model 590H Quadruple memory size to 128 Meg Add second 2GB disk Cost for this upgrade $45,876 This quadruples the internal speed of the processor and the memory size and doubles the disk size. The bid process should reduce this cost and if we look at used equipment we may be looking at a fifty percent discount. Either option above is possible within the existing DP budget, possibly as a direct purchase or as a multiyear lease/purchase. If we release the bid specifications for the RS6000 upgrade by September 1st we should be able to have the new upgraded RS6000 installed by November 1995. We estimate approximately three months for the conversion from the McDonnell Douglas to the new system. We should be up and running totally on the RS6000 by March 1996. 4 3. Timeline for- PC and network upgrades We currently have seven PC LANs: MCI (Whitted) , Child Support (ACTS) , EDC/Elections, Public Works, Budget/Personnel, Register of Deeds Optical, and E-Mail. Funded in the 1995-96 budget is a network for the Carr building which includes Planning, Environmental Health, Animal Control, Soil Conservation and Cooperative Extension and a network for EMS. We are also planning to move the original County equipment used by the Child Support network, and replaced by ACTS, to Northside for use by DSS and JOCCA. The Aging Department is expecting funding from the Friends to allow the installation of a network at the Chapel Hill Senior Center. The Sheriff's system is being moved to the new PC LAN based VISIONS software as funded in the current budget. This will give us a total of twelve networks by June 1996. We also have funding of sixty thousand dollars ($60, 000) for PC hardware and software replacements in the 1995-96 budget. This will allow a partial movement to the new County software standards (Windows and Microsoft Office) . The additional required funds to complete the move to the new software and hardware standards are in the 1996-2000 CIP. 4. Staff training PC software training funds of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000) are included in the Employee Development account in Personnel 's 1995-96 budget. We also have five thousand dollars ($5, 000) in the current year CIP for DP staff training for PC type software. This formal training will greatly enhance the DP staff's ability to provide quality support to our growing base of PC users and networks. This will also allow for training in developing PC applications by existing DP staff. Based on a department by department needs assessment study, just completed, additional funds will be required for training. A majority of County employees consider themselves to be new PC users, or have limited experience with PC's, and even those users who have extensive experience with computers have had no experience with Windows. These additional training needs will be addressed in the next CIP and/or through creative amendments to the current budget. To address immediate computer training needs, Personnel has contracted with New Horizons Computer Learning Center to provide Microsoft windows-based training for 96 users (one application per user) in September. New Horizons provided a similar training package to County employees in April, 1995, and it was well received by all who attended. Personnel, Data Processing and Human Service Department representatives are currently developing a training plan (based on the needs assessment) which would s provide all PC users with necessary training on the County's standard software applications including network training. Under this plan, Personnel will schedule and coordinate training using both DP staff and outside vendors such as New Horizons to conduct the training. Personnel plans to bring to the Board (at one of the September meetings) a contract for computer training services which will be necessary to begin carrying through with this plan. As mentioned above, funds have been set aside in the 1995-96 budget for this computer training.