DECC Server Upgrade (Consolidation)

IT Governance Business Case

Background

The Durham Emergency Communications Center (DECC) is the primary public safety answering point for the City and County of Durham. The center helps to ensure that Durham is a safe and secure community by providing around-theclock 911 access and services to the residents and user agencies in and around Durham County. Services include dispatch of police, fire, and emergency medical services, emergency and non-emergency requests for assistance, as well as other city/county support agencies.

While the majority of 911 IT services are supported by an external vendor, the Technology Solutions department supports Windows and Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) servers. The current version of Virtual Machine(VM) software on the CAD servers are at the end of life, requiring an upgrade or consolidation with other data centers.

Current Business Problem

The DECC uses Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) service to manage and coordinate the response to incidents and emergencies. It is essential for the work of 911 responders as it substantially improves their efficiency and reduces response times. Currently, the CAD service is hosted on a primary server cluster (consisting of 4 VMs), with a backup cluster (consisting of 2 VMs) that provides a real-time CAD replication that can be used in case the primary cluster goes down. The primary and backup server equipment is over 5 years old with an expired hardware support plan. Their version of VM software has reached its end of life. Primary and backup clusters must be located separately to enhance location redundancy, disaster recovery, and network diversity. The CAD service is designed for on-premise implementation.

Current Pain Points

• Lack of a hardware support plan jeopardizes the CAD business continuity in the event the hardware breaks down.

• Hardware failure due to the age of assets will result in business disruption for the 911 center

• Managing multiple datacenters on different hardware platforms requires more effort and comes with higher opportunity cost

Strategic Alignment

City of Durham's Strategic Plan Goal:

Goal 4: Innovative & High Performing Organization

TS Objective #1: Plan and allocate IT investments in accordance with IT Governance principles to ensure sustainable growth

TS Objective #3: Maintain and modernize all the City's assets to align to the evolving and emerging technologies in the marketplace for City business units

Future State Benefits

• Both primary and backup servers function reliably without interrupting the dispatch workflows at the 911 center.

• Compute resources are utilized efficiently across the enterprise without waste or under provision.

• Backup server continues providing a reliable and fast CAD restoration process in case of the primary server malfunction.

Analysis and Recommended Solution

Consolidation Options

Analysis of Proposed Solution: Consolidate Primary and Backup Servers

• Consolidate Primary 911 CAD servers (4 VMs) to the PD Nutanix cluster. Consolidate Backup 911 CAD servers (2 VMs) to the City Hall datacenter. Both PD and City Hall locations have sufficient capacity to host the 911 CAD servers.

• There are no known compliance or regulatory blockers for consolidating the CAD servers. Both DECC and PD Nutanix servers are already CJIS compliant.

• Full consolidation will avoid additional hardware and software costs from having standalone CAD servers in the future. Consolidation will save the City over $200,000.

• Server reconfiguration costs from the vendor are not expected. In the past, the vendor has completed server reconfiguration through a maintenance support ticket with no extra cost.

• In the event of a DECC hardware failure (and servers not being yet consolidated), the proposed consolidation route will be the preferred problem-solving strategy to restore the CAD service. Thus, a planned consolidation now is preferred to a potential emergency consolidation in the future.

Comparative Business Value Analysis

Security Review

The recommended solution meets the cyber security standards for the City of Durham.

Architecture Review

The recommended solution meets the architectural standards for the City of Durham.