To: Board of Supervisors
From: Marc Shorr, Information Technology Director
Report Title: Purchase Order with AT&T for Cisco networking equipment
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
APPROVE and AUTHORIZE the Purchasing Agent, on behalf of the Chief Information Officer, to execute a purchase order with AT&T Corporation in an amount not to exceed $1,350,000 for Cisco networking equipment.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The cost for this purchase is charged to the user department. 100% User Departments.
BACKGROUND:
The Department of Information Technology (DOIT) Telecommunications division continues the task of converting all County locations to a Cloud Hosted VoIP service. As County departments move toward a more flexible worker profile, the VoIP application will fill the flexible needs of those workers and departments. With the deployment of Cisco networking equipment to support VoIP services, DOIT will move County networking to a converged platform reducing the quantity of networking equipment going forward. This converged network enhances Telecom deployment of Advanced 911 (a911) site location services, home worker a911 location services, and in-building mobility a911 location services (required to maintain compliance with the Ray Baum Act Jan 2022).
Cisco and AT&T have worked closely with DOIT Telecommunications and the Wide Area Network (WAN) team to design an efficient and effective network equipment deployment process. The requested networking equipment will have a single source monitoring application to provide real-time network awareness of issues, including the adoption of security services (DNA and Stealthwatch) to assure compliance.
This request was competitively bid, with AT&T being the lowest bidder. Other bidders were Rahi Systems at $1,501,226 and SSP Data at $1,546,370.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
A key factor to the deployment of VoIP, converged network and security services, will be the overall reduction of cost to all departments as locations are converted to the converged platform. If DOIT Telecommunications division is not allowed to purchase the requested equipment, deployment of Unified Communications (UC) service will be halted, and cost reductions will not be realized.