AgdaPkt 2013-04-22 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6.1.C. - Page 1 RE PO RT To the Honorable Mayor and City Council From the Cit Mana er April 22, 2013 SUBJECT Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) purchase RECOMMENDATION Approve, by motion, the purchase of equipment and licenses in the amount of $169,314.22 from Dell Computers under the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) negotiated pricing agreement. BACKGROUND Desktop computers are a core technology used by City employees in City offices. They provide end users with a customizable and flexible desktop environment. However, they also bring a series of challenges that often result in high operational costs. These costs include help desk personnel, repair and maintenance, and the management of software licenses, in addition to the cost of the hardware, resulting in a high cost of ownership. Many of these costs can be minimized by implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure. The Information Technology (IT) Division of the Finance Department has already successfully implemented a virtual desktop environment for the public terminals in our main library. This has resulted in increased availability for the patrons while reducing the staff time required supporting them. Based on the success of this project, IT has entered into an agreement with the City of Burlingame to implement a virtual desktop environment in their main library as well. On September 10, 2012 Redwood City Council approved Resolution No. 15215 which established an appropriation of $215,000 from the capital outlay fund for the implementation of a virtual desktop infrastructure in Redwood City. ANALYSIS Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an intelligent desktop infrastructure that delivers higher control and manageability of the desktops by IT staff while giving a familiar, high availability experience to the users. Virtual desktops are essentially "dumb terminals." A "dumb terminal" is a relatively low cost device with no moving parts, such as a hard drive, which are the most common points of failure in a traditional PC. This recommended purchase is for the first phase of a potentially much wider implementation. The focus will be to build the necessary infrastructure which includes the purchase of the server hardware and software to create the virtual desktop infrastructure, the hardware to increase the speed of the existing network from the