AgdaPkt 2013-08-26 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6.1.H. - Page 1 RE PO RT To the Honorable Mayor and City Council From the Cit Mana er August 26, 2013 SUBJECT Network switch replacement in City Hall RECOMMENDATION Approve, by motion, the purchase of two Cisco network switches and 3-years support in the amount of $230,707.38 from CDW-G. BACKGROUND When City Hall was built in 1997, two Cisco network switches were installed in the data center to connect all the servers and desktops in City Hall as well as to communicate with all Redwood City remote facilities. The two switches are considered the core of the City's entire networking infrastructure and almost all network communication passes through them. They are responsible for managing network security, data flow, and connectivity. In 2009, minor upgrades to these switches allowed us to increase their connectivity speeds and extend their useful life. These two switches are no longer sold or supported by Cisco and parts are becoming increasingly difficult to find. They can no longer be upgraded to meet the City's increasing need for bandwidth to support all the technologies being implemented currently or in the known future. In July 2013, one of the switch's main components, its supervisory engine (SE), failed during the restart after the power was shut down during the City Hall remodel. The SE is the "brains" of the switch and controls all the security, network traffic, and configuration of the switch. Each switch contains a backup SE in the event the primary fails, thus the switch is still operational. Should the backup SE fail, the City will be without a major part of its network infrastructure, including connectivity to several facilities. Although a replacement SE costs about $10,000, these switches have reached the end of their expected useful life and replacing the failed SE would be a short-term solution. Not only are the switches beyond their useful life but taking them apart to replace failed parts leaves us vulnerable to other components failing when attempting to restart them, as witnessed after the power outage.