Bonner County Technology Transformation Some observations concerning - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

By Bill Harp, Director Bonner County Government, Technology Department bharp@bonnercountyid.gov

Bonner County Technology Transformation – Some observations concerning what worked, what did not and where we need to go

Lessons from the digital trenches of a small local government jurisdiction that has big needs, great expectations, small budgets and a team that has no fear …

Biography

• Sixteen years as a consultant in defense and

intelligence worked primarily in geospatial applications, Department of Defense, US Southern Command, Panama

• Seven years at Esri – Retired as Defense and

Intelligence Industry Manager

• Manager, National Mapping Project ‐ Land Use and

Vegetation Cover of the Republic of Panama, United Nations and Panamanian Ministry of the Environment

• Three years, Director, Technology – Bonner County

Government

Lessons from the digital trenches of a small local government jurisdiction that has big needs, great expectations, small budgets and a team that has no fear …

“For fools rush in where angels fear to tread!”

An Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope, 1711

• Bonner County stood up its Technology Department

about three years ago taking over from consultants and contractors.

• The then newly formed team inherited a network that

desperately needed some re‐design and careful restorative efforts and with aging client computers of Window XP all around.

• The issues we faced ran the entire gamut of technology

requirements for a small jurisdiction in its scope and range of applications.

• These are some of the resources we inherited:

Technology Department: Overview of the portfolio

• Public safety communications, UF, VHF radio repeater

sites and an aged microwave network

• 9‐1‐1 Center
• A wide area network among multiple facilities
• Geospatial applications
• Communications assets, phones, fax, etc.
• A newly composed IT Team – what will it really take?
• A host of aging legacy enterprise software applications
• User Help Desk ... supporting about 350 clients in

numerous departments

Technology Department

• Director
• Deputy Director and Public Safety Manager
• IT Manager
• Three IT Technicians
• Program Manager – Administration, Logistics, Finances and

Web Resources

• GIS Team Lead
• Four Geospatial Analysts – one in recruitment
• What we are missing – DBA, IP & Security Engineer,

additional AD expertise

Technology Department Staff‐ Where we are now

Architecture

• BonnerCountyNetworkVerB.pdf

A sketch of the network

Administration Complex Court Complex Sheriff & 9‐1‐1 Complex DMV EMS Complex Priest River Complex EMS Sagle PL PD Shop Shop Fairgrounds Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Radio Sites Shop Shop Shop U of I Extension PO PD Shop

∙ Every project has three major initial components that predict success: Vision, political will and budget ∙ Just add business acumen, professional expertise and a little luck …

Where do you start; do you have the right ingredients?

The approach:

• So, to manage these resources well and to solve

the numerous technical problems we needed a agile, multi‐pronged approach that had both a tactical focus for solving the immediate problems and a strategic focus for planning a more efficient reduced maintenance future. So let’s approach the major projects topic by topic.

Servers and Storage:

• What to do with the servers. To virtualize or not

to virtualize. Boxes or blades? … VMWare or what?

• Storage, storage everywhere and not a byte to

waste … Our drive array and backup strategic

• What does a megabyte cost you?
• Core equipment: Firewall‐ SonicWall: NSA 4600, Core Switches‐ Cisco: Catalyst

3800’s series, Standard switches: Cisco 2960, Drive arrays: Synology 3614RPxs with 32GB RAM and 40 TB each at Raid 5, Virtual hosts: 3 Dell 730's with 20 cores and 256GB RAM running Xen server 6.5

Connectivity

• Network design – what worked? And where we

really messed up … AD, IP routing , DHCP and DNS chaos all while providing 24/7 uptime…

• The last tactical mile …
• To fiber or not to fiber? … that is the question
• Seven fiber runs

Working with clients …

• And then there were the clients with their diverse

requirements.

• “The Internet is Not Working.”
• Some interesting semantic barriers to really

helping folks.

Human resources

• Who do we need – the complexity of hiring world class

technologist in Bonner County

• Staff, contractors, superusers and interns … how to

create the right team and mix of expertise

• Where to advertise …

Enterprise software

• The enterprise software application story.
• The evolution from failing legacy software to a modern

solution.

• What were the criteria? World class, SQL, HTML, suite,

modular and configurable, geospatially aware, ample resources

• How we made a choice … It helps to have a network of

knowledgeable professionals

• How is it going?

Policy – The Dark Hole of Technology

• Setting reasonable technology policies– it not as

easy as it sounds to balance the needs and rights of the agency with user’s perceptions…

Managing expectations and communications …

• Setting expectations with the senior executives

and staff. The NCIS syndrome …

• We are not magicians; we are __________?
• We like to say: It is not technology, it’s culture!
• Struggling with the world of “Alternative Facts”

Help Desk and Security …

• Help Desk, Training, ‐ one of the more visible

metrics

• Cyber security – Surviving a ransomware attack

twice and other stories.

E‐mail, Web Resources and Software…

• E‐mail ‐ it was never designed to be used this way! Trying to

navigate from MS Exchange on premise to hosted services.

• My mailbox is full …
• Web resources – how to manage over 30 web page editors,

supporting multiple web sites and not spend any money, all at the same time.

• ShareFile and S‐Fax: two worthy applications
• IrfanView – my personal favorite.
• The role of Libre Office

Change and Transformation

• Change is threatening, it makes folks uncomfortable
• The greater the change the greater the discomfort
• Change can be overwhelming, some folks will tilt!
• Magic and Science … “Any sufficiently advanced

technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke

• Technologist are agents of change.

What to do next …

• Public Safety regionalization – if we could just get that

grant…

• IT architecture – consolidate those domains and

external access points

• Network monitoring – we have the software; now we
• nly need to make it work
• Expanding the technology footprint to serve the

county’s mission; where is the best ROI vs where can we do the most good. The often hidden indirect cost of technology

• An appropriate disaster recovery plan …

By Bill Harp, Director Bonner County Technology Department bharp@bonnercountyid.gov

The Evolution of 9‐1‐1 Technology and the Potential Role of a Collaborative, Multi‐ jurisdictional Public Safety GIS in Northern Idaho

Idaho Geospatial Council Bi‐Annual Meeting 1 November 2016, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

The Framework of the Next Generation of 9‐1‐1 Technology

• Multijurisdictional collaboration is critical
• Cell and smart phones change everything
• GIS and IP technology will therefore play an increasingly

important role in 9‐1‐1

– real time video, VoIP, photos, audio files and other forms of digital media at the PSAP – 9-1-1 calls come from cell phones more often than landlines. Even in Bonner County, which is pretty much a rural area, 70% of the calls are from cell phones. – major geospatial problem in correctly locating the emergency caller with a high level of accuracy and a high level of success.

Common Operational Picture

• Standard addressing

system, unified road names and precise jurisdictional boundaries for shared and collaborative situation awareness.

• “one map, one fight.”

GIS and Public Safety

• One of the key solutions can be solved by a

shared, multi‐jurisdictional GIS

• GIS increasingly important to agencies and

staff regardless of where your position in the decision making matrix

• Technologist at the table – a bridge too far …

A grant …

• IPSCC – Idaho Public Safety Communications

Commission

• An invitation to Boundary, Bonner, Kootenai,

Benewah and Shoshone counties and the Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls municipalities to participate

• Each jurisdiction would control their data and

updates and all jurisdictions would share and benefit from their work.

Project components …

• Esri’s ArcGIS Server
• Robust data server with redundant data drive arrays
• Ample connectivity to handle the public safety traffic.
• Hosted centrally to the participatory jurisdictions
• A designated location for fail over
• Application similar to the existing Bonner County

Interactive Mapping system use by the Bonner County 9‐1‐1 center and found at:

• http://maps.bonnercounty.us/apps/public/

By Bill Harp, Director Bonner County Government, Technology Department bharp@bonnercountyid.gov

Thank you …

Land Use in Bonner County