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COMBS Consulting Group | eGov Consulting Services | TelResources, Inc. Page i

Information Technology

Strategic Plan

Developed by:

eGov Consulting Services

Plan Years 20122016

2012 Plan Update

Plan Update: 31 May 2012


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Ector County

Information Technology Strategic Plan for 2012 2016

2012 Plan Update

eGov Consulting Services Page ii

Letter from County Commissioners

Dear Reader:

Thank you for your interest in Ector Countys technology direction.

The Information Technology Strategic Plan developed in 2011 has provided a technology

roadmap that advances us towards the future. The Plan was a snapshot in time; as deployment

has progressed the technology initiatives have been adjusted that take advantage of the

opportunities presented by the improvements in technology options.

The plan was approved in September 2011 and a series of projects were initiated to address

each of the Courts objectives. We have followed an implementation process that continuouslyevaluates the projects for the optimal technology, costs and benefits. The results of this process

have allowed us to reduce the plans Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while positioning Ector

County to take advantage of the emerging broadband wireless and internet based applications.

We are committed to the successful implementation of the Plan and accomplishing the

initiatives contained within it. These initiatives lay the foundation for the Countys future

technology use by streamlining our processes, solidifying our infrastructure and improving the

cohesiveness of our team.

We are always interested in your feedback, both corrective and complementary. Please forward

any comments you may have to Commissioner Dale Childers [email protected].

Again, thank you for your interest.

Regards,

Ector Board of County Commissioners
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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eGov Consulting Services Page iii

Table of Contents

SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1

1.2 ADDRESSING THE GOALS .................................................................................................. 1

1.3 PRIORITIZING THE INITIATIVES............................................................................................ 3

1.4 IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN................................................................................................. 4

SECTION 2: REALIGN IT DEPARTMENT WITH COUNTYS NEEDS 2012 GOAL UPDATE .......................................... 5

2.1 ITPLAN OVERVIEW......................................................................................................... 5

2.2 DEVELOP ITGOVERNANCE STRUCTURE AND PROCESS ............................................................. 5

2.3 REORGANIZE THE ITDEPARTMENT...................................................................................... 6

2.4 EXPAND THE ITSTAFF AND SERVICES................................................................................... 9

2.5 DEVELOP ITPOLICIES AND PROCESSES ............................................................................... 10

SECTION 3: SOLIDIFY AND PROTECT THE COUNTYS TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE2012 GOAL UPDATE .......... 12

3.1 ITPLAN OVERVIEW....................................................................................................... 12

3.2 ACQUIRE AND IMPLEMENT A SERVICE DESK TOOLSET ............................................................ 12

3.3 DEPLOY A STORAGE AREA NETWORK (SAN)/BACKUP SYSTEM.............................................. 13

3.4 DEPLOY A NEW NETWORK.............................................................................................. 13

3.5 BUILD-OUT NEW COMPUTER ROOMS AT THE ANNEX AND SHERIFF'S OFFICE .............................. 17

3.6 MIGRATE DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER ROOMS TO OFF-SITE MANAGED COMPUTING CENTER ........... 18

3.7 NEW VOICE OVER IPSYSTEM .......................................................................................... 19

SECTION 4: IMPROVE SERVICEABILITY OF COUNTYS APPLICATIONS ENVIRONMENT2012 GOAL UPDATE ...... 20

4.1 ITPLAN OVERVIEW....................................................................................................... 20

4.2 DESKTOP REPLACEMENT PROGRAM .................................................................................. 22

4.3 CONSIDER VIRTUAL DESKTOP .......................................................................................... 22

4.4 INTEGRATE GIS INTO COUNTY APPLICATIONS...................................................................... 23

4.5 RE-INITIATE THE DEPLOYMENT OF ODYSSEY COURT/PUBLIC SAFETY SYSTEM.............................. 23

4.6 CONSIDER THE MIGRATION OF INCODE TO A CLOUD-BASED ENVIRONMENT ............................... 24

SECTION 5: INVESTMENT UPDATES ..................................................................................................................... 25

5.1 OVERVIEW .................................................................................................................. 25

5.2 UPDATED IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE ............................................................................. 25

5.3 UPDATED CALENDARED INVESTMENTS............................................................................... 26


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eGov Consulting Services Page 1

Section 1: Executive Summary

1.1 Introduction

The IT Strategic Plan was developed through a consensus process with County Management, IT

Departments staff and IT Departments customers. The intent was to take a holistic, corporate

view of information technology for the County, in order to better understand how the IT

Department could best serve the Countys needs.

During the planning process, the Commissioners were interviewed individually to better

understand the direction that they wanted to set for the IT Department and information

technology in general. The Commissioners expressed their desire to see the following goals

pursued by IT Department:

Realign the IT Department with the Countys Needs

Solidify and Protect the Countys Technical Infrastructure

Improve the Serviceability of the Countys Applications Environment.

1.2 Addressing the Goals

A series of project initiatives were developed to support each of the Commissioners goals.

These long terms initiatives were designed to change not only what IT Department did, but howit did it. The goals and associated initiatives are:

Goal Initiative Description

Realign the IT

Department

with the

Countys Needs

Develop IT

Governance

Structure & Process

Establish an IT Governance Committee with authority

to determine the ongoing technology direction for the

County, associated charter, and processes for projects

and IT Department performance review.

Reorganize IT Implement the new organizational structure with job

descriptions that detail responsibilities.

Expand IT Staff and

Services

Add at least an additional four staff to the IT

Department. Provide for ongoing technology planning

support.

Develop IT Policies

and Processes

Develop and continue to refine IT processes to address

needs. Provide ongoing IT planning support.

Solidify and Acquire & Acquire and implement a toolset to be used by IT


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Protect the

CountysTechnical

Infrastructure

Implement a

Service DeskToolset

Customer Service to record incidents, track progress

and identify trends in order to continuously improveservice desk performance.

Deploy SAN/Backup

System

Deploy a storage area network (SAN) with a

supportable system that provides de-duplication

capabilities.

Deploy New

Network

Develop a new MAN/LAN, layer 4 transport, and

network management system Countywide.

Build-Out new

computer rooms at

the Annex andSheriff's Office

Build out new computer room capabilities, one at the

Annex to provide core communications functions, and

one at the Sheriff's Office to provide support for corelaw enforcement systems.

Migrate Distributed

Computer Rooms

to Off-Site

Managed

Computing Center

Consolidate all application servers throughout the

County, except CAD, to a single location; provide

managed services for backup, monitoring and alerting

in a virtual environment. Since the County is short 5 IT

Staff members, and users are requiring greater amount

of analytical support, the County should migrate the

support of the servers at County Annex, Courthouse,

and Sheriff's Office to an off-site hardened site. The

outsourcing would include the moving the distributedservers and new SAN to the off-site location and the

purchase of a new Core Switch, fiber network access.

This would allow IT to focus more on business analysis

functions rather than infrastructure support.

New VOIP System Network integrated Voice over IP system to replace

aging PBX once the maintenance contract expires on

the existing system and the County network

infrastructure is fully deployed.

Improve

Serviceability of

Applications

Environment

Consider migration

of Incode to a

Cloud-based

environment.

For the next four years, continue to operate

applications environment as currently configured.

Consider the deployment of cloud based financials once

the fundamental infrastructure is in place and the

applications environment fully matures.

Desktop

Replacement

Program (short-

Place all County desktop assets (desktops, laptops, in-

car computers) on a 4-year replacement cycle.


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term)

Virtual Desktop

Program (long-

term)

Consider migrating to a virtual desktop to minimize

desktop management requirements; purchase servers

to support virtualized environment.

Integrate GIS into

County

Applications

Utilizing the GIS infrastructure from Odessa, integrate

with County applications as possible.

Re-initiate the

Deployment of

Odyssey Court/

Public SafetySystem

Initiate project management over the Odyssey project

to get the project on course.

1.3 Prioritizing the Initiatives

Each of the initiatives was prioritized by the Court according to technical sequencing and

business need as shown below.


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1.4 Implementing the Plan

A detailed project plan was developed that incorporated resourcing and detailed project tasks.

The overall IT Strategic Plan Project Structure and May 2012 status is provided below.

Task Name % Complete Duration Start Finish

IT Strategic Plan Implementation 31% 722.25 days Tue 9/20/11 Mon 7/7/14

Project Kickoff 100% 0.25 days Tue 9/20/11 Tue 9/20/11

Monitoring, Planning and Management 58% 254 days Tue 10/4/11 Tue 10/2/12

On-Site 56% 254 days Tue 10/4/11 Tue 10/2/12

Ongoing Cutover Progress 62% 244 days Mon 10/10/11 Mon 9/24/12

Realign IT Department with County Needs 55% 479 days Tue 9/20/11 Wed 7/31/13

Reorganize IT 100% 21.75 days Tue 9/20/11 Wed 10/19/11

Develop IT Policies and Processes 100% 30.5 days Wed 11/30/11 Wed 1/18/12

Expand IT Staff and Services 62% 142.25 days Tue 10/18/11 Mon 5/14/12

Develop IT Governance 0% 61 days Tue 5/7/13 Wed 7/31/13

Solidify and Protect the County's

Technical Infrastructure22% 438.25 days Tue 9/20/11 Tue 6/4/13

Service Desk Toolset 100% 24 days Tue 9/20/11 Mon 10/24/11

Preliminary Network Design 100% 64.75 days Tue 10/4/11 Thu 1/12/12

Network Integrator Vendor Research 100% 14 days Thu 1/12/12 Tue 1/31/12

Detailed Network Design 67% 92 days Wed 2/1/12 Thu 6/7/12

IT Staff Office Requirements 0% 13 days Mon 7/16/12 Wed 8/1/12

Implement IT Staff Office 0% 85 days Thu 8/2/12 Wed 11/28/12

Deploy Physical Layer 0% 241.25 days Tue 9/20/11 Fri 8/31/12

Deploy Network Layer 0% 257.25 days Fri 6/8/12 Tue 6/4/13

Network Complete 0% 0 days Tue 5/28/13 Tue 5/28/13

Improve the Serviceability of the County's

Applications Environment32% 722.25 days Tue 9/20/11 Mon 7/7/14

Re-initiate Odyssey Deployment 37% 722.25 days Tue 9/20/11 Mon 7/7/14

Integrate GIS into County Applications 0% 154 days Tue 6/11/13 Mon 1/13/14

The following sections provide an update to each of the commissions goals.


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Section 2:

Realign IT Department with Countys Needs 2012 Goal

Update

2.1 IT Plan Overview

Many County IT organizations are undergoing a significant, strategic transformation to a

customer-focused service delivery organization. This requires that governance structures and

processes, organizational structures, sourcing methods and core policies and processes must be

reevaluated. This is accomplished through the initiatives included in this section:

Develop IT Governance Structure & Process Reorganize the IT Department

Expand IT Staff and Services

Develop IT Policies and Processes

2.2 Develop IT Governance Structure and Process

IT Plan Initiative

The County should establish an IT Governance Committee with authority to determine theongoing technology direction for the County, associated charter, and processes for projects and

IT Department performance review.

May 2012 Update

This initiative was postponed until the IT staff could be increased. The IT staff has been

operating with very limited staff due to staff resignations, illness and maternity leave. The

limited staff had capacity to only manage critical support calls. As of May 2012 the County has

hired an additional Help Desk Technician and the IT staff members that were out for illness and

maternity have returned. Once the core network is installed and stabilized the governance

structure will implemented.

Next Steps

Postpone the Governance process until the hiring of the IT Manager in Year 3 2014.


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2.3 Reorganize the IT Department

IT Plan Initiative

The County should implement the new organizational structure, shown below, with job

descriptions that detail responsibilities. This structure serves to:

Separate reactive functions (e.g., Customer Service) from pro-active functions (e.g.,

Technology Planning)

Provide a technology-oriented, systems capabilities-focused position that is responsible for

making activity happen on-time and on-budget within IT in the form of a project manager,

who is also a business-oriented and customer-facing

Provides formalized major applications support with within the IT Department

Provides professional network management and systems administration, including security,

and Isolates the triage mindset in Customer Service from the rest of the project-oriented IT

Department.

This organization assumes that the IT Department has made and is utilizing the necessary

operational improvements (e.g., Remote Control Software, Lock Down administrative rights)

and streamline key IT processes (e.g., Service Desk Management, Incident Management) to

allow the IT organization to operate more effectively.

The structure of the Information Technology Department is designed to support both strategic,

proactive activities as well as tactical, reactive activities. It will evolve over the first four years of

the Plan:

Beginning with a re-organization in Year 1

Hiring of the Infrastructure Support Supervisor and Odyssey Support Analyst in Year 2

Hiring of the IT Manager and the Applications Support Supervisor to support the new

financial applications in Year 3

The Year 1 staffing changes are illustrated below.


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Customer

Service

Supervisor

Technology

Planning

Help Desk

Technician

IT Manager

Help Desk

Technician

Systems

Administrator

Infrastructure

Support

Supervisor

Key

New Hires

Outsourced Function

Proactive Reactive

Contracts Management

Project Management

Business Analysis

Applications

Support

Supervisor

Odyssey Support

Analyst

Major Applications Odyssey Support

GIS Support

WEB-based Systems

Interface Development

Security Windows Server

Network/Storage

Colocation Site Help Desk

Technician

Commissioners Court

Ector County IT Staffing

Plan Year 1

May 2012 Update

The plan called for the re-organization of the department in Year 1 and hiring into the

infrastructure area in Year 2. The re-organization was completed by moving one of the Help

Desk Technicians to the infrastructure area as the Infrastructure Support Supervisor rather than

the System Administrator. The technician demonstrated the ability and commitment to

perform the position. However, during the transition all of the Help Desk Technicians were

unavailable due to resignation, illness, and maternity leave. The existing Customer Service

Supervisor was reassigned to support the Public Safety area. The focused support of the Public

Safety area proved to be beneficial due to the complexity of the law enforcement technology,

thus a Public Safety Service Supervisor position has been created to support the Sheriff and Jail

Complex.


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The following is the revised organizational structure implemented in Year 1.

Customer

Service

Supervisor

Technology

Planning

Help DeskTechnician

IT Manager

Help Desk

Technician

SystemsAdministrator

Infrastructure

Support

Supervisor

Key

New Hires

Outsourced Function

Proactive Reactive


Project Management

Business Analysis

Applications

Support

Supervisor

Odyssey SupportAnalyst

Major Applications

Odyssey Support

GIS Support

WEB-based Systems


Security

Windows Server

Network/Storage

Colocation Site

Commissioners

Court


Plan Year 1

Public Safety

Service

Supervisor

Public Safety End User

Dispatch, Jail and

Sheriff Operation

support

Administrative End User

Annex, Courthouse and

all non-public safety

support.

Help Desk

Technician

Next Steps

Create a permanent position for Public Safety Service Supervisor. Create a new System

Administrator position to support the new domain, email and server infrastructure. Transfer

one of the Help Desk Technicians to the Odyssey Support Analyst and provide them with

Odyssey training.

The Year 2 reorganization is shown below.


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2.4 Expand the IT Staff and Services

IT Plan Initiative

The County should add at least an additional four staff to the IT Department and outsource

ongoing technology planning support.

May 2012 Update

A new Help Desk Technician was hired and the other two Technicians have returned from sick

and maternity leave. They temporarily report to the Public Safety Service Supervisor until aCustomer Service Supervisor is hired.

Next Steps

Complete the hiring of the Customer Service Supervisor. Re-assign one of the Help Desk

Technicians to the Odyssey Support Analyst. Hire a Systems Administrator. Backfill the re-

assigned Help Desk Technician and have them all report to the Customer Service Supervisor.

Customer

Service

Supervisor

Technology

Planning

Help Desk

Technician

IT Manager

Help Desk

Technician

Systems

Administrator

Infrastructure

Support

Supervisor

Key

New Hires

Outsourced Function

Proactive Reactive


Project Management

Business Analysis

Applications

Support

Supervisor

Odyssey Support

Analyst

Major Applications

Odyssey Support

GIS Support

WEB-based Systems


Security

Windows Server

Network/Storage

Colocation Site

Commissioners

Court


Plan Year 2

Public Safety

Service

Supervisor

Public Safety End User

Dispatch, Jail and

Sheriff Operation

support

Administrative End User

Annex, Courthouse and

all non-public safety

support.

Help Desk

Technician


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2.5 Develop IT Policies and Processes

IT Plan Initiative

A recent research study1 used the concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM) to develop an

ITIL deployment roadmap that focused the key ITIL processes that most impacted customer

service needs. Those primary processes that are linked to providing optimized service request

fulfillment were:

Service Desk

Incident Management.

Additional ITIL Processes that support the operation include:

Network Management Security Management

Storage Management

The implementation of the Service Desk and Incident Management processes will have the

greatest effect on Customer Service and should be a priority for the IT Department. The IT

Department has very few replicable processes in place. However, due to its low turnover rate,

many of the processes are inherently performed by the IT personnel. The organization has

worked because the staff simply knows what to do. However, if the County has an increase in

turnover rate or explores alternate support and staffing options such as business process

outsourcing, it must address the lack of documentation of the process being considered for

outsourcing.

In a recent 2005 study2 conducted by the MIS Center for Information Systems Research (CISR)

of 90 outsourcing deals at 84 companies, CIOs showed much greater satisfaction with

outsourcing arrangements where the processes were well-defined and had clear business rules.

Nine out of 10 IT executives in the study reported success with their transaction outsourcing.

If the County chooses to outsource any functions, then the vendor chosen should be advanced

in their development and practice of ITIL processes. The County should be careful to choose a

vendor that has a mature process (i.e., documented process with available metrics on processperformance) in place.

1ITIL implementation roadmap based on process governance Dorota Nicewicz-Modrzewska, Przemysaw Stolarski,

Adam Mickiewicz University Computer Centre, ul. Umultowska 89a, Poznan, Poland,

2Simple Successful Outsourcing by Stephanie Overby, October 1, 2005 CIO Magazine


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May 2012 Update

With the deployment of the Service Desk software, the Service Desk and Incident Management

Process were codified and training was provided to the IT Staff and End-Users. In addition, asuper user and subject matter experts group was created to assist the Customer Service group

by distributing the problem resolution process. With the temporary vacancies of the IT Help

Desk Technicians and the lack of direct Customer Service Supervision performance statistics

have not been adequately maintained.

Next Steps

With the expected completion of the Local and Wide Area Network, the Network, Security and

Storage management processes will have to be developed in conjunction with the

Infrastructure Supervisor. Also once the Customer Service Supervisor is hired they will be ableto adequately track the support statistics, and manage the incident process with the super

users and SMEs.


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Section 3:

Solidify and Protect the Countys Technical

Infrastructure 2012 Goal Update


To best meet the rising demands of its customers and address the complexities of connectivity

required by the Countys enterprise applications, the County must solidify and protect its

technical infrastructure. This is accomplished through the initiatives included in this section:

Acquire and Implement a Service Desk Toolset

Deploy Storage Area Network (SAN) / Backup System

Deploy a New Network

Build-Out New Computer rooms at the Annex and Sheriff's Office

Migrate Distributed Computer Rooms to Off-Site Managed Computing Center

New VOIP System

3.2 Acquire and Implement a Service Desk Toolset

IT Plan Update

The County should acquire and implement a toolset to

be used by the IT Departments Customer Service to

record incidents, track progress and identify trends in

order to continuously improve service desk

performance.

May 2012 Update

Completed


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3.3 Deploy a Storage Area Network (SAN) / Backup System

IT Plan Initiative

The County should deploy a storage area network (SAN) with a supportable system that

provides for the safe and recoverable storage of the core applications (i.e. Odyssey and Incode)

May 2012 Update

The County has explored the use of Region SAN as a disaster recovery backup. However, the

County has also begun to explore the outsourcing of the core Tyler applications (i.e. Odyssey

and Incode) to a Tyler hosting facility. This would mitigate the need for an extensive SAN and

would delay the deployment to a limited outsourced SAN in Year 3 2014.

Next Steps

Pursue an Outsourcing contract with Tyler for the Odyssey system after completion of the new

network and of the Odyssey civil applications. This process could be initiated in Year 2 2013

and completed in Year 3 2014.

3.4 Deploy a New Network

IT Plan Initiative

The County should develop a new metropolitan area network (MAN) / local area network(LAN), layer 4 transport, and network management system Countywide.

This would include:

A Countywide MAN inter-connecting all major County facilities to the Annex (Network Core)

Standardizing and simplifying the network architecture and systems management by

initially integrating access switching, core switching, and eventually providing for server

virtualization, telephony services and building wireless access so that systems management

and security can be managed end to end.

Centralizing the network core on fault tolerant network switches Installing a new Data network at each County Facility supporting 10/100/1000 switched

Ethernet, supporting QoS.

The diagram below illustrates the conceptual design for the new network.


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The design called for the reuse of as much of the existing tower assets within Ector County,

including the use of City of Odessa towers. However, the City Odessa expressed concerns

regarding the loading stress on their towers. The County has had to build an extra tower in

order to obtain the appropriate line of site network connection.

The backhaul microwave network is shown below:


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Next Steps

Finalize network IP subnetting and switching design. Deployment is expected to be completed

in Year 1 by the fall of 2012.

A review of the legacy LMR radio infrastructure should be performed in Year 2 2013 in order

to verify integrity of the LMR system.


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3.5 Build-Out New Computer rooms at the Annex and Sheriff's Office

IT Plan Initiative

The County should build out new computer room capabilities, one at the Annex to provide core

communications functions, and one at the Sheriff's Office to provide support for core law

enforcement systems. This would include:

Upgrading the Annex computer room to house the network core and potentially the virtual

desktop servers. Although these items could be externally hosted, due to the fundamental

importance of the network and desktop management, the network core and the virtual

desktop environment (if implemented) should be internally hosted and managed at the

Annex.

Creating a single domain structure for all County users. Implementing a SAN and modernizing server platforms to blade systems at the Annex for

the core Odyssey applications. This will leave the existing distributed servers at the remote

locations until they are either migrated to the external computing center or consolidated in

the Annex computer room if an adequate external data center is not available.

May 2012 Update

The main computer room is being centralized at the Annex. This room was further evaluated

for adequacy of space to house the core switching and internet connection. New racks are

being deployed by JTS to house the new switching and wireless backbone interconnects.

The Sheriff Office was further reviewed for adequate computer room space. After reviewing

the existing computer room and the 911 room, the 911 room was selected due to space

availability, ease of interconnection to the critical servers, and reduced cost of installation.

The courthouse computer room, although inadequate from a wire management perspective,

will be continued to be used in the short term since the court does not want to make

substantial infrastructure investments in the Courthouse. The computer room houses the

Odyssey servers and switching. However, once the Odyssey servers are remotely hosted the

need for this room will be reduced.

Next Steps

Continue deployment of the new racks at each of the County facilities, verify cabling adequacy

replacing any bad cabling. This is expected to be completed in Year 1, second quarter of 2012.


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3.6 Migrate Distributed Computer Rooms to Off-Site ManagedComputing Center

IT Plan Initiative

The County should consolidate all application servers throughout the County, except CAD, to a

single location; provide managed services for backup, monitoring and alerting in a virtual

environment. Since the County is short IT staff members, and users are requiring greater

amount of analytical support.

In order to provide improve the level of systems management and overall support the County

could migrate the support of the servers to an off-site hardened managed data center site. The

migration would include:

Moving (or replacing as required) the remaining distributed servers throughout the county.

In considering the move of the servers to a potentially virtualized outsourced data

center, a server test bed would have to be created to verify with the applications

vendors those that could operate in a virtualized environment.

Purchasing, deploying and integrating a new core switch with the existing County network.

Deploying a new secondary storage area network (SAN).

Deploying a fiber network link from the Annex to the managed data center.

The outsourcing of these systems to an external site could then allow the IT Department to

focus more on business analysis functions rather than infrastructure support and provide the

County with disaster recovery site.

May 2012 Update

The outsourcing of these systems has been explored with Region 18. Region 18 will be

providing the core switching and fiber trunking between the Annex and their data center for

Internet access and offsite storage. This migration will allow Ector County to save the cost of

deploying a long haul fiber link and SAN storage. It will allow for the outsourcing of the

Odyssey and Incode applications to the Tyler hosting facility.

Next Steps

An overall migration of all of the Ector County servers will be reconsidered in Year 3 once the

WAN and Internet is deployed and the Infrastructure support staff is fully engaged to support

the existing systems. The County will also consider using Region 18 as an external SAN storage

host.


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3.7 New Voice Over IP System

IT Plan Initiative

The County should deploy a new network integrated Voice over IP system to replace aging PBX

once the maintenance contract expires.

May 2012 Update

This was planned for Year 5.

Next Steps

Continue with original plan strategy.


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Section 4:

Improve Serviceability of Countys

Applications Environment 2012 Goal Update


Ector County has traditionally had a siloed approach to its applications architecture, with

disparate applications used for most County functions and little integration between them.

Historically, systems were originally acquired based upon their ability to support departmental

needs; the systems acquisition process did not require the development of detailedspecifications against which all vendors would be evaluated, nor did it consider the wider

technology environment in which applications would be deployed and supported.

Two relatively recent acquisitions by the County have challenged the siloed approach: Incode

and Odyssey. These are state-of-the-art applications recently introduced to the marketplace

have the ability to integrate or interface to other systems; in fact, these fully integrated systems

are available that handle end-to-end functionality for key functional areas, such as County

operations and public safety. In addition, these applications have the inherent ability to

(a) leverage key data, such as GIS, that could be used to link disparate systems together, and (b)

streamline operational workflows for improved process efficiency when done in conjunction

with process re-engineering.

The future state of Ector Countys applications and their various interacts are illustrated below.


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4.2 Desktop Replacement Program

IT Plan Initiative

The County should consider investing in a multi-year budgeted desktop equipment replacement

plan, which, in the short term, would bring all the computers up to a capability that would

support Windows 7.

May 2012 Update

This project was postponed to Year 2 due to limited staff and lack of network connectivity to

deploy new software.

Next Steps

Deploy new workstations with Windows 7/Office connected to MS Exchange once the network

is completed.

4.3 Consider Virtual Desktop

IT Plan Initiative

The County should consider the deployment of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, which would

allow it to leverage the limited IT staff it has available for upgrades of hardware and software.

However this should be considered once the Countys network infrastructure is mature, the IT

staff is prepared to support the higher level of complexity, and the economics of the virtual

desktop environment is more favorable than the replacement of legacy desktop units.

May 2012 Update

The project was not planned until Year 4. With the delay of the desktop deployment this

project can be delayed to Year 5.

Next Steps

Continue with plan strategy for Year 5 implementation.


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4.4 Integrate GIS into County Applications

IT Plan Initiative

The County should begin development of its GIS capabilities in cooperation with entities in the

area that share similar geo-codes (e.g., City of Odessa). To do this, the County must acquire

industry standard GIS software, i.e., ESRI and integrate it with the Odessa GIS Server.

May 2012 Update

This project has been postponed to Year 3 due to lack of network connectivity an effective

Odyssey implementation.

Next Steps

Deploy in Year 3.

4.5 Re-Initiate the Deployment of Odyssey Court/Public Safety System

IT Plan Initiative

The County should re-evaluate the Odyssey deployment, including:

Reviewing functional requirements and acceptance criteria to determine original functional

needs.

Reviewing Tyler deliverables to date and how they met the acceptance criteria. Reviewing the project management and governance methodology to determine functional

decision making process and progress to date and path forward.

May 2012 Update

All of the plan initiatives were completed. The next steps were further reviewed with the

Council of Urban Counties (CUC) in order to determine the cost estimate for resolving the

existing deployment issues. In addition, the Ector County court staff was engaged and trained

on the use of the Odyssey system. As of this update the Court Staff is coordinating with IT to

schedule a business workflow review of the civil processes. As of this update a date has not

been agreed by the Court staff.

Next Steps

Finalize date with court staff to perform business workflow review. Obtain detailed cost from

Tyler to resolve deployment constraints. Implement required changes to the civil systems in

Year 2 2013 and the Criminal Systems in Year 3 2014.


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4.6 Consider the Migration of Incode to a Cloud-based Environment

IT Plan Initiative

Continue to operate with the existing version of Incode. Consider the migration of Incode to a

Cloud-based Environment as the application and County network infrastructure matures.

May 2012 Update

The Incode migration to the Tyler hosting site was explored and the feasibility verified.

Next Steps

Complete network/internet deployment as well as Odyssey migration to the Tyler hosting site.

Continue with the original plan for deployment in Year 4.


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Section 5:

Investment Updates

5.1 Overview

This section details the calendarized investments for the implementation, both one-time and

recurring, and the related implementation schedule for the initiatives described in the plan.

5.2 Updated Implementation Schedule

The following reflects the timeline updates to the Strategic Plan.

Year 1

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Year 2

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Year 3

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Year 4

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Year 5

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Develop IT Governance

Goal 1: Realign IT Department with County Needs

Reorganize IT

Expand IT Staff and Services

Develop IT Policies/Processes

Goal 2: Solidify and Protect the Countys Technical Infrastructure

Service Desk Toolset

Deploy San/Backup System

Deploy New Network

New Data Centers

Migrate Computer Rooms

New VOIP System

Goal 3: Improve the Serviceability of the Countys Applications Environment

Migrate Incode to Cloud

Desktop Replacement Program

Virtual Desktop Program

Initiate GIS

Re-Initiate Odyssey Deployment


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5.3 Updated Calendared Investments

The 2012 updated calendared investments, both one-time and recurring, are shown in the

diagram below. The original plan forecast is also shown for comparison.

2012 Calendared Investments

Original 2011 Plan Calendared Investments

$0

$200,000

$400,000

$600,000

$800,000

$1,000,000

$1,200,000

$1,400,000

1 2 3 4 5

Years

One-time

Recurring

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 TotalOne-Time $1,384,445 $1,308,376 $482,938 $135,100 $1,000,100 $4,310,959

Recurring $18,767 $585,328 $1,176,660 $1,250,460 $1,300,460 $4,331,675

TOTALS $1,403,211 $1,893,704 $1,659,598 $1,385,560 $2,300,560 $8,642,633

Calendari zed Investment

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Total

One-Time $1,811,500 $365,235 $2,390,000 $340,000 $725,000 $5,631,735

Recurr ing $49,000 $628,905 $859,105 $710,105 $903,855 $3,150,970

TOTALS $1,860,500 $994,140 $3,249,105 $1,050,105 $1,628,855 $8,782,705

Calendari zed Investment