Streamlining IT Infrastructure and Security During a Multi-County Merger

Consulting Solutions

A large county government passed a referendum to hire a Chief Information Officer (CIO) and unify the Information Technology (IT) departments of seven different county agencies into one organization. Involta won a bid from the county to define the roles and responsibilities of the CIO position and then lead the efforts to select potential candidates. Throughout this project, Involta counseled county leadership and identified additional projects where Involta could provide value.

Outcome Summary

  • Involta contracted for more services including technical and project management and a full security assessment
  • Involta disaster recovery services implemented
  • Involta engaged in long-term relationship as a trusted advisor and council

The Challenges

Full IT infrastructure assessment on seven county agencies

Involta was contracted to perform a full IT infrastructure assessment for each of the seven county agencies to detail the existing environments and provide a report for the new CIO. Involta reviewed the computer, network, storage and telephony infrastructure for each agency to determine capacities and identify redundant resources. Involta provided a report detailing the IT infrastructure for each agency along with recommendations for consolidation and configuration enhancements to improve operational efficiencies.

Licensing redundancies, inconsistencies and critical security issues

It was discovered that many of the agencies were managing virtualization environments based on the same products resulting in hardware and licensing redundancies. Each agency had its own separate Active Directory instances, completely separate from the others with no trusts. A different storage and backup solution was implemented for each agency with little or no reporting. There was no consistency in networking gear with each agency fielding hardware from different manufacturers. There were no formal IT management processes in place. All of the agencies reviewed had potentially critical security issues. 

The Transition

New CIO hired 

The candidate that Involta recommended for CIO was selected by the county’s IT council board and hired.

Migration strategy provided

Involta architects worked very closely with the new CIO to review the data from assessment reports and provided a strategy for migrating the IT infrastructure and operations from each agency to a central location.

The Outcomes

Involta provides technical and project management resources

As a result of this, the county contracted Involta to provide technical and project management resources to perform the migration and consolidation tasks. Involta was also contracted to perform a full security assessment.

Involta disaster recovery solution implemented

The CIO recognized that the best location to move its production infrastructure would be to an Involta data center. However, the county had recently made a significant investment in one of its own computer rooms. Understanding this, the CIO engaged Involta to provide a disaster recovery solution that would be located in an Involta data center with the intent to eventually host production there and use Involta’s facility for disaster recovery.

After receiving the proposal and seeing how cost effective it would be, the CIO now wants to revisit having production hosted at Involta and believes the county IT board will agree.

Ongoing advisory and council

Involta continues to work with the county as a trusted advisor and council on IT projects and planning. Involta staff are now included in a weekly status meeting with the county’s IT leadership to work through challenges as the county progresses toward its consolidation goals.

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