City IT staff told the committee that virtualization licensing, backup and cloud‑migration costs are rising sharply and that the city must replace end‑of‑life storage arrays (SANs) in 2026 or adopt a hosted disaster‑recovery alternative.

The IT presenter said the city’s VMware licensing costs have spiked from roughly $1,800 a year to about $28,800 under new Broadcom pricing and that Veeam backup and cloud modules and other security tools are also increasing. “What used to be…$1,800 a year expense is now $28,800,” the IT staff said, describing Broadcom’s change in VMware licensing and the consequent pressure to move workloads to cloud services.

IT staff said the city operates two aging SANs that vendors will no longer support after August 2026 and that a like‑for‑like SAN replacement following the city’s current architecture would cost about $121,000. As an alternate path, staff described a hosted disaster‑recovery arrangement with a local data center operator that would replicate key systems off‑site and run the city’s virtual servers for about $23,300 per month, providing immediate failover if the on‑site data center were disabled.

The presenter also noted persistent issues with the city’s fiber ring and local switch architecture that leave several offices unable to reach the emergency communications center if DPW loses power; staff proposed adding five network switches and improving UPS/battery backup at DPW and city hall to reduce that single‑point vulnerability. The IT briefing also referenced Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) guidance: staff said Section 13 of CJIS now requires disaster recovery planning and that the city must attain compliance within two years.

Why it matters: the city’s on‑premises data center faces both equipment obsolescence and sharply higher licensing costs. IT staff recommended either replacing the SANs and upgrading network resilience now or buying hosted disaster recovery while continuing a phased cloud migration. No formal procurement decision was made; staff said the technology commission and council would be engaged on strategy and timing.