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Flathead County IT reports domain migration complete, firewall problems and tight Windows 11 timeline ahead of 911 cutover
Summary
IT Director Justin Miller told commissioners the county completed a domain migration in March, is replacing firewall equipment after a failed cutover, plans to migrate FECC into the county domain, and must upgrade many machines to Windows 11 before a New World dispatch cutover in September.
Flathead County IT Director Justin Miller told the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that the county finished a domain migration in March, has finalized licensing plans, and is working through a problematic firewall replacement while preparing for a tight Windows 11 upgrade schedule tied to a dispatch software cutover.
Miller said the domain migration completed in March and that licensing needs for fiscal year 2026 have been finalized, enabling the county to eliminate duplicate software and begin migrating remaining public calendars department by department. “Our domain migration was successfully completed in March,” he said.
Miller described an attempted firewall replacement on May 15 that caused outages for online tax payments and other services; the team reverted to legacy SonicWall equipment while troubleshooting with the vendor. “The firewall equipment is sort of the table in that game. And so when you bump things or you move things at the bottom, if you don't get it right, everything falls,” Miller said.
He said the county is hiring additional IT staff, including a recently started tech support specialist (May 19) and a 9-1-1 technology program manager who began the day before the meeting, and that radio communications administrator interviews are underway.
Miller also briefed commissioners on a domain change for the FECC 9-1-1 center: the center’s current flathead911.mt.gov address will be moved under the county domain to flatheadcounty.gov to comply with state restrictions and to allow cross-organization calendar sharing and resource booking.
On desktop upgrades, Miller said the county is upgrading Windows 10 machines that can run Windows 11 and is preparing options because the New World dispatch system cutover is planned for September while Windows 11 support sunsets in October. “We have a super tight window, and we're gonna have multiple options to get us where we need to go,” he said.
Miller said the IT team is assembling a 10-year roadmap that will incorporate FECC projects; he expects to present the roadmap to the county administrator and commission staff in July or August.
