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County IT reports cloud phone migration, server upgrades and move into former ATS facility
Summary
IT staff reported a year-end review showing completed projects, a migration to Cisco WebEx calling (cloud telephony), eDoc server updates, access-control improvements at EMS, and relocation of IT operations to the former ATS building on Texas 105.
Washington County’s information technology staff delivered its quarterly technical report on Feb. 18, describing completed projects, multi-year work in progress, and operational changes.
Mister Harris reported the county completed a multi‑year migration of the telephone system to Cisco WebEx Calling, converting an on-site call manager to a cloud-based service. He said that change preserved much of the county’s existing phone hardware, reduced dependence on analog lines (about 54 lines previously used for fax, alarms and similar systems), and moves outside telephone lines toward SIP-based cloud services to add redundancy and reduce annual costs. Harris said the migration will be managed as an ongoing subscription (operational expenditure) rather than a single capital purchase.
Other completed items included upgrading an eDoc server from an end-of-life version of Windows Server and adding access-control integration for bay doors at an EMS facility so door status and control are manageable through the county’s access-control system.
Harris said IT will cut over to a new service-management system (Zoho) at midnight on a forthcoming Friday to improve ticketing and reporting. He reported metrics: about 18 projects in flight, a 50% project completion rate for the reporting period, and a 67% increase in completed project hours year over year because of the nature of projects completed.
He also reported that IT moved operations into the former ATS building at 2509 Texas 105, gaining about 50% more space and room for equipment storage and bench stock; IT staff coordinated with records staff about moving records into other space to enable the relocation. The report noted site uptime and an outage record for one EMS site where failover protected operations.
Harris’s summary outlined planned budgeting changes (a five-year equipment refresh cycle), ongoing migration of SIP lines to the cloud to reduce single-point-of-failure risk, and a focus on increasing customer survey response rates on service tickets.
