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County IT to repurpose $60,000 switch budget for jail virtualization cluster; UPS replacement bid underway
Summary
Muscatine County IT staff told supervisors Feb. 3 that $60,000 budgeted for a switch refresh may be used instead to replace an undersized virtualization cluster serving the jail (estimated cost about $57,580). Staff said four to five switches are nearing end-of-support and the county will continue with planned UPS replacement bids.
County information-technology staff reported Feb. 3 that capital funds budgeted this fiscal year for network switches may be redirected to replace a virtualization cluster serving the jail after system growth exceeded earlier projections.
"They just grew faster than we anticipated in the five-year window of time that we had allotted for that," said Bill, an IT staff member (first name used in the transcript), describing why a cluster replacement is now the higher priority. Bill said the county had budgeted roughly $60,000 for switches; preliminary quotes for an appropriately sized cluster are about $57,580.
Bill said only four or five of the county's switches appear most vulnerable (layer-3 switches that are more expensive), and those have lifetime warranties on parts; he does not expect an immediate catastrophic failure but said the hardware is seven years old and will require monitoring. He also said the county is out for bid to replace a large uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and expects vendor work on some issues this week.
If the county must reallocate funds this year, Bill said he may return to the board for a budget amendment; alternatively, the county could use remaining capital dollars to replace one or two switches if needed. Supervisors asked to be notified of budget implications and said prioritizing the jail cluster was reasonable given urgency and uptime concerns.
No formal board action was taken during the report; staff will continue the procurement and bring any funding amendment requests back to the board if necessary.
