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Blount County IT to upgrade cameras, network switches and email; opens talks with schools on shared services
Summary
Blount County IT staff told the county IT committee they plan to replace the commission-room camera and monitors, replace aging network switches, raise internet bandwidth from 1 Gbps to 5 Gbps, and migrate email from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365; county staff also discussed early talks about shared IT services with Blount County Schools.
Blount County IT staff announced plans at an IT committee meeting to upgrade the commission-room camera system and monitors, replace aging network switches, increase county internet bandwidth from 1 gigabit to 5 gigabits per second, and move the county email system from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.
Justin McClure, Blount County IT staff, told the committee that the current single commission-room camera "is not a very good quality" and that the county will install a five-camera system that will "get a little bit closer, a better picture" of whoever is speaking. He said the existing monitors will be replaced with lower-profile, tablet-like monitors already on-site and that the full update will likely roll out in the next couple of months.
McClure described additional infrastructure steps: the county has evaluated a new brand of network switches, has purchased 10 units and installed four for performance monitoring, and plans to install the remaining units as older switches are retired. "Performance was great," he said of the tested switches. On internet capacity, McClure said the county currently runs a 1 gigabit link that serves the county, the 911 building, the sheriff's office, the City of Townsend and the East Tennessee Development District; he said the county plans to increase that to 5 gigabits per second as more projects come online.
McClure also said county IT has begun preliminary talks with Blount County Schools about shared services, including networking, cybersecurity and infrastructure support. He identified meeting participants as Justin Ridge (the school director) and John Herron (the schools' IT manager) and said "there'll be some more meetings coming in the future for that." McClure said he has assembled a team to help fill gaps in the schools' network and cybersecurity capacity.
On email, McClure said the county will transition from Google Workspace Enterprise to Microsoft 365 in a two-phase process intended to keep costs low and allow time for user training. "We'll take time with each user in each department to make sure they're trained up," he said.
A public commenter, Marcus, identified with the Daily Times, asked about the monitors in the commission room. "If the committee is hopefully going to address when the monitors will disappear and we can see your faces again, we would love to know about that," Marcus said; McClure's update indicated those monitor replacements are already on order and part of the upcoming camera/room refresh.
Procedural business at the start of the meeting included unanimous committee votes to set the agenda and to approve minutes from the Oct. 17, 2024 meeting. A motion to adjourn was made later in the meeting and the meeting closed.
The items McClure described were presented as staff plans and updates rather than actions requiring committee approval; the committee did not record formal votes on the IT purchases, bandwidth change or the email migration during this meeting.
