Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ict Plan topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee endorses city's first five-year information-technology plan; members press for deadlines and metrics
Summary
The committee moved the five-year Information and Communications Technology plan forward after a presentation by the Department of Technology; supervisors pressed for concrete timelines, consolidation criteria and a Wi-Fi rollout plan with prioritized sites.
The Budget and Finance Committee voted to send the city's first five-year Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plan forward with a recommendation after a presentation from Department of Technology Director and Chief Information Officer John Walton.
Walton described the plan as a citywide strategy (not a DT-only plan) that highlights ten strategic initiatives including Open Data (Open SF), enterprise application consolidation, data-center virtualization, citywide broadband/Wi-Fi in public facilities, enterprise agreements, security, and pilots for voice-over-IP. He emphasized that the plan is intended as a living strategic document and said COIT (the City's IT steering committee) will track progress and report to supervisors.
Supervisors asked for firmer deadlines and measures of accountability — citing projects that have been on city lists for years (email consolidation, data-center consolidation, and a long-running justice system project). Supervisor Hsu asked how the plan will ensure projects actually get done; Walton said COIT and its project-review process will press departments and that every project on the appendix is flagged for consolidation review. Supervisor Kim asked for a prioritized list of Wi-Fi sites and a rollout timeline; Walton said the steering committee has prioritized sites and expects to bring some online in the coming months, aiming to deploy several sites every quarter.
The committee approved sending the ICT plan forward with recommendation and asked staff to provide the prioritized Wi-Fi site list and clearer implementation milestones.
This discussion included technical questions about procurement, open-source options and pilot projects for virtualization and VoIP; Walton said the department has policies encouraging open-source evaluation in RFPs and has piloted virtualization to save costs.
