Franklin County plans IT spending increases for ransomware protection and higher hardware costs
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Summary
IT staff told supervisors that hardware and maintenance costs are rising due to global RAM and GPU demand driven by AI, and recommended keeping immutable backup storage despite a $5,000 maintenance increase to guard against ransomware. The county is also evaluating a Metronet fiber offer as a potential third network link.
Franklin County’s IT director warned supervisors on Jan. 25 that the cost of computer parts, maintenance agreements and disaster-recovery services is climbing, driven in part by AI-related demand for memory and graphics processors.
Why it matters: Rising IT costs affect the county’s operating budget and its ability to protect data and maintain essential services. The county emphasized investment in immutable backups to reduce ransomware risk.
Speaker 8 described how global demand and supply-chain issues have pushed up the price of RAM and graphics cards and said maintenance and licensing agreements are also increasing. On disaster recovery, Speaker 8 explained that immutable backup storage prevents backups from being altered or encrypted by attackers: “Once that data gets written to that server, it physically cannot change. It is immutable once it gets written there,” the speaker said, arguing the $5,000 per-year maintenance increase is still cheaper than replacing the device.
On connectivity, IT staff said the county’s current mix of hardwired connections and radio/dish links provides redundancy but reported a Metronet fiber proposal that would offer greater speed at a lower introductory price than one incumbent vendor; staff said they are weighing stability and service guarantees against cost savings.
What happens next: IT will continue to include the immutable-backup maintenance cost in next year’s operating plan, track vendor offers for a third Internet link and provide final pricing so the board can weigh tradeoffs between reliability and throughput.
