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County CIO lays out push to modernize IT: softphones, VDI and stronger data classification
Summary
Casey Rostenberg, the county CIO, told the board that centralized IT has produced economies of scale and proposed shifting to virtual phone and VDI/cloud device management to cut costs, while emphasizing 24/7 resiliency and ongoing cybersecurity and data-classification work to prepare for AI and analytics.
Casey Rostenberg, identified in the workshop as the county chief information officer, told the board that consolidating IT services has enabled more affordable technology across departments and outlined near-term modernization steps.
Rostenberg said the county manages about 17,000 devices and proposed replacing many desk handsets with a virtual softphone solution to save both hardware and labor costs. He also said the county will evaluate VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) to reduce the number of expensive laptops and PCs, estimating potential reductions of "5 to 10,000" devices in some use cases.
Cybersecurity and data classification were emphasized as continuous priorities. Rostenberg said the county maintains 24/7 monitoring and must better understand where data resides and who has access to it before scaling analytics or AI. "Data classification... is important because data provides us with a lot of information," he said, noting that classification and retention policies will support compliance and future analytics work.
Rostenberg framed these steps as part of a resiliency and availability priority that helps departments deliver services to residents, and said the county should proactively move away from aging copper-based circuits as private providers change their networks.
