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County IT proposes $347,000 Barracuda renewal with added cloud backups; staff cite three‑year savings
Summary
IT staff recommended a three‑year renewal of Spokane County’s Barracuda email‑archive service with added Microsoft 365 cloud backup and Entra identity backup for a total contract of about $347,000; staff said the package saves roughly $42,000 over three years compared with the current mix of services.
County IT staff briefed commissioners on a proposed three‑year contract renewal with Barracuda for email archiving, plus optional services to back up Microsoft 365 content and Entra identity configuration.
Sean, the IT presenter, said the Barracuda platform archives about 24 million county emails annually and is used to gather records in response to public‑records requests. The proposed contract would include email archiving ($220,000), Microsoft 365 cloud backup (roughly $80,000) and Entra ID backup (about $46,000), for a combined contract amount of roughly $347,000 (tax included). Sean said the county already budgets about $252,000 for IT in 2026 and $54,000 for metallic cloud backup, and that staff would use prior‑year savings to cover the difference.
Sean argued the combined package provides immutable point‑in‑time restoration and identity backups the county currently lacks, and estimated about $42,000 in savings over three years compared with maintaining the current systems separately. Commissioners asked clarifying questions about vendor cost increases, Microsoft price changes and timing; IT said hardware and cloud costs are rising and staff are pursuing bulk purchasing where feasible.
Next steps: staff asked the board to approve the contract for placement on the legislative agenda and to proceed with the recommended procurement.
