Title
City-County Shared IT Data Center
Memorandum
The City of Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County IT departments regularly collaborate on how to best provide services to their customers. As an on-going part of this work, an opportunity was identified to operate in a shared IT data center. The City and County have been working collaboratively to make this opportunity a reality.
During the month of February 2009, staff will be moving the county equipment into the City's IT data center, located on the first floor of City Hall. This consolidation is occurring for several reasons: 1) Washtenaw County faced structural and environmental deficiencies in their existing County IT data center; 2) there are prohibitive costs associated with retrofitting the existing county space or building a new IT data center; and 3) a consolidated data centers positions both organizations to be able to reduce operational costs and improve service delivery.
This memo is intended to make Council aware of this effort and to inform Council that the City is entering into a Data Center Licensing Agreement which will give Washtenaw County IT employees access to a portion of the City's IT data center since it is necessary for them to provide service to their constituents. In addition to paying a license fee, the County will also pay a proportional percentage of the data center utility fees. Furthermore, Washtenaw County funded renovations and increased electrical and environmental (HVAC) capacity changes required as part of the consolidation.
After the shared data center is operational, the staffs will be looking for opportunities to implement shared infrastructure strategies, which should result in reduced operating costs, improved service delivery, and the standardization of common IT infrastructure services.
Staff
Prepared by: Dan Rainey, Director, Information technology Services
Reviewed by: Tom Crawford, CFO and Financial & Administrative Svcs Administrator