For City Council Meeting [July 9, 2019]
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
APPROVAL: Rod Foster, City Administrator
FROM: Jessica Brown, Finance Director
Title
Request City Council to 1) Approve the Purchase and Implementation of Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise License City-Wide Through the Cooperative Agreement with Dell (0365 CSP) and 2) Authorize the Issuance of a Purchase Order to Dell in the Not to Exceed $100,000 for Fiscal Year 2019-2020.
(ACTION)
Body
BACKGROUND
Through the City of Rialto’s Information Technology Services Division, nearly 400 City employees are provided technology support services including email. Due to unfortunate systematic concerns of the City’s exchange server, City users have experienced continuing email delivery issues due to various database stability concerns.
A database specialist was deployed from Presidio, a current City information technology consultant, to analyze the situation and provide corrective action as required due to the highly complex nature of the server and its database.
As of the posting of the agenda, the last City users are being re-established email access and remaining database stability issues will be corrected subsequently. In order to ensure the most up-to-date and easily manageable information technology system, staff recommends the upgrading to Microsoft Office 365 and the utilization of cloud-based services on a go-forward basis.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION
Microsoft Office 365 is a line of subscription services offered by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Office product line. The brand encompasses plans that allow use of the Microsoft Office software suite including Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint over the life of the subscription, as well as cloud-based software as a service product for business environments, such as hosted Exchange Server (email services), Skype for Business Server, and SharePoint, among others. All Microsoft Office 365 plans include automatic updates to their respective software at no additional charge, as opposed to conventional licenses for these programs-where new versions require purchase of a new license. The Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise plan also includes unlimited email storage, data loss prevention and compliance, and in-place hold and litigation hold. Additionally, the Microsoft Office 365 has a reported 99.9% uptime.
Per the City’s Purchasing Ordinance Section 2.48.210, “Piggybacking”, the City is procuring the software and support services through the Cooperative Purchasing Agreement with Dell 0365 CSP (Cloud Solution Provider), a VAR (Valued Added Reseller). Dell’s offering is the same as the O365 Microsoft direct portal or through volume licensing, but bundled with onboarding, activation, administrative guidance, email migration assistance (for applicable plans), as well as ongoing Dell support. Customers have 24/7 access to engineers for support (both the admin and end user would be able to call in for support as needed). The City is opting for a monthly plan at this time, which will allow the City to customize the services at the user level, and easily increase, decrease, or change the selected plan at any time. At the point in time that the City has fully customized the required services, an annual purchase order will be obtained. Monthly Plan Terms:
1. Only actual number of users will be migrated and be billed on a monthly basis.
2. Enables the City to customize on-going required services and submit changes by the 25th of each month throughout the life of the contract.
3. Billing will be reflected annually based on the city’s actual user number.
4. Each user will have 100 GB of email space and 1TB of data storage. Which equates to 440TB of storage space. Eliminating the need to purchase an additional storage device and a new server/software system upgrades.
5. System is fully scalable for future growth.
Pending Council authority to proceed, the Microsoft Office 365 upgrade will be initiated over the weekend of July 12. Once complete, our system will be improved to a more user-friendly platform and, any remaining data issues will be corrected on a case-by-case basis ensuring that the City’s information and record is maintained.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:
The request is not a “Project” as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Pursuant to Section 15378(a), a “Project” means the whole of an action, which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. According to Section 15378(b), a Project does not include: (5) Organizational or administrative activities of governments that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment.
GENERAL PLAN CONSISTENCY:
This action is consistent with Guiding Principle 3A in the General Plan:
Our City government will lead by example, and will operate in an open, transparent, and responsive manner that meets the needs of the citizens and is a good place to do business.
LEGAL REVIEW:
The City Attorney has reviewed and approved this staff report.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
Operating Budget Impact
All quotes and pricing of required equipment and upgrades were obtain through the Purchasing Division using industry standard procurement methods to obtain the most competitive pricing available. The amount not to exceed of $100,000 is available and budgeted in account 780-500-2152-3030.
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1) Approve the Purchase and Implementation of Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise License City-Wide Through the Cooperative Agreement with Dell (0365 CSP).
2) Authorize the Issuance of an Annual Purchase Order to Dell in the Not to Exceed $100,000 for Fiscal Year 2019-2020.