HomeMy WebLinkAbout7-Consideration of the Purchase of a Virtual Desktop SystemAgenda Item # 7
CONSENT
To:
Board of Directors
From:
Ian Fitzgerald
Date:
October 02, 2013
Subject: Consideration of the Purchase of a Virtual Desktop System
1. WHY THIS MATTER IS BEFORE THE BOARD
Board approval is required for expenditures in excess of $15,000.
2. HISTORY
The District has traditionally purchased individual desktop computers for each
employee. Each desktop computer costs approximately $600 to $10,000 depending on
the employee work assignment and task requirements of the computer. Currently, the
District has 75+ desktop and laptop computers in service today.
The District has also contracted with Black Diamond Computers to build and maintain
these computers. Usually, the computers are replaced on a three year cycle. The
result is a high cost for continuous building, maintaining, and upgrading of terminals
and software. In addition, most computers run different versions of critical software
applications and operating systems, increasing the complexity and time to maintain
each unit.
The concern of maintaining such a large number of differing computer resources is the
potential for cyber security attacks. Over the last 2 years, the District has experienced
a number of virus attacks. The impact to the District is a loss of production and
increased costs for staff and contractors to track down and repair affected computer
resources.
3. NEW INFORMATION
The District has built a robust foundation of computer technology. Today's
advancement in computer speed, shared resources, and centrally managed cloud
services has brought back the ability to serve desktop computer use through managed
terminal services.
The benefits of Virtual Desktop technology include:
- Cyber security hardening;
- Reduced downtime due to viruses;
- Reduced software corruption downtime;
- Desktop maintenance reduction up to 90%;
- Consistent software and operating versions across all platforms;
- Login anywhere ability for every employee; and
- Centrally managed, nightly security updates.
To deploy the proposed Virtual Desktop environment, two separate purchase contracts
are required.
The first contract is with NetXperts in the amount of $45,357 plus tax. The
purchase is for 2 blade servers, 2 VMWare Hypervisor OS licenses, and 1 Citrix
VDI-in-a-Box software license. This purchase will take advantage of existing
switch, data center, storage, and off -site replication infrastructure already in use
and utilizes California Multiple Award Schedule (CMAS) pricing. The State of
California government competitively bids products and services through the
CMAS contracts. Local governments, including the District, are eligible to take
advantage of CMAS pricing per State Codes. In addition, District Code Section
3.08 allows for the purchase of goods and services from State and Federal
Government competitive bid schedule programs.
The second contract is with Dell, Inc for Microsoft Enterprise Licensing
Agreement in the amount of $17,681 plus tax. This purchase will provide the
basis for the District's critical software layer, ensuring sameness and the latest
security technology across all employee users. The software includes Windows
OS, MS Office, Email Exchange, Email Protection, Central Security Services,
and VDI Thin Client OS. The Microsoft purchase is reduced by using existing
licenses for upgrade credit instead of full purchases. Software Assurance is
included in this purchase, allowing for future software upgrades, security
upgrades and software support. Cost for the Enterprise Agreement is set by
Microsoft, and vendors selling the product for Microsoft, as extensions of
Microsoft, are unable to change these costs.
4. FISCAL IMPACT
Sufficient funds exist within the approved Electric Capital Replacement Fund for this
project.
5. RECOMMENDATION
a) Authorize a purchase contract with NetXperts for Virtual Desktop equipment,
software and services for $48,000 plus a 10% change order allowance of $4,800
for an amount not to exceed $52,800 plus tax.
b) Authorize a purchase contract with Dell, Inc. for the software and support for
$17,681 plus a 10% change order allowance of $1,768 for an amount not to
exceed $19,449 plus tax.
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Stephen Hollabaugh
Assistant General Manager
Michael D. Holley
General Manager