Much of the costs associated with a “technology roadmap” for 2013 to 2016 involve “sustainment and modernization investments” to get older infrastructure and assets up to snuff, as well as spending on “building blocks” necessary for the city’s so-called Service Ottawa initiative and future eGovernment projects. Streamlining under Service Ottawa makes it easier for residents to do more city business online and is meant to save about $6.6 million a year overall.
“With a focus on exploiting the Internet and improving interaction with citizens and access to services via broadening the channel options, the city is expecting that this approach to eGovernment will result in improved operational performance, citizen satisfaction and achieve a higher level of confidence and trust in the city as a public institution,” the city staff-written document states.
The roadmap acknowledges that systems put in place during amalgamation are reaching the end of their lives, “meaning that replacement of the city’s fleet of servers, desktop/laptop computers and network infrastructure must be modernized to support the city’s business transformation initiatives and directions, and provide a sustainable current and future technology platform,” chief information officer Rob Collins states in a message at the beginning of the document.
Just as the city must catch up and maintain other physical infrastructure such as roads, parks and its fleet, “it is vital to continue these investments to ensure continued delivery of major city service accountabilities,” Collins states.
The roadmap sets out another $2.3 million over four years for “strategic initiatives” that involve new technology or “best practices” aimed at improving performance and user experience as well as saving money. They include measures such as creating a device management strategy for tablet technology and consolidating desktop software.
On the replacement and upgrade side, the city has more than 11,000 desktop and laptop computers that must be replaced when they reach the end of their lives and are no longer covered by warranty, for example. Staff are looking to replace 1,250 computers in 2013, after changing up about 1,750 desktop PCs and 400 laptops in 2012, according to the report.
The city’s information technology services department also supports about 59 “business suites”, or groups of tools and applications that work together to perform a function, along with 235 independent applications.
More than 90 of the applications have reached the “end of technical life”, the roadmap says, which means they’re written in technologies that are more than eight years old and no longer have support from the vendor, and that there are fewer people internally who provide support and outside help is limited and expensive. They can’t be enhanced and there’s more of a risk that they won’t work with newer versions of hardware and software.
Other technology must similarly be updated or replaced, according to the roadmap. The costs associated with investments it recommends are to be considered at budget time each year.
For 2013, there’s about $11.5 million in related capital spending proposed in the draft budget — about $10.6 million for maintenance and upgrades, and $910,000 for the strategic initiatives.
City council’s IT subcommittee is to discuss the plan next Monday.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Neco Cockburn
Quelle/Source: Ottawa Citizen, 12.11.2012
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