Title
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Authorizing The Appropriate City Officials To Issue The Attached Purchase Order Between SHI Corporation And The City Of Hollywood For The Purchase Of A Hosted Microsoft E-Mail Solution With Three Years Of Maintenance For An Amount Of $228,000.00 For Year One And $170,000.00 For Years Two And Three.
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Staff Recommends: Approval of the attached resolution
Explanation: The City of Hollywood is utilizing Microsoft Exchange 2010 as its e-mail server solution, which was released in the year 2010, and the City migrated to it in 2011. Microsoft has ceased its mainstream support for Exchange 2010 on January 1, 2015. E-mail has repeatedly been identified as a critical operational service for all departments and migrating to this solution will provide the City with a fault tolerant option for e-mail. This purchase will circumvent the immediate purchase of updated licenses, as well as about seven (7) servers which would have to be periodically replaced and are currently due.
As part of this migration, the City’s Intranet site will also become fault tolerant and City staff will be able to remotely access files through OneDrive for Business. The implementation of OneDrive for Business will also alleviate the file sharing dilemma with individuals external to the City by providing a managed solution where the City can retain control. As the first step in a preparation plan for ERP implementation, this migration will allow the City to keep a critical resource for communication and ERP processing continually upgraded and protected and compatible with a modern financial system.
The City also had the option to incorporate a continually upgraded licensing solution for its desktop and laptop operating systems at this time, at an estimated three-year cost of $300,000.00, but opted to forego it in light of limited resources. There is a potential for this upgrade in the future as the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system has also passed its mainstream support date and will need to be upgraded to continually receive support and protection from cyber-attack threats.
This hosted e-mail server solution excludes upgrading the on-premise licensing for Microsoft Office 2010, however, staff will have access to the web-based versions of Microsoft Office 365 (including, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and can utilize them to create, edit, and share documents for City usage in the same manner as the City's pending purchase of a web based ERP system.
Recommended for inclusion on the agenda by:
Dr. Wazir Ishmael, City Manager
George R. Keller, Jr., Assistant City Manager/Finance & Administration
Raheem Seecharan, Director Department of Information Technology