The city of Puyallup nearly doubled its computer server storage capability recently.
“We lucked out because it was gradually getting worse,” said Ron Tiedeman, city director of IT and communications.
At the end of last year, the city’s storage area network was causing the city e-mail system to crash for hours at a time, making it unusable and requiring staff to dig through old ways to receive and process data.
But it wasn’t just about e-mail. The system provides support for billing statements, planning, budgeting, criminal databases and internet services.
The lost time in processing information could be costly to the city, said City Manager Gary McLean. In January, the city council approved the replacement of the storage area network.
“We don’t buy it just because we think it’s a neat thing to have,” he said. “Having the internet up is like having the lights on, people expect it to always work.”
Time is money and the city focuses on buying systems that save time, McLean said.
The city’s previous system was 1.8 terabytes. A terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes or 10 times the storage capacity of a computer with 100 gigabytes.
The new server has 2.4 terabytes.
In January, when Tiedeman went to the council for approval of updating the server the server was more than three years old and at about 95 percent capacity. The city server, a storage area network, does everything from store data to run software applications.
Days after council approval, the e-mail system failed again for about four hours. The information technology department immediately accelerated implementing the new storage area network by transferring data and applications from the old server.
“Technology it means well, but it doesn’t always act well,” Tiedeman said.
City staff process about 3,500 to 4,000 e-mails a day and there are more than 380 users on the system.
Technology like e-mail has become a norm in how people contact city staff and how city staff communicate to each other.
“A lot of people would rather send an e-mail than talk on the phone,” Tiedeman said.
It’s an expectation that the city use more efficient ways to connect with residents, McLean said.
Regularly updating systems provides reasonable access to information via the Web site or city e-mails, he said.
Over the last five years, the city has developed a budget system to phase in new equipment, McLean said. Depreciation of software and hardware is assessed, as well as needs for systems.
For example, a computer that is five years old may not be able to support new software or process information in a manner expected or needed.
“We have to plan for that and we’ve built our budgets around that reality,” McLean said. “Like other budget items it’s something the council has to weigh and it’s decision making.”
Replacing the old server cost about $54,000, with the city saving some money on installation by trading in the old server, Tiedeman said.
“With a dollar amount like that you can’t afford to change it out every two years,” he said.
The new storage area network provides safeguards to protect information from computer failures by duplicating data the city processes.
That way if the hard drive of a single computer goes out the information is not difficult to recover or worse unrecoverable.
It also allows the city more flexibility and adaptability in adding new capabilities.
“We have been trying to head in a direction that better serves the users and the residents,” Tiedeman said.
One of those directions will be the use of online permit access for residents sometime this spring, he said.
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