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Department Name: Enterprise Technology Services Department (ETSp)
Project Name: Distributed Regatta Platform: Systems Administrators, DBA Staff
Project Amount: $300,000
Preparer;Name & contact Information:
Peter Deckers, Distributed Systems
ETSD; (305) 596-8498
Ivan Rodriguez, DBA
ETSD; (305) 596-8960
Project Type:Enterprise
(Please Chose One — Enterprise, Communities of interest, Department Speciific)
Funding Source: GF Capital
(Pleese Choose One — GF Operating",zGP Capital, IT Administrative Fee, ProprietaryOperating/Capital).
andated Requirement:;Yet, This initiative is aligned with the "Departmental Business Plan and, Outlook° for
Ip goal: "Capitalize on technology to Improve service, increase effcienoy ,", Outcome ES4.l (User.friendly
government sharing information..), which defines th()Vgal.dr Portal'Services, as well asOutcorme ES4 2
available, reliable' systems), which includes the rollouts and supportof the. EAMS and ERP applications. T`he
ountyv Manager stated "we must use technology in a;sound business,.manner toprovide customer serulce at
lower costs."` This request for two :(2) systems administrators and one () DBA will provide the needed staffing
to,support the growing Regatta Distributed Platform presence in theCpun ty. Regatta supports the
requirements of enterprise -wide initiatives that must reside on an Enterprise: Wide :IBM AIX/Unix platform,
Needed 1s'quarter:of FY0405
(If yes, please indicate who is mandating the. request as'well"a the time frame)
Section A
Background
'Provide any relevant background "Information to include ";existing investments in the proposed project, include:
anyinformat►on relevant to why this is a mandated project:
To deliver more efficient and responsive customer service, to consolidate IT assets, and to develop an ASP
(Application Service Provider) model to support enterprise -wide initiatives, the Enterprise Technology
Services Department was tasked with establishing a standard server platform and infrastructure to support
24x7 online e-government services for the residents of Miami -Dade County and Enterprise Information
Technology solutions for Miami -Dade County. The specific goals of that new environment were to;
• Support existing online e-government services
• Enable the in-house hosting of the county's web portal (www.miamidade.00v)
• Facilitate consolidation of existing distributed servers
• Deploy enterprise -wide applications using a shared services approach
• Create a Staging Integration Production (SIP) environment for countywide technology developers.
As technology is a key component of supporting and delivering critical government services to the community,
ETSD plays a leadership role in terms of research and analysis of all relevant technologies. Working with the
office of the CIO, ETSD Divisions and various county departments, ETSD collaboratively led an initiative,
which ultimately resulted In the acquisition of three (3) Enterprise IBM Regatta platforms that currently
supports Staging, Integration and Production environments for Portal applications, all environments for M-
DWASD PeopleSoft CIS enterprise and environments for Secure Access Gateway (SAG), EAMS, ERP and
Cognos. Additional environments for CAMA, SYST, Portal and Cognos will be added this fiscal year.
Project Justification Document - Funding Application 2/25/2004 11:50 AM Page 1/3
Information Technology Business Case
This request is for staffing originally requested when the Regatta platforms were first planned. However, due
to budget and funding issues as well as the quick turnaround needed for deployment of the Regattas, the plan
then was to divert existing systems administrators from other tasks in order to quickly roil out the three (3)
Regattas and later request separate funding (this request) to bring in the necessary staffing.
Systems Administrators and DEAs configure on the Regattas the operating systems, database and network
environments, and support the deployment of applications such as ePermitting, OCL, SIP, and prepare It to
host the County's Internet WEB Portal application. Industry standards, as defined by the Gartner Group,
quantifies adequate staffing ratios for the AIX/Regatta environment on the basis of one System Administrator
per eight (8) LPARs (logical partitions). Today, the County has over 100 LPARs to support meaning that
approximately 13 subject matter experts are required. Existing staffing levels however stands at eight (8)
FTEs (full time equivalents). This request will help close that gap.
ProblemStatement
Define the problem, need, or opportunity.
The County has embarked on the consolidation of servers and development of new services on the IBM
Regatta AIX Unix platform. Since this decision three (3) distinct Regattas providing Application and Database
services have been Implemented. This year, the County is also forecasting the acquisition next fiscal year
(FY05) of a fourth Regatta, which indicates the growing demand for services in this area and thus the
justification for adequate staffing.
This year the County Portal will also be transferred to sustain operations locally. Additional staff is required to
support the more than 48 planned partitions in support of major County initiatives on this platform. Staffing had
to re -assign from other duties supporting the Sun Microsystems platforms, WASD CIS application, etc., in order
to support the initial rollout of Regattas. Now, these Regattas must be administered on a 24X7 basis and as
new applications are planned, the job of the DBAs and Systems Administrators grow. These workloads cannot
be satisfied by existing staff thus approval of this request is required.
Since the Regatta has proven itself to be a reliable platform for the County's Enterprise applications, ETSD has
been receiving numerous requests for additional Enterprise applications to be put on the Regatta, which will
require new LPARs (Logical Partitions), memory and processors along with receiving requests from current
Enterprise applications for additional LPARs memory and processors needed for growth. As more and more
applications are Implemented, they each require support by expert system technicians in order to facilitate the
24X7 operation of those applications as well as serve to provide upgrades, fixes and repairs to the software
systems and hardware as required. Additional staff is required to support the over 48 UNIX partitions on the 3
Regattas. These partitions will or are supporting operations for the County Portal, CAMA for Property Appraiser,
County -Wide Asset Management, the New ERP system, current WASD CIS operations and a multitude of other
production and development efforts.
Solution
What is the proposed solution?
Acquire the minimum required expert staffing to support the growing workload. This solution will not only meet
the immediate needs of the existing workloads but it will also help support the additional and expanded
Enterprise applications planned for the Regatta In FY 0405 such as Accela, Cognos, EAMS and ERP.
Expected Benefits t Direct Payback
State the benefits of solving the problem or reaching the goal.. Hints: 'How the project will reduce costs
(perhaps from reducing redundant tasks such as data entry), better decision making at each step of a process
(perhaps due to more accurate and timely information), or improved efficiency (thanks to fewer' steps to process
a transaction).
Specify collective benefits and identify benefits that are specific to each stakeholder. Wherever there are
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Information Technology Business Case
4
metrics (numbers or targets) for Improvement, be sure to include them. Examples: "Reduce communications'
costs by 20%" or `increase revenues by $1,340,500 in fiscal year 2007.
The continued operation of the Enterprise applications depends upon having enough i_PARs, memory and
processors available for daily production, staging and integration. This request will allow ETSD to provide the
necessary staffing to help reconfigure all the Regattas to provide the needed Regatta resources required by the
enterprise -wide applications.
Section B
(Complete Only If Asking for Revenue from GF Capital or IT Administrative Fee)
improves: Customer Service
Describe how the other customer departments will be better served by implementing this initiative:.
In FY0405, both new and expanded enterprise applications are being requested for the Regatta platform,
which will benefit many County departments: Some of these applications are: expansion of Cognos Data
Warehouses, EAMS and ERP and installing Accela (Inspection and Code Enforcement system for Fire and
DERM). Without these resources, any enterprise application expansion could not proceed without impacting
other critical services.
Impact to Citizens
Describe how this initiative will s!mplify or en'hance:doing business with:' the County Also. state how this„will
enbence public percepilon
Adding the required personnel will allow for efficient 24X7 support of the required expansion of the Portal
application, which provides the citizens WEB access to County services. This work entails reconfiguring the
Regattas and assigning additional processors and memory, work done by System Administrators and DBAs.
Improves Business Processed
S# fs ho this.,project will lower,costk speed up ,key businessproses es, arld/or improve 0041on making
ability. Also.indlcato if ti)e initiative will improve erripioyee.morale, communlcatlon, and/or education
Will provide the necessary support to meet the growth of Regatta resources required for use In the daily
business processes.
Strategic Alignment to the Coun;ty's Goals
Describe how this IT Investment lines up withthe realization of the County's goals and objectives.
This initiative is aligned with the "Departmental Business Plan and Outlook" for ETSD, goal: "Capitalize on
technology to improve service, increase efficiency..", Outcome ES4-1 (User friendly e-government sharing
information.), which defines the goal of Portal Services, as well as Outcome ES4-2 (Available, reliable
systems), which includes the rollouts and support of the EAMS and ERP applications. The Regatta
infrastructure, which thls Initiative will expand and support, will be the platform of choice for all three
applications (Portal, EAMS, ERP).
In addition, this request will allow the delivering of more efficient and responsive customer service, to
consolidate IT assets, and to develop an ASP (Application Service Provider) model to support enterprise -wide
initiatives (eg., Portal, EAMS, ERP), met by the IBM Enterprise -Wide AIX/Unix platform, which Is a County
standard. This investment will be a part of that platform that supports our Enterprise applications.
Departmental Participation
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Information Technology Business Case
State if this project crosses departmental boundaries. indicate how many other departments will participate in
the initiative, Please specify which departments and funding commitments if any:
Other departments such as M-I]WASD and the Property Appraiser provide the necessary funding to procure
the Regatta system/HW resources necessary to run their individual applications. Staffing is provided by the
enterprise. Inquires have also been received from the Clerk of the Courts about the possibility of moving their
SPIRT application to the Regatta platform and is being reviewed by ETSD.
FRisks' .
Indicate any risks involved to include procurement delays, personnel delays; and environmental delays to
include change of Technology, vendors, etc;
Not being able to support the Enterprise applications with the Regatta resources required for their growth can
cause a severe Impact to all daily business functions depending on the Enterprise -Wide infrastructure to run
their business.
4se:P an.Fhterpr'lse Irifrastruaure
Will this solution utilize, an enterprise infrastructure already in place (yes or no Please explain.
Yes, enterprise applications are currently utilizing the IBM Enterprise -Wide AIX/Unix platform, which is a
County standard and this is just a request for an additional Regatta needed for both growth of and new
enterprise applications.
Section C
Financial Information
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