Wisconsin Counties
Logicalis helped the IT departments in four Wisconsin counties
collaborate on a disaster recovery plan that protects their data
and saves taxpayer dollars at the same time.It began as a conversation. Wayne Sleeter, Steve Hansen and Dean Marzofka, the IT directors of three Wisconsin county governments frequently mused among themselves over ways they could collaborate with each other to save tax payer dollars and still improve the quality and security of their IT services. They all relied on System i servers (the successor to the AS400) from IBM, and they were all responsible for providing the same types of services on limited budgets.
The idea of collaborating made for an interesting discussion, but until the Green Bay, WI offi ce of solutions provider Logicalis (formerly Computech Resources) was invited to join the conversation, the discussions usually ended with lunch and everyone went back to his respective county; leaving the question what would happen if any of their data centers were wiped out by some natural disaster left unanswered.
One day Sleeter brought an engineer from Logicalis with him to lunch and the conversation took a new turn. Logicalis had sold each of the three neighboring counties their servers over the years and understood both what the counties needed and what IBM’s System i servers were capable of delivering.
Secure Partitions
In particular, System i servers can be divided to create entirely separate and secure partitions. Each county, as a result, could conceivably establish partitions on its server that could be used as a backup for its neighbors. They’d have to agree to certain standards, and there would be some networking issues to resolve, but it could be done.
Then, if one county suffered some kind of natural disaster, all it would have to do would be to connect with another county across a VPN and it would be back up and running in two or three days—not terribly fast, admittedly, and not exactly leading edge technology, but it would work. And it was affordable.
Hmmm.
The conversation between IT directors became much more focused after that meeting. Because they were essentially all on the same platform, the technical issues were manageable. They had to all agree to keep their systems at an established standard, and they had to maintain VPN access and, of course, make it possible for partner counties to perform a tape backup on their servers.
“Logicalis provided us with the missing link between an expensive high end solution and one that the counties could afford,” Hansen says. “We couldn’t have done it without them.”
It was such an appropriate use of technology that the elected offi cials in each county were easily able to justify spending the money to make it happen. All the counties agreed to a “memorandum of understanding” drafted by Hansen that spelled out the standards.
Real Value
When it came time to upgrade its server to the agreed upon standards, Sleeter says Logicalis engineers identifi ed disk drives, controllers, network cards and other parts from their old AS400 system that could be stripped and reused in their new 5095 expansion tower. “Logicalis helped us with the whole process,” he says. “It’s good to be able to partner with someone like that.”
“Logicalis is the common ground for all of us,” adds Marzofka. “They maintain the table for our ongoing conversations, if you will. I can’t say enough good things about them.”
The goodwill between counties is spreading. Sleeter’s Oconto County, Hansen’s Shawano and Marzofka’s Marinette County have each tested their systems together, and Langlade County has joined the memorandum of understanding. The original members don’t want to see their partnership expand too broadly, but other counties are already copying the model they have developed and are implementing it on their own with their neighbor counties.
Encouraged to further collaboration the founding partners, according to Hansen, have also launched a “mini consortium” called Northeast Wisconsin Government IT (NEWGIT) that facilitates more ongoing conversations between Wisconsin county IT managers.
