MONROE - The City of Monroe needs a computer system overhaul, sooner rather than later.
The city's technology advisory committee Tuesday recommended purchasing a centralized server, after being informed of the precarious state of data storage and back up.
The Finance and Taxation Committee is expected to consider the purchase next Monday. The cost would be less than $20,000.
If the purchase is approved by council, installation of the system could be done in about two weeks.
The city hired a new computer maintenance service provider, Computer Know How (CKH), Brodhead, which started its contract Jan. 1.
Rob Jacobson, committee chairman, said many problems were discovered during the initial system review in preparation for CKH.
"We fixed immediately things that could cause catastrophic loss," Jacobson said.
Chris Schilling, CKH co-owner and computer network technician, said the city's current server and system layout was "all over, everywhere, just a mess."
Jacobson called some areas of the system "disastrous" and said the city was "just lucky" it didn't encounter a major crash and loss of data.
Data backup systems were not working properly, and data could not be restored from backups. Backup drives were full and were "just running every night" without saving, Schilling said.
Schilling also noted defragging hard drives - collecting and organizing scattered pieces of a file to improve computer speed - were not being done, nor were auto-generated event logs that record computer problems being read.
The move of the Water Department computer system to City Hall in 2010 also was not completed properly, Schilling said.
Jacobson said the current main computer system server is 10 years old and has been poorly maintained.
"It became unreliable, and people were pulling back from saving to it," he added.
As a result, "data is scattered around on PCs (personal computers in individual offices) and not getting backed up," Schilling said.
Schilling confirmed that backups are now working and data can be restored. However, the backup system has "a multitude of failure points," said Jacobson.
City computers are running on multiple small servers, according to diagrams Schilling prepared.
Jacobson said a centralized computer system would "break down barriers and pull data together," solving many problems.
All city department information, except some police and fire data, would be connected to the system and to each other.
The committee recommended a server with various components, proposed and designed by Jacobson and Schilling. Members also recommended purchasing 16 terabytes of data storage. A terabyte (TB) is more than 1 trillion bytes, or 1,000 gigabytes (GB). One byte can store one keystroke.
Schilling also recommended the city eventually purchase a backup server for about $5,000. The server could automatically back up data every 15 minutes without using tapes and store the data to an off-site data center for a monthly fee. The smaller server could assume the role of server if the primary server ever died, with only an hour of down time to make the switch.
The city's technology advisory committee Tuesday recommended purchasing a centralized server, after being informed of the precarious state of data storage and back up.
The Finance and Taxation Committee is expected to consider the purchase next Monday. The cost would be less than $20,000.
If the purchase is approved by council, installation of the system could be done in about two weeks.
The city hired a new computer maintenance service provider, Computer Know How (CKH), Brodhead, which started its contract Jan. 1.
Rob Jacobson, committee chairman, said many problems were discovered during the initial system review in preparation for CKH.
"We fixed immediately things that could cause catastrophic loss," Jacobson said.
Chris Schilling, CKH co-owner and computer network technician, said the city's current server and system layout was "all over, everywhere, just a mess."
Jacobson called some areas of the system "disastrous" and said the city was "just lucky" it didn't encounter a major crash and loss of data.
Data backup systems were not working properly, and data could not be restored from backups. Backup drives were full and were "just running every night" without saving, Schilling said.
Schilling also noted defragging hard drives - collecting and organizing scattered pieces of a file to improve computer speed - were not being done, nor were auto-generated event logs that record computer problems being read.
The move of the Water Department computer system to City Hall in 2010 also was not completed properly, Schilling said.
Jacobson said the current main computer system server is 10 years old and has been poorly maintained.
"It became unreliable, and people were pulling back from saving to it," he added.
As a result, "data is scattered around on PCs (personal computers in individual offices) and not getting backed up," Schilling said.
Schilling confirmed that backups are now working and data can be restored. However, the backup system has "a multitude of failure points," said Jacobson.
City computers are running on multiple small servers, according to diagrams Schilling prepared.
Jacobson said a centralized computer system would "break down barriers and pull data together," solving many problems.
All city department information, except some police and fire data, would be connected to the system and to each other.
The committee recommended a server with various components, proposed and designed by Jacobson and Schilling. Members also recommended purchasing 16 terabytes of data storage. A terabyte (TB) is more than 1 trillion bytes, or 1,000 gigabytes (GB). One byte can store one keystroke.
Schilling also recommended the city eventually purchase a backup server for about $5,000. The server could automatically back up data every 15 minutes without using tapes and store the data to an off-site data center for a monthly fee. The smaller server could assume the role of server if the primary server ever died, with only an hour of down time to make the switch.