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Approve a 5-year agreement with ConvergeOne for procurement of hardware, software licenses & maintenance and professional services for the Solano County’s on-premise Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure upgrade in the amount of $2,137,350; and Authorize the Chief Information Officer to execute the agreement and any future amendments and change orders up to 15 percent of the contract amount within annual appropriations
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Published Notice Required? Yes ____ No _X _
Public Hearing Required? Yes ____ No _X _
DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION:
The Department recommends the Board of Supervisors:
1. Approve a 5-year agreement with ConvergeOne for procurement of hardware, software licenses & maintenance, and professional services for Solano County’s on-premise Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure upgrade in the amount of $2,137,350; and
2. Authorize the Chief Information Officer to execute the Agreement and any future amendments and change orders up to 15 percent of the contract amount within annual appropriations.
SUMMARY:
The VoIP telecommunications system that the County relies on for voice/fax/voicemail services is obsolete and currently beyond its vendor supported useful life. The software and hardware that supports this system must be upgraded to provide highly reliable communications services.
As previously reported at the May 7, 2019 Board of Supervisors meeting, the County has opted to cease implementation of a cloud-based hosted communication system in favor of modernizing the existing on-premise VoIP systems. As part of the report, it was noted that the cloud-based hosted communications system will not meet the functional needs of the County and will cost more to operate than a comparable on-premise system. Annual cost savings from license/maintenance attributable to continuing an on-premise VoIP system is estimated at $232,000 annually.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) was published soliciting bids from suitable vendors to provide software, hardware and professional services for the on-premise VoIP upgrade. The costs calculated to upgrade and then maintain an on-premise solution are less than the costs to implement and then maintain a cloud-based solution. Furthermore, it is expected that the upgrade on-premise solution will continue to meet the functional needs of the County. It is therefore recommended to reinvest in our on-premise VoIP telecommunications system.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
DoIT is recommending selection of ConvergeOne as our on-premise VoIP upgrade and implementation partner with a contract not to exceed total cost of $2,137,350 to upgrade the on-premise VoIP system and then maintain it for five years. This contracted cost includes both professional services to aid with software and hardware upgrades to modernize the datacenter architecture required to run the VoIP solution.
One-time costs to upgrade: $248,357.54 (FY 2018/19 encumbrance)
Annual maintenance costs (five-year term): $377,798.40 (first due in FY 2019/20)
The VoIP Telecommunication service provides enterprise level functionality to all County staff and the costs to support this system are attributable to all departments. Sufficient appropriations remain in FY 2018/19 in Services and Supplies and Asset accounts to encumber contracts for the one-time costs for the upgrade. Ongoing annual license & maintenance costs as part of the 5-year contract is included in the FY 2019/20 adopted budget and will be included in future fiscal year proposed budgets.
The costs associated with preparing the agenda item and RFP are nominal and absorbed by the department’s FY 2018/19 Adopted Budget.
DISCUSSION:
The Department of Information Technology (DoIT) initiated an RFP to solicit bids from suitable vendors to upgrade its obsolete phone services and technology. The Board approved the publication of RFP at its May 7, 2019 meeting. DoIT received the bids from suitable vendors on May 29, 2019.
The goal of the project is to upgrade our on-premise VoIP infrastructure to a reliable and supportable hardware and software with vendor support. Since the project will be to upgrade the existing on-premise solution, there are no expected process changes and the goal is for the change to be transparent to the users, significantly saving time and resources otherwise needed for re-training the staff.
As the current system is currently past its vendor supported useful life, this upgrade will minimize the risks of service disruption by re-establishing contracted vendor support for this critical element of our IT infrastructure. The estimated timeline to complete the on-premise upgrade of the VoIP solution is less than six months from project initiation. Project initiation is currently estimated for July 2019.
ALTERNATIVES:
The Board could choose to not authorize the Chief Information Officer to proceed with executing an agreement with ConvergeOne, however, this is not recommended. The existing VoIP infrastructure is running on un-supported hardware and with expired software licenses. Vendor support of the hardware and software is critical in providing un-interrupted service to the County users. The Department may not be able to support the existing VoIP infrastructure including the software without hardware refresh and software license renewals.
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
County Counsel and General Services Administration Procurement teams have been involved in reviewing the published RFP and the Agreement for this contract and approves it as to the form.
CAO RECOMMENDATION:
APPROVE DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION