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Accomplishments Report - 2000 , " 2000 ACCOMPLISHlvlENTS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT' 1. Distribution of Antivirus Software. Early in the year, we .licensed Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition software to be able to distribute the Antivirus signature definitions to all , networked servers and Personal Computers (PCs). For all of our locally networked servers and PCs, the anti-viru's software and signature definitions were distributed with minimal problems. We did have trouble getting the anti-virus software and signature file definitions distributed to our wireless clients and ';\le have worked on resolution of that problem. In May, when the "Love Bug" virus was being automatically sent worldwide, we had sig~ature definitions to catch the "Love Bug" virus. This is because we updated our signature definition files once per week. We did get infected with a very new iteration of the "Love Bug" virus, but the damage caused was minimal because of our alert staff reactions and our backup and recovery procedures. . , j As a result of our experience with the "Love Bug" virus, we increased the frequency for downloading virus signature definition files off the Internet to daily. Each morning at 8:30, we automatically download new signature definition files from the Norton Antivirus Web Site and then start pushing the new signature definiti~m files out to all our networked servers and PCs. The other steps taken as a direct result of our experience with the "Love Bug" virus was to educate all of our client personnel about the correct use of e-mail and what to look for as far as potential e-mail viruses. Part of the education was'to show our client personnel how to check to make sure the signature definition files on,their PC were the most current. We also made sure all our client PCs have current Antivirus software. We continue to experience e-mail virus attacks. Thus far our Antivirus software has caught and quarantined every occurrence. The frequency with which new viruses and new iterations of "old" viruses are being sent out means our network will probably be infected again. We have taken every.precaution we know about and we continue to do the research' for new ways to protect our networks. Pagel of 6 ., 2000 ACCOMPLISHMENTS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT .. 2. Internet Development. At the start of 2000, the City of Salina only had a small Internet presence and Saline County had none. We worked on both Internet sites throughout the year and the City's. web site has gained more functionality. For example, the City's employment application is available on the web site as well as building permits. In each case, the document can be completed online, printed out, then delivered to the appropriate City office. The Household Hazardous Wastes web site is just in its early developmental stages and is using a unique approach for the site. The Development Services web pages are new and contain several 'Pieces of helpful information for our citizens. The County Web site was completely developed this year. The Planning Department has been most aggressive in getting their information published on the web site. The Planning Department ~ists Board of Zoning Appeals and Planning and Zoning Commission Minutes and agendas back to 1991. County Personnel posts job openings similar to the City's job postirigs. The County Commission. Minutes are posted back to 1996. 3. Upgrade to Public Safety and Court Software to Version 4.8. The actual upgrade to the Version 4.8 of New World Systems (NWS) software happened on December 5, 1999. Throughout the year 2000 we were working with the Police Department, the Saline County Sheriff's Office, Municipal Court and District Court to resolve program and data problems. This required daily calls to NWS, which continued for most of the first half of the year. After the initial problems were finally resolved, NWS personnel continued to work with the Computer Technology staff and the Municipal Court staff to resolve the data problems caused by the upgrade. The upgrade was continually worked Page 2 of 6 2000 ACCOMPLISHMENTS . -! . . . . . COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT on throughout the entire year and took considerable resources to get to a state of comPletion. 4. Change to Microsoft Office Software. This project started in 1998 with a pilot project to test the feasibility of changing the desktop software to Microsoft Office 97. During the year of 1999, the Computer Technology staff worked on getting all Saline County offices changed over to Office 97 and trained on the software. During the year 2000, our concentration was t'o get all City of Salina offices changed to Office 97 and trained on the use of the software. During the 4th Quarter of 2000, we completed the last City office over to exclusive use of Office 97. For the first time, we are standardized on one desktop software. . The City will benefit through a reduction in the amO\lnt of time needed to' support the software applications and it should increase our productivity because of the.number of people who know the same software. 5. .Upgrade to New AS/400. . The upgrade to the new AS/400 was more complicated than appears. The newer models of the AS/400 have a completely different architecture, so additional planning and work was required to make the transition. Using the tools IBM supplied, the installation of the programs and files on the new AS/400 went smoothly. With input from our effected client departments, we developed a schedule for the transition of the programs and files. Throughout the months of January and February, we had applications running on both AS/400s. This was necessary because of the length of time needed to transition the programs from the "old" AS/400 to the new AS/400. By the end of February, we had all the applications on the new AS/400. 6. Image Enable the County Tag Office. Page 3 of 6 " 2000 ACCOMPLISHMENTS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT . The Tag Office was running out of floor space needed to store their copy of the receipt printecl as part of the vehicle .license tag renewal process. We talked to one of our AS/400 software vendors and they told us about a Computer Output to Laser Disk (COLD) application that the Ellis County Tag Office was using. Personnel from the Tag Office and Computer Technology Department made a trip to the Ellis County Tag Office to see what they were doing and get enough technical specifications so we Gould duplicate the solution in Saline County. The CULD solution w(lsimplemented in the Saline County Tag Office on the first of l'v1arch, 2000. Now all receipts printed by the Tag Office personnel have an image captured and saved on disk. During the off hours, those images are burned to the laser disk file on the AS/400 for permanent storage. The receipt file storage problem faced by the Tag Office was solved by.the solution. . 7. Fiber Installation. At the start of the year, we did not anticipate the amount of fiber we were going to be able to get installed. The one project we had appr<;>ved was the overhead fiber run from Fire Station # 1 to the Household Hazardous W astes b~ilding. We already had an underground fiber running from the Hollsehold Hazardous Wastes building to the VVater Distribution Warehouse. The installation of the overhead fiber resolved . the wireless transmission problems we were experiencing from the VVater Distribution Warehouse. During the last half of the year, General Services started experiencing wireless transmission problems. We tried several solutions, but none resolved the transmission problems. The decision was made to extend our overhead fiber installation to General Services. That work was completed during the last of September and the General Services offices were immediately switched over. The installation of the fib~r completely resolved the General Services transmission problems. Late in the year, the decision was made to add the new Animal Shelter to our networks by use of underground fiber. The Gen~ral Services.personnel trenched from the Animal Shelter to the Water Distribution Warehouse and ran a conduit between the two buildings. A vendor then installed the fiber. The Animal Shelter was immediately operational on our networks. Page 4 of 6 2000 ACCOMPLISHMENTS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT 8. Renovation of Computer Room. Our Computer Roon: was setup for one computer system and the three air conditioning units were old and starting to need constant repair. In addition, the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) was at the point of being overloaded. Aplan was developed to completely renovate everything' possible s9 we would have a Computer Room with growth potential. A completely new electrical supply was run from the basement and all breaker boxes were located inside the Computer Room. The old air conditioning units were removed from above the suspended ceiling and were replaced with a air system that heats, cools and humidifies, as needed. The old UPS was replaced with a new one with a much larger capacity. All cabling was organized and put into overhead cabling trays. A new network workstation was installed to make working on the numerous file servers a much easier task. Once completed, the renovated Computer Room is a place where staff can work effectively and efficiently. , 9. Database Develop~e~t. In 1999, we did a lot of database development because the ones being used were not thought to be Year 2000 Compliant. As a res,ult of the work we did for many of our client departments, they requested additional database develbpmentduring the subsequent year. We found that we could aut,omate several functions for our client departments and give ther,n a software product they liked and had ownership in: 10. Server Upgrade. The server upgrade was planned for 200 I, but the reliability of our Exchange Server became so questionable, that the decision was made to upgrade our server in: 2000. We accomplished several things with the server upgrade: Page 5 of 6 2000 ACCOMPLISHMENTS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT (1) We upgraded our primary server to a faster model and increased its disk capacity. (2) We upgraded our Exchange Server to a newer and faster model and increased its disk capacity. (3) We increased the disk capacity on the server used by our CriminaI.]ustice client departments. (4) We ended up with a server we could use for an SQL server. This type of server is. needed to do network management functions. We accomplished all these improvements by purchasing one server and. several disk drives. The changes should give us the server capacity and speed to last.for a couple of years. At that time we can evaluate and potentially make a similar upgrade. Page 6 of 6