Primary Department: Universal Services
Primary Department Head/Elected Official: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director and CIO
Managing Department: Universal Services
Managing Department Head/Elected Official: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director and CIO
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Investment Memo
Investment Memo Type: Final Investment Memo
Project Name: Mission Critical Systems to Cloud Disaster Recovery Infrastructure
Project ID (if applicable): TBD
Vendor Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWBE Current Achievement (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A - Not a grant item
Incremental Authorization Requested: $896,400
Total Estimated Project Cost: $3,750,000
Request Summary:
title
Request for approval of the Final Investment Memo for the Mission Critical Systems to Cloud Disaster Recovery Infrastructure project for an initial authorization of $896,400 and request for commercial paper funding in the amount of $900,000.
end
Project Description:
This project is for Mission Critical Systems to be replicated in the Information Technology Disaster Recovery Cloud environment as a redundant backup. This investment will help restore mission critical systems and data, minimizing downtime and potential data loss and allow IT infrastructure to continue operations in case of a major incident, cyber-attack, natural or human-made disaster.
This project will focus on design, develop, migrate, deploy, and manage the mission critical applications in a Cloud Infrastructure, along with the different services that is needed to run Harris County Information Technology operations seamlessly. The project will cover top tier Harris County applications and planning to avoid Information Technology disruption.
PeopleSoft is the primary software that Harris County uses for financial and record keeping purposes. This project will migrate the PeopleSoft environment into the Cloud where it will be duplicated in the event of a major disaster.
Amazon and Microsoft enterprise services are used extensively across Harris County including MS Teams, SharePoint, Windows 365, and Microsoft applications for enterprise business. There is currently no redundancy or backup measures to this software if a disruption or outage were to occur.
Anticipated Project Expenditures and Timeline:
|
Project Scope Breakdown |
Estimated Cost |
Estimated Completion |
|
PeopleSoft to Cloud Disaster Recovery IT Infrastructure (Design, Develop, Migrate, Deploy) |
299,000 |
03/30/2025 |
|
Non-Justice/Non-Public Safety Mission Critical applications to Cloud Disaster Recovery IT Infrastructure (Design, Develop, Migrate, Deploy) |
48,000 |
04/30/2025 |
|
Justice/Public Safety Mission Critical applications to Cloud Disaster Recovery IT Infrastructure (Design, Develop, Migrate, Deploy) |
400,000 |
05/30/2025 |
|
20% Contingency |
149,400 |
|
|
Total |
$896,400 |
- |
Justification & Alternatives:
Key advantage to Harris County will be to enhance the county’s ability to mitigate operational risks and enhance its ability to support Mission Critical Systems in the event of a cyber-attack, natural or man-made disaster.
As these are proprietary systems, the alternate solution would be an expensive self-managed environment which still leave the risk with Harris County.
Anticipated Impact on Other Funds (If Applicable):
|
Fund Code |
Description |
Estimated Cost |
Funding Method (Existing or Future Budget Request Required) |
Estimated Date of Needs |
|
1001 |
PeopleSoft to Cloud DR IT Infrastructure Subscriptions & Maintenance |
$265,000 |
CLS request |
FY2025 |
|
1001 |
Non-Justice/Non- Public Safety Mission Critical applications to Cloud DR IT Infrastructure Subscriptions & Maintenance |
$232,000 |
CLS request |
FY2025 |
|
1001 |
Justice/Public Safety Mission Critical applications to Cloud DR IT Infrastructure Subscriptions & Maintenance |
$300,000 |
CLS request |
FY2025 |
|
Total |
|
$797,000 |
- |
|
County Strategic Plan Goal: 5. Minimize the impact of climate change and disasters.
County Strategic Plan Objective: R: Enhance disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and resiliency.
Justice/Safety Initiative (Goal 1): E1: Modernize data and technology architecture across the legal system.
Infrastructure Initiative (Goal 2): N/A
Economy Initiative (Goal 3): N/A
Health Initiative (Goal 4): N/A
Climate/Resilience Initiative (Goal 5): R3: Strengthen the County’s emergency response function.
Housing Initiative (Goal 6): N/A
Decision Analysis Matrix Score (rubric on last page): 14
Previous Court Action:
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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Address: N/A
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Fiscal and Personnel Summary |
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Service Name |
Mission Critical Systems to Cloud Disaster Recovery Infrastructure |
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Current Fiscal Year Cost |
Annual Fiscal Cost |
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Non-Labor |
Total |
Recurring Expenses |
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Funding Sources |
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Existing Budget |
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$ |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Total Current Budget |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Additional Budget Request |
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Commercial Paper |
$ |
$900,000 |
$900,000 |
$900,000 |
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$ |
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Total Additional Budget Request |
$ |
$900,000 |
$900,000 |
$900,000 |
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Total Funding Request |
$ |
$900,000 |
$900,000 |
$900,000 |
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Personnel (Fill out section only if requesting new PCNs) |
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Current Position Count for Service |
- |
- |
- |
- |
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Additional Positions Request |
- |
- |
- |
- |
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Total Personnel |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Anticipated Court Date: 1/23/2025
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date): Click or tap to enter a date.
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Note: Disaster Recovery related item
Legal funding compliance confirmed by: Paige Abernathy, Assistant County Attorney, 12/30/2024
Department Approval by: Heather Merkel & Girish Ramachandran, 12/26/2024
OMB CIP Team Approval by: William McGuinness, Director-Capital Projects & Infrastructure, 1/8/2025
________________________________________
Commercial Paper Request (For OMB use only):
Receiving Department: Universal Services
Project PeopleSoft ID: NI052
CP Series Description: Commercial Paper Series D can be used for (1) construction of public works, (2) the purchase of automobiles, equipment and machinery, including computers, materials and supplies for the operation of the County’s precincts and departments (3) Professional services, including services provided by engineers, architects, attorneys, auditors, financial advisors, and fiscal agents, in connection with the contractual obligations described in (1) and (2).
Commercial Paper is being requested for the Mission Critical Systems to Cloud Disaster Recovery Infrastructure project and is expected to be repaid within the next three fiscal years either through bonds, budgetary means or pay-as-you-go sources.
OMB Financial Management contact: Amy Perez, Deputy Executive Director, Office of Management and BudgetDecision Analysis Matrix scoring tool - Commissioners Court has approved the rubric below for scoring capital projects. Please complete the last two rows for OMB review.
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Scoring option |
Strategic Plan alignment (3x weighting) |
Evidence base |
Impact on outcomes |
Cost effectiveness |
Ease of implementation |
Collaboration / partnerships |
Environmental sustainability |
Equity |
Total |
|
-1 |
Antithetical to one or more aspects of the Strategic Plan |
Evidence shows net negative impact on the intended goal |
Impact is clearly negative |
Costs expected (or shown) to outweigh benefits |
County has no/limited existing capabilities and dependencies are likely to impede |
Could negatively impact relationships with partners |
Negatively impacts environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Inequitable |
n/a |
|
0 |
Does not align to a Strategic Objective |
Evidence base is not well defined or measurable |
Size of impact on one or more strategic outcomes is negligible or unclear |
Net comparison is unclear |
County has no/limited existing capabilities or dependencies are likely to impede |
Does not involve collaboration with partners |
Net neutral impact on environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Does not consider equity to a meaningful degree |
n/a |
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1 |
Aligns to a Strategic Objective but not to a Strategic Initiative |
Limited evidence-based research on outcomes; may have qualitative/theoretical support |
Outcomes are defined but without target levels and/or expected impact is moderate |
Moderate direct/indirect benefit relative to costs |
County has existing capability to implement or dependencies are unlikely to impede |
Moderately expands County leverage through collaboration with partner(s) |
Marginally positive impact on environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Considers equity to a meaningful degree, but not comprehensively |
n/a |
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2 |
Aligns to a Strategic Objective and a Strategic Initiative |
Outcomes are directly supported by evidence base or credible research supports anticipated outcomes |
Outcomes are clearly defined and include target levels; expected impact on outcomes is high |
Significant direct/indirect benefit relative to costs |
County has existing capability to implement and dependencies are unlikely to impede |
Significantly expands County leverage through collaboration with partner(s) |
Positively impacts environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Considers equity meaningfully and comprehensively |
n/a |
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Score (-1,0,1,2) |
6 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
14 |
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Rationale |
This project ties directly to HC Strategic Plan Objective R: Enhance disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and resiliency. |
This investment will help restore mission critical systems and data allowing users to continue normal operations in case of a major incident, cyber-attack, natural or human-made disaster. |
Loss of critical system data would have a significant impact on Public Safety operations. |
Information recovery costs can be substantial, having backup solutions increases operational efficiencies and downtimes. |
Harris County currently has no existing capabilities for software as it relates to Disaster Recovery. |
This project provides the capability to restore mission critical systems and data to Public Safety & Non-Public Safety entities and public facing software that Universal Services supports. |
Information Technology systems do not impact the environment or climate. |
Disaster Recovery services provides system redundancy across protected systems equally. |
n/a |