The exterior of Bartholomew County Courthouse in Columbus, Ind., pictured, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Another big-ticket item has been approved for purchase by county government.
The Bartholomew County Commissioners have agreed to allow the Information Technology department pay $792,928 to purchase computer hardware that will create a countywide networking system. There is $515,538 for the purchase already in the IT department’s budget, while the commissioners have agreed to provide $277,390 from the telecommunications fund.
The county-wide networking system is usually hidden out of public view. Nevertheless, the system is extremely important because it handles all of the county’s electronic data outlets, IT director Scott Mayes said.
That includes servers, data storage, switches, firewalls, laptop computers, handheld devices, cameras, telephones, printers and copiers, just to name a few.
It is only through this system that these items can communicate with software, internet and other modern technology required to conduct county business, Mayes said.
It’s been 13 years since the county purchased a countywide networking system for $900,000. Since that time, Mayes’ department has been forced to purchase additional devices necessary for the ever-changing requirements of the network.
For example, there is a larger demand for audio and video recordings today, he said. In addition, both the security and telephone systems now utilize a Internet Protocol that enables individual network devices to communicate to specific other network devices by using device IP addresses and a common data packet structure.
“When the current countywide networking system was purchased 13 years ago, there was no demand for any of those features,” Mayes said.
The new system will be purchased from Fortinet, a 23-year-old cyber security company based in Sunnyvale, California.
During meetings between computer experts and county officials, Fortinet was chosen because their system was considered the most inclusive and flexible solution for the county’s IT needs, Mayes said.
A similar system manufactured by Cisco Systems of San Jose, California was also considered. However, Mayes explained the county would have been forced to spend about $1.14 million with Cisco just to get close to the services provided by Fortinet for considerably less money.
But from the county IT director’s perspective, the best advantage provided by Fortinetis that they take a cyber security approach first on all things.
“Everything they do and all the equipment they create is all part of what they call their ‘security fabric’,” Mayes said.
That security fabric allows the county’s network to automatically see and dynamically isolate affected devices, partition network segments, update rules, push out new policies, and remove malware, according to the Fortinet website.
Mayes also said the Fortinet system will save county taxpayers money over the long run.
