WiFi – 20 new WiFi customers for the month of December. We are continuing to hold things together with system upgrades and enhancements as we await the construction of the FTTH network. Scott Brown and I performed one of these upgrades on Christmas Eve to make sure that the Sandy Bluff neighborhood had sufficient capacity for the new devices that always come with bandwidth demands following Christmas.

As you can see in the photo it was a beautiful day for tower work, albeit a bit chilly.

Fiber to the Home – A lot of progress was made in December as we move forward with OFS on the FTTH project. We have received preliminary designs for the network and are reviewing them with engineers.

The amount of work that has been put into these designs is impressive and is doing a lot for our confidence level in the partnership we have entered with OFS.

Data Center Redesign – In order to make room for the new equipment we will be purchasing with the FTTH project and to ensure that the network has a high level of reliability we began the process of a server room remodel this month. We have hired an engineering company to develop some specifications that we will put out to bid for the project. The old IT Office in the kitchen area of City Hall will be repurposed to house the City’s network equipment and servers. The above photo provides a concept of how the space will be utilized. Imagine a wall where the wood floor stops that separates the room from the kitchen.

This project will include a dedicated generator for these systems to provide a robust redundant power system to ensure uninterrupted operation of the FTTH system as well as the City’s internal network in the event of an outage or emergency. We will also be upgrading the fire suppression and HVAC systems for this new area to ensure that our infrastructure is protected. We are hoping to also be able to tie into the existing HVAC system to take advantage of the heat generated by the servers and network equipment to offset the cost of heating the west side of City Hall in the winter.

Internal Network – There is a lot going on with our internal network that typically goes unseen. We have added several security and performance enhancements to the network this month and are continuing to look for new ways to improve the day to day use of IT systems for city staff.

Greg Brewster has also successfully implemented application virtualization for several of the applications that we use in the City. To spare you the nerdy technical details… this allows us to utilize and deploy applications much easier and make them available to staff remotely as needed. It is VERY cool and I would be happy to provide a demo to any council members who are interested.