COUNTY OF SAN MATEO

Inter-Departmental Correspondence

Information Services

DATE:

June 13, 2005

BOARD MEETING DATE:

June 28, 2005

SPECIAL NOTICE/HEARING:

None

VOTE REQUIRED:

Majority

TO:

Honorable Board of Supervisors

FROM:

Chris Flatmoe, CIO/Director of Information Services

SUBJECT:

Appropriation Transfer Request

RECOMMENDATION:

Adopt a resolution authorizing an Appropriation Transfer Request transferring $416,348 from ISD Mainframe reserves to Service and Supplies to partially fund the plan to eliminate the County mainframe computer.

VISION ALIGNMENT:

The mainframe elimination plan keeps the commitment that Government decisions are based on careful consideration of future impact, rather than temporary relief or immediate gain, specifically goal number 20. The mainframe elimination plan supports goal 20 through the deliberate planning for mainframe elimination in anticipation of rising mainframe costs.

This effort supports ISD’s Information and Technology Availability performance measures because we are moving off the County mainframe in anticipation of the reduced availability of mainframe support resources.

BACKGROUND:

The County mainframe computer has provided a stable, high-availability platform for computing with shared resources since 1983. Currently, there are a number of major applications running on the County mainframe. These are: Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS), Personnel Information and Payroll System (PIPS), Case Data System (CDS), Tivoli Storage Management (TSM), Customer Invoice Management System (CIMS), and Adult Probation and Probation Accounting.

Prompted by both the cost of mainframe computing and an interest in moving to a distributed computing environment, some of the applications on the County mainframe are currently being migrated off the County mainframe. The Human Services Agency’s (HSA) CDS is on schedule for migration to a distributed system called CalWIN by the end of 2005. The Probation Department has recently migrated the Juvenile Probation application off the County mainframe and is planning to migrate the Adult Probation application off the County mainframe in FY 2005-2006. The Courts, by mandate from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) in Sacramento, will migrate away from CJIS to a statewide Case Management System over the next 3 fiscal years. The key point, associated with the departure of various applications from the mainframe, is that the cost of running the mainframe does not decrease linearly. Thus, reductions in mainframe workload effectively increase the cost attributable to each remaining application. We cannot maintain rate-stability for the remaining systems beyond end of FY 2006-07. Additionally, IBM, the County’s mainframe vendor, will stop supporting the current County mainframe in July 2006.

DISCUSSION:

In collaboration with mainframe users we have developed a master plan for elimination of the County mainframe computer. At a high level, the master plan for the elimination of the County mainframe has 3 major phases:

Phase 1: Move all applications other then CJIS, this includes PIPS, Adult Probation and infrastructure applications off the County mainframe by July 06.

Phase 2: Move the one remaining application, CJIS, to a smaller, less expensive mainframe thus reducing the cost of mainframe computing. It should be noted that while the planned move to a smaller, less expensive mainframe will save the County approximately $600,000 annually, the cost to CJIS departments for running CJIS on the County mainframe will still increase by approximately $1,000,000 annually.

Phase 3: Move CJIS off the County mainframe. CJIS is the largest and most complex application running on the County mainframe. As such, additional time is required to evaluate options and develop an effective plan for CJIS. There may be some overlap between phases. In anticipation of this, the acquisition of the smaller, less expensive mainframe will include a software feature called Sub-Capacity Pricing. This feature will allow us to “tune” the capacity of the County mainframe and the associated hardware and software maintenance costs as applications migrate off the County mainframe. Funding for the mainframe elimination project will be a combination of ISD Reserves, departmental funding and General Fund sources. ISD Reserves and the General Fund will fund Phases 1 and 2. General Fund support will also supply rate stability to the CJIS community through FY 2007-2008.

FISCAL IMPACT:

There is no Net County Cost associated with approving an Appropriation Transfer Request transferring the amount of $416,348 from the ISD Mainframe reserves to Service and Supplies. This amount is included in the ISD FY 2005-2006 Recommended Budget.