Title
Information Technologies Department recommending the Board:
1) Waive formal bid requirements in accordance with Purchasing Ordinance 3.12.160, Exemptions from competitive process, Section D;
2) Authorize the Purchasing Agent to utilize California Multiple Award Schedule contract 3-18-70-3164H with DSA Technologies, Inc. for the purchase of a Rubrik Cloud Data Management Solution;
3) Approve the addition of two (2) Rubrik Backup Appliances to Information Technologies’ Fiscal Year 2019-20 fixed asset list in the total amount of $52,677;
4) Approve and authorize the Chair to sign a budget transfer increasing the Information Technologies Fixed Asset appropriations by $52,677, and reducing Services and Supplies appropriations commensurately; and
5) Authorize the Purchasing Agent to sign and issue a purchase order to DSA Technologies, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $240,000, plus an estimated $3,982 in applicable taxes, for the procurement of Rubrik Cloud Data Management Solutions, inclusive of two (2) Rubrik Backup Appliances and three (3) years of Enterprise Backup and Disaster Recovery software and support services. (4/5 vote required).
FUNDING: General Fund with partial cost recovery in future years through the County's Cost Allocation Plan (A-87).
Body
BACKGROUND
The Information Technologies Department needs to protect County data and provide mission critical services/functions in the event of a natural disaster (loss of one or more facilities), equipment failure, corruption of data (data becomes un-stable), and the ability to recover in the event of a Cyber-attack, emphasizing the need for a backup and recovery strategy for the County.
The backup and recovery strategy is intended to provide data restore and system recovery capabilities for the County's systems deemed mission critical, using the least resources possible to restore systems/data in a timely manner. Fewer resources mean less capital expense. In redesigning the backup architecture, focus is on matching restore objectives with Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to arrive at a best-fit architecture design that is cost-sensitive, but ensures appropriate levels of business continuity and high availability for each system.
In the last year, a majority of backup jobs overran their backup window, overlapping and interfering with production workloads, which can result in an unrecoverable failure - not just downtime (of either acceptable or unacceptable length).
Many organizations (both public and private) utilize cloud services for off-site backup storage and for varying levels of Disaster Recovery. Cloud based services provide the opportunity to increase frequency of data backups and the ability to initiate Business Continuity for those functions deemed mission critical.
To effectively use cloud services for backup and recovery, organizations need tools to manage backups on-site, replication of backups to the cloud, and recovery of services within the El Dorado County facilities and off-site systems.
By acquiring a Rubrik Cloud Data Management solution, El Dorado County (EDC) will have the ability to standardize the Data Protection, data backup and Disaster Recovery approach for all systems supported by EDC in a consistent manner and build efficiencies within the Information Technologies Department.
DISCUSSION
The Information Technologies (IT) Department is proposing a new method to back up data and mission critical systems. The proposed solution improves the security of County systems, data, and the ability to recover if systems and/or data are negatively impacted. The current system has components that will reach end-of-life this year, requiring an investment to replace them as well as requiring additional data capacity licenses. This will be resource intensive, does not include Disaster Recovery; and will cost significantly more in maintenance with less functionality than the proposed system over three years.
The proposed new system will provide Disaster Recovery resilience not available with the current solution and will also provide backup and recovery capabilities that are in line with IT Cybersecurity Backup and Recovery Control requirements, as defined by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Goals for the improved backup and recovery solution include:
1. Backups taken of entire virtual machines to allow for multiple recovery options.
2. Automated backups - eliminating daily manual processing.
3. Synchronized backups stored off-premise- physically and digitally secured cloud provider for disaster recovery resilience. Physical tapes and associated hardware will no longer be required.
4. Recovery capabilities include entire machines or individual files.
5. In the event of a major disaster in the County data center, the County will have the ability to recover in a timely manner within a secured cloud environment.
6. Physical appliances will be automatically refreshed with new hardware every three years.
The IT Department has evaluated multiple options to provide for a solution that will be able to support the above listed goals. The IT department has verified all above capabilities via a no-cost proof-of-concept from Rubrik that has been running since November 10, 2019. The quoted solution from DSA for a Rubrik Backup and Recovery system that will be managed on premise and in the Cloud will best meet the needs of the County.
Purchasing Ordinance 3.12.160 Section D provides exemption from the competitive bidding process when "piggy-backing" off a contract that has been awarded utilizing a competitive bidding process substantially the same as that utilized by the County. The CMAS contract #3-18-70-3164H is such an agreement, and allows IT to leverage pricing with the vendor for this purchase.
A 4/5 vote is not required to approve the budget transfer as the total appropriations in the budget are not increasing.
ALTERNATIVES
After evaluation of several alternatives and discussions with other counties and State departments, it has been determined that the Rubrik solution is the best alternatives to enable data protection and recovery services within a single solution. The IT Department looked at several alternative solutions, including expansion of the existing Veritas solution; CommVault, Cohesity and Veeam. Many of these products only offer pieces of functionality, whereas Rubrik is a single solution that contains all the functionality needed for data protection, data recovery, system recovery and the various backup needs.
PRIOR BOARD ACTION
N/A
OTHER DEPARTMENT / AGENCY INVOLVEMENT
County Counsel
CAO RECOMMENDATION / COMMENTS
It is recommended that the Board approve this item.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The Department will realize a savings of approximately $369,660 by transitioning current functions to the new solution, and Rubrik includes Disaster Recover services.
Three year total cost of ownership:
FUNCTION Current Solution RUBRIK
Data backup & restore solution $344,240 $191,337
*Disaster Recovery $100,000 Included
Offsite Tape storage $ 14,400 Not required
Cloud Tape Gateway $ 30,000 Not required
Snapshot storage $ 50,000 Included
Additional Cloud Storage for DR Not available $108,000
(purchased separately)
Network Backup appliance $100,000 $ 52,643
*Data Classification $ 83,000 Included
Office 365 Backup Not available Included
Full indexed file searching Not available Included
New Hardware after 3 yrs Not available Included
TOTAL (over 3 years) $721,640 $351,980
* Indicates functions not included in the current solution, however would need to be procured to deliver the functionality offered by Rubrik.
The Rubrik solution will require additional cloud storage (up to 193 terabits), which is estimated to cost approximately $36,000 per year, or $108,000 for the three year period. Total savings for the Rubrik solution would be approximately $369,660 over three years when compared to the current solution, however Rubrik includes Disaster Recovery services and Data Classification.
No additional funding is required to make this purchase, as funds are available in the FY 2019-20 IT Budget utilizing savings in salary/benefits and services/supplies. The additional cloud storage is included in the FY 2019-20 Budget for IT and will be included in future budgets. The current Veritas solution will be decommissioned on February 15, 2020 or shortly thereafter.
After the 3 year contract, the annual maintenance increase will not to exceed 7% annually.
CLERK OF THE BOARD FOLLOW UP ACTIONS
Clerk of the Board to obtain Chair's signature on the attached Budget Transfer and forward to the Auditor/Controller's Office for processing.
STRATEGIC PLAN COMPONENT
Good Governance
CONTACT
Tonya Digiorno, Director of Information Technologies