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Sheriff's Office recommending the Board:
1) Find that pursuant to Procurement Policy C-17, section 3.4 (4) a competitively bid contract, NASPO AR3229, already exists for this purchase; and
2) Authorize the Purchasing Agent to issue a purchase order in the amount of $128,991.26, to ePlus Technology for the consolidated renewal of the Palo Alto Networks' multiple firewall device subscriptions and annual support and maintenance for the terms December 23, 2023 to January 8, 2025; February 2, 2024 to January 8, 2025; February 16, 2024 to January 8, 2025; February 23, 2024 to January 8, 2025; June 25, 2024 to January 8, 2025; October 3, 2024 to January 8, 2025; and December 23, 2024 to January 8, 2025.
FUNDING: General Fund.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
In computing, a firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between physical and logical network segments.
The Sheriff's Office currently employs existing firewalls between its internal network infrastructure and the Internet. These devices are instrumental in suppressing much of the malicious attacks that are perpetuated against the system on a continuous basis. The DNS Security, Threat Prevention, URL Filtering, and Wildfire subscription services give us various ways to identify and block threats coming from the Internet and from within our private network. Without these services we would be blind to intruders and be vulnerable to ransomware and other destructive attacks. Additional firewalls help provide network redundancy, resiliency, and business continuity objectives. The support renewal on the firewalls allows us to call for help with problems and replace defective equipment if needed and provides protection against modern threats. In previous years, the renewals have been completed separately causing for lack of consistency in renewal dates. A single purchas...
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