The Barry County Information Technology Department will get a significant upgrade to modernize  the Barry County Server Network infrastructure with virtualization technologies with approval of the Barry County Commission Tuesday.

IT Director David Shinavier gave commissioners a short history of the county’s data department, saying they went from one server in 2005 and covering just the courthouse, to providing IT to several county offices now, including the Friend of the Court, Road Commission, Annex, community building, 911, Commission on Aging, Charlton Park and Animal Shelter.

The $106,805.93 price from the Dell Company will come from the data processing fund, he said.

The change has been more than a year in planning with much research Shinavier said, including a site visit. The present system has 20 switching boxes with heating and cooling problems and equipment of varying ages. With the new system, the switching boxes will be reduced to three with much more storage, including off-site space.

“It addresses all of our issues,” he said.

They are dealing directly with the Dell Company, and on their advice, the new system will be purchased all at once. “I was going to phase it in, but the vendor says that’s not the way to go.”

Data integrity and security and network security and reliability and storage are features of the system. Moving the date from the old system to the new will take months and be done on weekends and nights, he said.

A three year service plan is included in the price and the IT staff will take care of it after that. Shinavier said they will find places in the county for the old equipment. The Dell system should last five years. “Six years would be perfect…this is hardware, next year it will be software and e-mail servers. That will be a more substantial project, at much less cost.”