Overview
In 2024, the County Municipality launched a county-wide IT modernization project across 16 locations to fortify network reliability, enhance cybersecurity, and establish disaster recovery capabilities. The initiative aimed to replace aging infrastructure, improve operational efficiency, and ensure continuity of public services for over 30,000 residents served by the municipality.
The Challenge
The county’s technology environment was constrained by aging hardware, isolated systems, and inconsistent network performance. Growing cybersecurity concerns and limited recovery capabilities posed potential risks to critical services such as public safety, finance, and public works. Leadership sought a unified solution to improve service continuity, secure sensitive data, and modernize infrastructure without disrupting daily operations.
Solution and Objectives
The modernization effort was built on five strategic pillars:
- Infrastructure modernization: Standardize and upgrade network switches, firewalls, and surveillance systems.
- Security enhancement: Deploy comprehensive endpoint and patch management systems.
- Virtualization: Consolidate physical servers into a resilient virtual environment.
- Disaster recovery: Implement a fully replicated remote DR site for rapid recovery.
- Support modernization: Provide responsive IT Helpdesk services across all departments.
Project Implementation
Network Infrastructure Upgrade
The project began with upgrading all core and edge network switches to gigabit and 10-gigabit devices, yielding a 40% improvement in network throughput.
New next-generation firewalls were deployed to support advanced intrusion prevention, secure VPN access, and traffic visibility—resulting in a 60% reduction in unauthorized access attempts.
Additionally, network cameras were replaced with modern IP-based models featuring enhanced video resolution and remote management, improving situational awareness and security monitoring across municipal facilities.
Virtualization and Disaster Recovery Environment
The county’s physical servers were consolidated using VMware-based virtualization, reducing hardware dependency by 65% and improving system scalability.
A fully redundant Disaster Recovery (DR) Virtual Server Environment was established at a secondary site, replicating all critical workloads in near real time. With this replication strategy, the municipality achieved:
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO): under 4 hours
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO): under 15 minutes
These metrics ensured continuous access to key applications, even during unplanned outages.
Security Implementation
The modernization introduced a multilayered cybersecurity framework including:
- Automated Patch Management: Ensures timely OS and application updates with over 95% compliance across endpoints.
- Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Achieved a 70% faster threat detection and containment rate.
- Centralized Security Monitoring: Consolidated dashboards allow real-time visibility for IT administrators.
Helpdesk and Operational Support
A new Helpdesk Support System was deployed to streamline all IT service requests. The system tracks incidents, assigns priorities, and provides performance analytics. Within six months of launch, the county reported:
- Average ticket resolution time reduced by 45%
- User satisfaction rating increased to 92%
- Incident backlog reduced by 50%
Results and Impact
The modernization has delivered measurable improvements across several key areas:
- Network uptime: Increased from 96.5% to 98% across all 16 locations.
- Operational efficiency: Reduced physical hardware by 65%, saving roughly $85,000 annually in maintenance costs.
- Cyber resilience: Strengthened protection against malware, ransomware, and phishing, with zero major incidents since implementation.
- Service continuity: The virtual DR site ensures uninterrupted operations during power or connectivity emergencies.
- Employee productivity: Modern systems, faster connectivity, and responsive helpdesk services have empowered staff and improved workflow efficiency.
Conclusion
The County Municipality successfully transformed its IT ecosystem into a secure, scalable, and future-ready infrastructure. By investing in network upgrades, virtualization, and advanced security solutions, the county achieved significant gains in reliability, operational efficiency, and public service continuity.
This initiative stands as a benchmark for municipal modernization—showcasing how technology, when strategically implemented, can directly enhance community outcomes and trust.