Stan Nestor, head of Schuylkill County’s Management Information Systems Department, detailed how $727,954 in American Rescue Plan Act money is being used for technology improvements.

The first is a Virtual Server and Network Attached Storage Infrastructure.

“We currently have 10 individual file servers that have reached end of life, meaning the manufacturer will no longer provide support or updates. Each of these servers performs a specific job or application. Each server has its own memory, CPU and storage,” he said.

“Rather than replace each individual server with a new machine, we will replace them with a virtual server cluster. A virtual server cluster is a group of servers which use virtualization software to share resources such as memory, CPU and storage across multiple applications, thus reducing the amount of hardware required to perform the same functions.

“The virtual server cluster is smaller in size, more energy efficient and much easier to manage,” Nestor said.

“This project will also add centralized Network Attached Storage for the purpose of storing critical data in a single location as opposed to storing it in several different offices and physical hard drives. This ensures a safe, secure and easy to manage environment for large amounts of data,” he said.

Second is a Cyber Security Infrastructure Project.

“In February of 2021 the county invited the Pennsylvania Army National Guard Defensive Cyber Operations Element (DCO-E) to conduct a vulnerability assessment on the security of the county’s data network,” Nestor said. “At the end of the assessment, the DCO-E made several recommendations to the county for improvements to our network security. The county commissioners have followed through on those recommendations in approving this project.”

The third improvement is Microsoft 365.

“This project will implement MS 365 for county offices. MS 365 is a cloud offering by Microsoft that will provide MS Office applications, client licenses, cloud storage, device management, file sharing, threat protection, security, communication platforms and eDiscovery,” Nestor said.

“Currently the county has many different versions of Microsoft Office, including Outlook, Word and Excel. The version range is from Office 2010 through Office 2019. This disparity is mostly due to the cost of upgrading from one version of Office to another,” he said.

“One of the main benefits of MS 365 is that we will always have the ability to download and install the most recent version of the MS Office suite of applications. This will ensure that all county computers and users are on the same version and most current version of the Microsoft Office Applications. It also gives us the ability to install Office on any type of device, including PCs, tablets and smartphones. It will also be much easier for the county MIS staff to install applications and manage the many different computers and devices owned by the county,” Nestor said.