Information Technology Advisory Committee - Oct 18th, 2018

The town's biggest IT priorities are VoIP and water meters. VoIP was installed in the Gibbs, and will be rolled out to the IT department next. The town's had some compatibility issues with older telco switches. Specifically, dial by extension doesn't work. It looks like this problem can be remediated with a software patche. At least there's a workaround: dial the full ten-digit number rather than the five-digit extension.

The town is receiving RFPs for software to manage water meters and interface with the water department's system. We've had problems with meter endpoints: the batteries are failing several years prematurely, and the vendor is reluctant to provide replacements. The town's gotten several responses to water meter RFPs, and hopes to meet with vendors in a few weeks.

Another set of concerns centers around the the town's network infrastructure and the high school rebuild. The core network infrastructure is in the high school, and that will have to move during reconstruction. The town has several meetings scheduled with RCN, to figure out how to navigate this challenge.

The Hardy School's occupancy permit should be issued in early December. Hardy should get VoIP in the not-to-distant future, followed by the Brackett school.

The Munis parking module will go into production in a few weeks, and employee self-service is ready for activation.

The town is working on a plan to test network-level disaster recovery.

Powerschool is scheduled for a version upgrade, probably during the winter break.