Volatile tech prices and two server outages last month were part of the discussion during a special meeting of Nixa’s city council this week.
Wednesday, ahead of a meeting about next year’s budget, Nixa held a special meeting to consider moving almost $700,000 in this year’s budget to upgrade the city’s servers, for a total budget of $800,000 for the project.
Nixa’s Assistant City Administrator Wes Young said the city’s current server system was deployed in 2018 and is in need of replacement.
"If we wait until a major failure forces our hand then we are in emergency purchase basis, and we’re at whatever the market prevails,” he said, adding “if you’re now aware the market is heavily commoditized, we’ve got AI going on, we’ve got data centers going on, we’ve got people buying and selling.”
Young said the goal would be to acquire a system that can provide reliability and redundancy and grow with the city. He said the budget amendment gives the city flexibility to work with its vendor Forward Slash Technology to make the purchase when prices are most reasonable.
Monte Hickey president of Forward Slash Technology spoke at the meeting. He said they’ve been watching the market
"The prices have gone and fluctuated from about $225,000 up to about $1.6 million,” Hickey said, “and they’re coming down, but then they’re going back up.”
Hickey said the new system would have three physical units with 22 virtual servers and a backup internet connection, to handle the wide array of business of the city. He added for context that one recent outage, caused by a cut fiber optic cable, took four and a half days to recover from.
The amendment would move $687,000 from various city funds that Young said city staff have determined can be spared, mostly from Nixa’s general fund, as well as the water, wastewater, electric and street funds.
The final vote on the amendment will come at a later date.