HomeMy WebLinkAbout04.10.20 Email from Art Robinson - COVID-19 Weekly Summary - Information Systems
From:Robison, Art
To:Dept Heads;Asst Dept Heads;Alpert, Bruce;Bennett, Robin;Clerk of the Board;Connelly, Bill;Cook, Holly;
Lambert, Steve;Lucero, Debra;McCracken, Shari;Pickett, Andy;Ring, Brian;Ritter, Tami;Rodas, Amalia;
Sweeney, Kathleen;Teeter, Doug
Cc:Information Systems (County I.S. Dept.);ISR - Information Security Representatives;Miner, Patrick;Thao,
Charlie;Richter, Gary;Tong, Albert;Allen, Jonathan;Huff, Mike;Thompson, Mike;Hothan, Joe;Brandt, Wayne
(DBH);Brown, Mart;Haymond, Andy;Luke, Sandie;Musler, Hope;Chen, Bingjie (Alex)
Subject:COVID-19 Weekly Summary - Information Systems
Date:Friday, April 10, 2020 4:55:40 PM
Attachments:2020.4.10 - COVID-19 Weekly Summary - Information Systems.docx
All,
A brief summary of this week’s activities in Information Systems related to COVID-19 events.
If you have questions or comments please contact me at the number below, or the IS Help Desk staff
at 530.552.3222.
Art Robison
Director
Butte County Information Systems
308 Nelson Avenue, Oroville, CA 95965
T:530.552.3200 | F: 530.538.6419
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COVID-19 Weekly Summary-IS
Date
4.10.2020
Executive Summary
There are more than 900 staff enabled for remote connection through VPN. Of these, 750 have logged
in,at least once. There are as many as 420 concurrent connections to the VPN systems at any particular
time.
Staff continues to utilize land mobile radio (LMR), email, landline telephones and cellphones, where a
VPN is not required. County IS is actively monitoring and supporting each of these systems.
The BRICS radio system activated this week by the efforts of County IS and the Sheriff’s Office. The first
phase of turn-up began early Tuesday morning as scheduled. SO Administration, SO Patrol and 9-1-1
Dispatch were enabled during this phase of activation.
Local Government (LG) Radio System suffered damage due to severe weekend weather. The Sheriff’s
helicopter transported Information Systems staff to the 6700’ snow-covered St John Mountain in Glenn
County to repair weather damaged antennae on the LG radio system. By midday Monday, the system
was operational once more.
More than 100 staff are enrolled in Skillsets online training. Training requires only an Internet
connection to participate.
For more detail, please review the information below.
VPN
Virtual private network technology, or VPN, provides a means for remote staff to connect to internal
resources. The VPN systems have been in place for many years, with an upgrade completed shortly
after the Camp Fire incident.
900+ users activated
420+ users connected at a given time
Basic support information http://www.buttecounty.net/is/telecommute
Additional support information is accessible to staff with access to the intranet
Land Mobile Radio (LMR)
Butte Regional InteroperableCommunication System (BRICS)
BRICS is alive! Information Systems and the Sheriff’s Office activated the BRICS 700 MHz Project 25
(P25) Phase 2 Trunked Simulcast Digital radio system into ‘Beneficial Use’, as scheduled. At 5:00 am on
4.7.2020 (Tuesday), the first phase of activation occurred. The activation included the 9-1-1 Dispatch
Center, Patrol and Administrative staff in the Sheriff’s Office.
Beneficial Use is a limited use of the system, but includes nearly all of the elements of the full
production radio system. These include handheld, mobile and fixed site radio units as well as the core
infrastructure controlling system wide operations. The most significant missing part is a single radio site,
located at Flea Mountain. This site is a work in progress due to challenges faced with obtaining access
and license rights to use the location and facilities. The temporary loss of use of this site does affect
radio coverage in the Feather River canyon and Concow area. However, even absent this site, the
overall BRICS radio coverage provides a net gain over the VHF system it replaces. There are special
system configurations in place to address the transition from VHF to BRICS.
Local Government (LG) Communication System
Last weekend, high winds and other weather related incidents disturbed the antennae system alignment
at the St John Mountain radio site in Glenn County. The antennae misalignment rendered the system
unusable. The Sheriff’s Office flew Information Systems staff to the 6700’ snow-covered St John
Mountain to repair the antennae. System operation returned to service by mid-Monday.
Wireless Devices
For the second week in a row, a large number of new cellphone services activated. Not all are COVID-19
related, but each required fulfillment during this period.
Operations in the County require wireless devices in order to meet service delivery requirements. These
include cellphones, smartphones, tablets, laptop computers and Mi-Fi units. The numbers below reflect
only those devices connected by cellular signal (also referred to as LTE connections).
1360+ devices active
80 new cell phones delivered this week
72 new cell phones delivered last week
Website Statistics
The County website continues to experience much more activity than prior to COVID-19 response. The
statistics for yesterday:
18,000 visits to the county website
7,100 of the visits were to PH
900% increase over a year ago
The numbers reflect that the public is visiting regularly. Each time Dr. Miller releases a new COVID-19
Check In video; there is an uptick in website visits for that period. More analysis to follow to verify the
correlation.
Internet Bandwidth Utilization
Bandwidth usage remains stable. County IS continues to work with AT&T to implement a 400% increase
of bandwidth.
Conferencing
Many departments continue to use electronic conferencing platforms to accommodate remote workers
and to comply with Social Distancing recommendations. The most active platforms are:
Skype for Business (County IS supported)
WebEx (AT&T supported)
Zoom (vendor supported)
The Zoom platform has suffered some bad press related to security issues. In response, they have
released two new software updates to users. The first is dated 4.2.2020 and the second is dated
4.7.2020. The vendor reports that these updates resolve security issues.
Recommendations (all platforms)
Connect early
Verify that your technology works before the meeting begins
Set conference parameters appropriately to ensure best experience (applies primarily to
meeting host)
Install recommended conferencing software updates
Engage attendees
Limit video use
Emergency Operations Center (EOC)
County IS provided technical support for both EOC locations this week. IS delivered additional resources
to the EOC this week to fulfil requests.
Requests for Service
If you have a request for technical support, please contact the IS Help Desk at 530.552.3222. We may
need lead time in order to fulfill the request, but please make them known early.
Enjoy your weekend.
Art Robison