The Weekly Newspaper of Torrance Herald Publications - Torrance, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 6, No. 9 - February 25, 2016 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................8 Classifieds............................4 Crossword/Sudoku.............4 Film Review..........................4 Legals....................................8 Police Reports.....................3 Real Estate...................10-12 Sports....................................5 Weekend Forecast West High Students Soar to First Place in Science Olympiad! Rookie Team from West High School managed a huge win at last week’s L.A. Regional Science Olympiad. Competing against 31 other schools, the West students won 15 of the 23 awards. Students participated in events such as Disease Detectives, Experimental Design, and Protein Modeling, all which challenged their analytical and problem solving capabilities and skills. The West High team will move on to the Southern California State competition, held at Caltech on April 2, 2016. Congrats to the West High Team for this outstanding achievement!. Provided by TUSD. • Council Approves Annual Maintenance Agreement for Date Network Services By Cristian Vasquez A recommendation by the city’s Communications and Information Technology Director to purchase the annual maintenance service agreement for data network services from Cisco Systems, Inc. was approved by members of the city council. The approved agreement is in the amount of $99,670.06 and will be effective from Feb. 16-Jan. 31, 2017. Funds to pay for the agreement are available in the fiscal year 2015-2016 Communications and Information Technology [CIT] operating budget. “Since 1997, the City has purchased Cisco Systems’ SmartNet maintenance services to provide hardware and software support and maintenance of our Cisco network devices,” states the staff report signed by Communications and Information Technology Director Ricahrd Shigaki. “SmartNet provides access to Cisco’s diagnostic services, design tools, knowledge base, telephone technical support services, software upgrades, emergency patches and immediate network equipment replacement should their equipment covered under this agreement fail.” At the moment there are more than 200 Cisco data network switches installed throughout the City of Torrance. These data network switches connect more than 1,300 workstations, servers and printers to the city’s computer center, as well as the outside world, and provide the infrastructure for the city. The city’s software applications such as Word, Excel, New World, Kronos, GIS and Internet access rely on the data network functioning properly. Cisco is one of the largest IT companies in the world and is dedicated to providing services that allow companies to connect with its own employees, as well as to the outside word. “Cisco’s SmartNet services is the vest resource for equipment-specific technical support and the only source of system software necessary to keep network devices operating properly,” states the staff report. “Live and online technical support have proven invaluable over the years when troubleshooting outages or deploying network devices. Timely software upgrades are critical as many are typically released in response to new security breaches, vulnerabilities, the availability of advanced features, and growing client performance requirements.” Since April of 2005 the city and Cisco Systems, Inc. have been in a support services agreement that covers all SmartNet services. Under the original contract, the agreement was for one year with an automatic renewal for on-going, one-year terms. The agreement could end with either entity providing a written notice to the other that they intend not to renew the contract. In an effort to take in cost increases during the past five years, CIT reduced the amount of devices that are covered under the agreement. In addition, response times were changed from immediate, 24-7 callback responses to anywhere from 4 to 24 hours, depending on the device. According to the staff report, last year 54 of the more than 200 network devices throughout the city were labeled as mission critical; so far this year, 52 network devices throughout the city are being categorized under the same category. “We upgraded the core network for Police Department and City Hall, which accounts for the $10,366.08 (11.6%) increase in maintenance cost next year,” states the staff report. “Staff determined that failure of any of these 52 network devices could impact a great number of users, causing significant productivity losses.” During every contract renewal phase, both the city and Cisco work closely together to agree on all agreement details. However, this year’s final list of network equipment that would be included in the maintenance agreement took longer than expected. Despite the two-month notification to renew the agreement, both parties lacked proper time to compose a list of needed equipment. As a preventative measure during upcoming agreement renewal periods, the city and Cisco put a system in place that will track and notify both entities about the contract renewals three months ahead of time. “Paired with out on-site spare parts inventory, the proposed SmartNet Cisco system maintenance service agreement enables the Communications & Information Technology Department to more effectively maintain network performance and mitigate network problems, keeping down time to minimum,” concludes the staff report. • Friday Mostly Sunny 72˚/55˚ Saturday Mostly Sunny 70˚/56˚ Sunday Mostly Sunny 74˚/56˚
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