The Technology Services Division provides infrastructure design, installation and troubleshooting of computer hardware and software. This division encompasses support for the Municipal network, servers, mainframe, phone system, desktops, mobile devices, and email system.  

Desktop Services Support Section

In addition to connecting user computers to the MOA network and systems, the Desktop Services Support Section provides ongoing computer hardware/software support. Currently this support is provided to 57 locations, spanning from Chugiak to Girdwood and including 2,042 computers, 605 printers, 15 servers, 80 mobile devices, and 2,082 user accounts.

The Municipality uses Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) as standard productivity software for all municipal desktops.  In addition, Municipal business units run software that is specific to their business function, which includes more than 250 different software applications.  Desktop Services is responsible for all aspects of support for these software applications to include installation, configuration, upgrades, problem diagnosis and helping users with the functionality of software.

The Desktop Services section includes the Municipal Service Desk. The service desk is the first point of contact for Municipal users to report problems with computer systems. This group is the focal point of communication between IT and computer users. They disseminate information to and from users regarding status of computer systems and they resolve problems and answer questions for users on a daily basis. In addition, the service desk monitors the daily status of the Municipal computing environment.  

Network Services Section

Network Services is the “utility” behind delivering services to Municipal computing devices. This section of the IT Department maintains the highly complex system of equipment and software that make up the Municipal Computer Network. Currently this system interconnects 98 physical sites, both municipal and non-municipal, spanning from Chugiak to Girdwood and includes over 600 hardware components.

        Communications Group

The communications group is responsible for connecting 98 building locations to the Municipal computer network. For the network to remain operational, on-going maintenance and upkeep such as configuration backup and restore security patching, software upgrades, hardware lifecycle replacement, and daily monitoring is required. In addition, this group is responsible for the security of the Municipal computer network, and for filtering security threats to the email system against spam and antivirus attacks.

The Communications group is also responsible for all aspects of support for Municipal Voice systems. This includes 2600 phones, 100 fax lines, and the voice mail system. The components of the voice system require regular updates, programming for new features, repair, and replacement of hardware as it ages. This group provides the daily problem resolution and configuration of phones for municipal phone users.

        Server Group

The Server group is responsible for the Municipality’s 250 physical server systems and 2 Virtual server systems. These systems deliver services to municipal computer users and other computer systems for access to data, email, internet and other business networks. To remain operational, these systems require continual maintenance and upkeep such as configuration backup and restore security patching, software upgrades, antivirus upkeep, hardware lifecycle replacement, and daily monitoring by staff within the Server Group

The Server Group provides support to several key municipal department business applications that reside on servers. They install, configure and provide support for problems called in by users of these applications. In addition, the Server Group is responsible for the upkeep of the Municipal email system and to ensure that all internal and external email traffic to and from the 3500 Municipal employee mailboxes is delivered.

This team is also responsible for the planning and direction for municipal server systems. They research emerging technologies, develop plans, test and implement new technologies.  

Enterprise Services Section

The Enterprise Services Section manage the disk storage and tape backup subsystems, and implement and maintain security and access controls, including the provisioning and maintenance of hundreds of internal and thousands of external user accounts.  The internal accounts are used by Municipal staff to access CAMA and PeopleSoft.  The external accounts are defined and used annually during the business personal property tax season.

The load on the mainframe is significant, with an average of two million threads (separate processes) running against the production DB2 data base system each month.  The mainframe is critical component of the Municipal tax receipt and financial management systems.