ARPA funds to upgrade township IT storage

By Dana Casadei

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees unanimously voted to approve an American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) expenditure of $75,568.91 to purchase a Storage Area Network (SAN) replacement through Abtech Technologies, Inc. at their Monday, October 9, meeting, to update and house their servers and protect their technology.

Abtech Technologies, Inc. was recommended for this project from the township’s department of information technology, led by Wil Babinchak, who gave the evening’s presentation.

“SAN is really where we house every single piece of data that we have in the township, including all our servers, even the laptop I’m connected to,” Babinchak said.

Bloomfield Township’s current SAN is Dell, a partner-first company for data center purchases. Once the opportunity is registered with Dell, no value-added reseller could be added to the quoting process.

This SAN is also a sole-source purchase, meaning there is only one vendor capable of providing the service, causing it to not be possible for the township to obtain competitive bids on the project.

The current SAN being used by the township is set to expire in November, with a warranty and support renewal cost of $32,566.73. If renewed, this SAN would not have expired for another three years.

The newly approved SAN from Abtech Technologies, Inc. will have a five-year warranty and support contract.

The IT department also took advantage of Dell’s buyback program, negotiating to not only receive the $15,000 from their buyback program but to keep their current SAN too, which is not typical with this sort of program. Usually one has to return the SAN.

Babinchak said they’ll be able to use their current SAN at a co-location for their upcoming disaster recovery plan.

The board’s newest trustee, Chris Kolinksi, made the motion for approval, which was awarded, passing 7-0.