County authorizes GIS migration after VMware licensing change; staff to split costs with authority

Sheree Pis Brown, GIS manager for the county, told commissioners that Broadcom's acquisition of VMware converted the county's previous perpetual server licenses into subscription-based licensing, creating an unplanned annual cost for the county.

"For someone our size, we're looking at a 13 to $25,000 yearly cost for that license," Sheree said, describing why the county sought a migration to Microsoft's Hyper-V (which the county expects to remain perpetual-license friendly for the near term). She outlined necessary steps: upgrade server licenses, move virtual machines to Hyper-V, provision temporary storage for replication during the migration, and pay professional-services fees for the migration.

Sheree said the county's GIS servers sit on the authority's physical infrastructure and recommended splitting the migration and temporary backup costs with the authority. Commissioners praised her work and approved a motion authorizing staff to proceed with the migration and associated expenditures.

No specific dollar figure for the county's share was approved at the meeting; staff said they would return with detailed cost allocation and procurement steps.