TAGITM Monthly
October 31, 2019
 
President's Message

As some of you may know, we had severe storms and tornadoes here in north Texas a few days ago. In some areas, the damage was devastating. The cleanup and recovery will no doubt take months. It is always amazing to me how everyone across the state springs into action after a disaster. You see agencies from hundreds of miles away sending people and equipment to aid in the cleanup. 

One of the newest organizations to join these efforts is the Texas Emergency GIS Response Team. For those of you that supervise GIS staff in your departments, you may already be aware of this team. They are called into service after a disaster anywhere in the state that mapping is required. I’m sure you can imagine the benefits of plotting the tornado damage path on a map or utilizing a mobile app that allows support personnel to identify and mark damaged facilities.

As we used to say in my east Texas hometown, this got me to thinkin’. If a tornado, or any other disaster, were to strike one of our facilities, do we have the ability to loan spare hardware? If the main data center for a city or county was destroyed and they needed servers, networking equipment, etc. quickly, do we have the ability to take some of our spare equipment and loan and/or donate it to them? I know that many of us have the ability to fail over to a cloud backup, but that requires an internet connection that may or may not be available at the time. 

In my operation, we send all out-of-service equipment to auction the minute it comes out of service. Hanging on to a couple of older servers and switches might not be a bad idea after all. 

Have a great October!

Scott

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TAGITM Updates

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To sign up to serve on any of the committees go to the Get Involved link on the TAGITM website.

Have you heard? The TAGITM regional event in Sequin on November 12 will include a wealth of information from licensing to legislation. Please join us and enjoy numerous presentations and networking opportunities.
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The pace of technology change is accelerating rapidly, augmented by factors that IT pros need to study-up on, things they never had to deal with before like hyperautomation, multiexperience and human augmentation that Gartner says will have a significant impact on enterprises.
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Scientel Soluitions, LLC

Scientel is a universal integration company that offers 360° technology services supporting the dynamic and sophisticated communications, video and data management needs of clients. Our mission is to enhance the quality of life for our Customers, Partners, Employees and Community. Headquartered outside Chicago with additional offices across the United States, Canada and Europe; Scientel has the capabilities and experience to service international clients across the globe.

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TAGITM Features
By Jeff Havens

A while ago I published an article called "7 Things Old People Do That You Should Too." It got a good response – almost 50,000 of you took the time to read it, and thank you for doing so. But in the spirit of fair play and even-handedness and all that, I am compelled today to try and find something nice to say about today’s young people.