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Construction of a major underground technology project aimed at strengthening the connectivity, responsiveness and efficiency of Weld County’s computing network doesn’t begin as many might expect. There’s no trenching or tearing up of roads.
Instead, 8- to 12-inch holes drilled in the road are utilized to deliver a second fiber-optic cable to county facilities north of 11th Ave. — a big step in ensuring departments can continually access the county’s network to deliver services to residents now and in the future.
“We looked at this holistically,” said Ryan Rose, Weld County Chief Information Officer for the Department of Information Technology (IT). “We looked at the liabilities of our northern campus and put together a comprehensive fiber-optic plan that makes the network more redundant.”
Currently, every facility on the northern campus is connected to one fiber-optic cable that sends information back and forth to the county’s data centers in the Weld County Jail and the Centennial Center in downtown Greeley. Many important buildings on the county’s northern campus — the Administration Building, Department of Human Services (DHS), Clerk and Recorder’s Office, Weld County Jail and others — rely on this cable to be able to assist residents with many different services.
But as everyone knows, technology is not immune to malfunction. Having a back-up plan in case the fiber-optic connection fails became a clear priority to IT when evaluating the county’s network in 2018. Beyond the risk of electronic failure, the fact that it’s directly buried just two-to-three feet underground also poses a challenge.
“Construction could physically impact the cable,” Rose said, explaining it could be accidentally dug up during road construction causing a lengthy outage. “The idea with this project is if one cable has a physical or electronic issue, the other can pick up the traffic, and there’s no downtime associated to it.”
While it may seem like downtime is an inconvenience only to employees, it can also be detrimental to residents needing to conduct business electronically with several county departments including DHS, the Clerk and Recorder’s Office, Employment Services and many others. Depending on the issue, repairing a damaged fiber-optic cable can take between one to three days to repair. An additional cable keeps sending and receiving data to and from county facilities to data centers, meaning while one cable is being repaired, county business can continue as usual.
“Our residents demand a lot from county government, and it’s critical that our technology meets those needs,” Weld County Commissioner Chair Mike Freeman said. “This addition to our system is a necessary step in strengthening the network and making sure our services are available to those who need them.”
Fittingly, completion of the project is somewhat high tech. After those 8- to 12-inch holes are created, a directional boring machine — with the help of a camera — feeds the wire underground. The wire is stretched as far as needed, although the exact length depends on what building it’s connecting to.
So, the next time you’re on a county website or sending something electronically to a county department, remember, technology is only an asset if it works well and meets a need. This project shows both IT’s and Weld County Government’s commitment to protecting that asset.
And it all starts with holes in the road.
By Baker Geist, Weld County Communications Specialist
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