PORT OF SEATTLE 
MEMORANDUM 
COMMISSION AGENDA               Item No.      6c 
ACTION ITEM 
Date of Meeting    October 22, 2013 
DATE:    October 2, 2013 
TO:      Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
FROM:   Matt Breed, Senior Manager, ICT Infrastructure 
Peter Garlock, Chief Information Officer 
SUBJECT:  Agreement to Relocate Fisher Plaza Data Center to Spokane, WA 
Amount of This Request:         $900,000   Source of Funds:   ICT Expense Budget 
Est. 2013 Cost:                 $150,000   Est. Jobs Created:         N/A 
ACTION REQUESTED 
Request Commission authorization for the Chief Executive Officer to execute an agreement with
TierPoint  to allow the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department  to
relocate Port of Seattle secondary datacenter systems into TierPoint's Spokane, Washington, data 
center to provide geographic redundancy. The agreement is for three years, with an option to
renew for an additional three years at a cost of $150,000 per year, for a total amount of $900,000.
Actual 2013 costs will be pro-rated at the time of contract execution. 
SYNOPSIS 
The requested action will provide geographic redundancy and reduce our risk of systems failures
in the event of a catastrophic seismic event in the Puget Sound area. It will also reduce ICT's
operating costs by approximately $200,000 per year, beginning in 2014. 
BACKGROUND 
The Port of Seattle currently has its enterprise information systems infrastructure located in two 
physically separated datacenter locations. The primary datacenter is located inside the airport,
and a secondary datacenter facility, hosted by Internap Network Services Corp, is located at
Fisher Plaza a few blocks from Pier 69. Because these two locations are 15 miles apart from
each other, they provide physical redundancy for most catastrophes and failure scenarios 
including fire and power outages. However, a major regional seismic or weather event could
disrupt both facilities.  Information technology systems  and infrastructure have become
increasingly critical to most Port operations.  A catastrophic simultaneous failure of both
datacenters would therefore seriously impair the ability of the Port to operate. For this reason,
keeping both data centers in the same seismic geographic region has become too great a risk. 
This risk was specifically called out in a FEMA risk exercise conducted in the spring of 2011,
and again by the recent performance and risk assessment conducted by Protiviti, an independent
IT performance assessment group. Both assessments strongly recommended locating a data
center outside of the seismic region. After considerable research, the Spokane, Washington, area
Template revised May 30, 2013.

COMMISSION AGENDA 
Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
October 2, 2013 
Page 2 of 4 
was identified as an ideal alternative location due to its greatly reduced seismic risk, and its
relatively close proximity and accessibility. Further analysis revealed that by redesigning and
relocating our secondary datacenter to Spokane, we could also lower our annual operating
expenses by over $200,000. 
This project will phase out the Internap data center at Fisher Plaza, and establish a new failover
data center at an existing TierPoint location in Eastern Washington with a significantly lower
seismic risk (see USGS seismic event hazard map below). 







PROJECT JUSTIFICATION AND DETAILS 
This project will reduce the risk of a catastrophic failure of ICT systems, and will reduce
operating costs. This will be accomplished by moving our current data center at Fisher Plaza to
the TierPoint facility located in Spokane, Washington. TierPoint is the preferred choice for
several reasons: 
1.  The facility is located in Eastern Washington, 30 minutes from the Spokane airport. 
2.  The facility is Zone 4 Earthquake rated. 
3.  The facility includes fully redundant power feeds and access to many different types of
network services for redundant connectivity. 
4.  The costs for the TierPoint location are significantly less than our current secondary
datacenter costs, which will reduce ICT costs by about $200,000 per year. 
5.  The facility is outside of a 1,000 year flood plain. 
6.  The facility utilizes environmentally friendly technology, including geo-thermal cooling
and constantly spinning flywheel generators to provide continuous power vs. lead acid
batteries.

COMMISSION AGENDA 
Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
October 2, 2013 
Page 3 of 4 
Project Objectives 
Reduce the risk of catastrophic failure of ICT systems and services due to a major
seismic event. 
Reduce annual operating costs. 
Scope of Work 
The data center move will take place in four main phases: 
Phase 1  Establish Network Connectivity and Backup Replication. 
Phase 2  Establish Internet Connectivity. 
Phase 3  Move preproduction environment to TierPoint. 
Phase 4  Establish Data Center to Data Center Failover. 
At the completion of the project we will have regionally redundant data centers, located in
separate seismic zones, and able to provide failover for each other. 
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS 
The agreement costs are estimated at $150,000 per year. Total costs for the initial three-year
period plus the three additional one-year options are estimated at $900,000.
Budget Status and Source of Funds 
This is not a request for funding. The 2013 expense is included in the ICT annual budget. Future
years will also be budgeted in ICT. 
Financial Analysis and Summary 
This agreement will save ICT approximately $200,000 per year compared to our operating costs
at Internap in Fisher Plaza. This results in approximately $1.2 million in savings extrapolated
over a six-year period. 
ALTERNATIVES AND IMPLICATIONS CONSIDERED 
Alternative 1)  Do nothing. Both Port data centers would be vulnerable to a massive seismic or
other region-wide event. If such an event occurs, the Port would lose all access to its computer
systems and networks and may not be able to fully restore data. This is not the recommended
alternative. 
Alternative 2)  Relocate our Fisher Plaza data center to the TierPoint center located in Eastern
Washington. This reduces the vulnerability of the Port's computer systems and networks to a
major outage. In addition, the Port will save approximately $200,000 per year by redesigning
and relocating our secondary datacenter to TierPoint. This is the recommended alternative. 
ATTACHMENTS TO THIS REQUEST 
Proposed Agreement with TierPoint

COMMISSION AGENDA 
Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
October 2, 2013 
Page 4 of 4 

PREVIOUS COMMISSION ACTIONS OR BRIEFINGS 
None.