PORT OF SEATTLE 
MEMORANDUM 
COMMISSION AGENDA                      Item No.         6b 
ACTION ITEM 
Date of Meeting     September 24, 2013 
DATE:     September 13, 2013 
TO:        Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
FROM:    Matt Breed, Senior Manager, ICT Infrastructure 
Peter Garlock, Chief Information Officer 
SUBJECT:  Interlocal Agreement to Relocate Fisher Plaza Data Center to Spokane Valley 
Amount of This Request:             $960,000    Source of Funds:    ICT Expense Budget 
Est. 2013 Cost:                        $160,000    Est. Jobs Created:             N/A 
ACTION REQUESTED 
Request Commission authorization for the Chief Executive Officer to execute an interlocal
agreement, substantially as drafted in the attached exhibit, with the University of Washington 
(UW) to allow the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department to utilize data 
center infrastructure services in UW's Eastern Washington Remote Geographic Redundancy
Center for three years, with an option to renew for an additional three years at a cost of $160,000
per year for a total amount of $960,000.  Actual 2013 costs will be pro-rated at the time of
contract execution. 
SYNOPSIS 
The Port of Seattle houses its enterprise servers and data inside of one of two locations. The
interlocal agreement with the University of Washington will allow ICT to relocate its secondary 
data center out of this region and into an existing UW facility located in Eastern Washington.
The move will provide geographic redundancy, reduced risk of systems failures in the event of a
catastrophic seismic event in the Puget Sound area, and it will also reduce ICT's operating costs
by approximately $200,000 per year.  Funds for 2013 costs are already included in the 2013
operating budget. 
BACKGROUND 
For more than eight years, the Port has operated with two data centers. A primary site located at
the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and a secondary site co-located at Internap in Fisher
Plaza.  These two locations are roughly 20 miles apart from each other, and provide physical
redundancy for most catastrophes and failure scenarios, except a major regional seismic event. 
As information technology, systems, and infrastructure have become increasingly essential and
highly critical to Port operations, the overall risk has become too great to keep both data centers
in the same seismic geographic region, and was therefore called out in the FEMA exercise in the

Template revised May 30, 2013.

COMMISSION AGENDA 
Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
September 13, 2013 
Page 2 of 4 
spring of 2011, an internal risk assessment in 2011, and the recent Protiviti risk assessment, all 
recommending relocating one of the data centers outside of the region.  The Spokane area was
considered ideal due to its accessibility (frequent daily flights are available), its seismic footprint,
and its proximity. 
This project will phase out the Internap data center at Fisher Plaza, and establish a new failover
data center at an existing UW 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 University of Washington's Tierpoint facility  located  in  Liberty  Lake,  Washington.
Tierpoint is the preferred choice for several reasons: 
1.  The facility is located in Eastern Washington, 15 minutes from the Spokane airport. 
2.  The facility is Zone 4 Earthquake rated. 
3.  We have access to many different types of transport mechanisms for connectivity. 
4.  The costs for the UW/Tierpoint are significantly less than our current costs with Internap
and will reduce ICT costs by about $200,000 per year. 
5.  The University of Washington co-location space uses metered power instead of allocated
power circuits, so we would pay only for what we use, rather than a fixed fee.  We
estimate our overall power costs to be about 20% lower using this billing method. 
6.  The facility is outside of a 1,000 year flood plain.

COMMISSION AGENDA 
Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
September 13, 2013 
Page 3 of 4 
7.  The facility includes fully redundant power feeds. 
8.  The facility is geo-thermally cooled. 
9.  The facility utilizes fly wheel technology instead of lead acid batteries for continuous
power, which is much more environmentally friendly than the waste created through lead
acid battery disposal. 
Other facilities reviewed did not stack up as favorably as the UW/Tierpoint location. 
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 interlocal agreement costs are estimated at $160,000 per year. Total costs for the initial
three-year period plus the three additional one-year options are estimated at $960,000. Costs for
2013 would be pro-rated based on the months remaining at the time of the contract execution. 
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

COMMISSION AGENDA 
Tay Yoshitani, Chief Executive Officer 
September 13, 2013 
Page 4 of 4 
systems and networks and may not be able to fully restore data.  This is not the recommended
alternative. 
Alternative 2)  Relocate to another location.  The UW/Tierpoint location is ideal due to its
location, its accessibility, connectivity options, environmentally friendly footprint, and metered
power options. No other facilities reviewed met those needs as well as UW/Tierpoint. 
Alternative 3)  Relocate the Fisher Plaza data center to the UW Tierpoint center 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 as compared with
continuing in Fisher Plaza. This is the recommended alternative. 
ATTACHMENTS TO THIS REQUEST 
Proposed Interlocal Agreement with University of Washington. 
PREVIOUS COMMISSION ACTIONS OR BRIEFINGS 
None.