City looks into system, server upgrades

GONZALES – The City of Gonzales is looking into upgrading their system called Itron that electronically pulls electric and water meter reads. The system enables the city to bill customers each month.

The city's Itron system has not been updated since the late 90s, when it was originally installed.

During the last quarter of 2016 the Itron system stopped working for an entire month and the city could not pull the reads for verification. The city was finally able to reset the system and subsequently able to retrieve the data.

The city has numerous reads in Itron which are logged and archived daily to the city's server, however the server does not currently have enough capacity to hold all of the information the Itron system needs to archive.

If the Itron system were to go down, the city staff would have to manually read more than 8,000 meters and any historical data would be lost. This catastrophe would affect the timeliness and accuracy of utility billing to all customers.

The city uses Hill Country Tech Guys for IT support. The firm is concerned about the stability of the Itron system. Hill Country Tech Guys suggests the city replace the server and upgrade the network, at a cost of $57,626.

Council agrees the upgrades are needed, but opted earlier this month to hold off on a final decision until the matter is given due diligence. The original service plan with Itron is expired. Mayor Connie Kacir has been in contact with Itron, Hill Country Tech Guys and another software firm trying to figure out the best plan of attack for the system issues at hand.