5.2. ERMUSR 04-11-2006Ji
Elk River ^~-~
Municipal Utilities
13069 Orono Parkway
Elk River, MN 55330
Apri14, 2006
To: Elk River Municipal Utilities commission
Jerry Takle
Jim Tralle
John Dietz
From: Theresa Slominski
Re: Internet Access
phone: 763.441.2020
Fax: 763.441.8099
Preliminary discussions were held with Bob Pearson, Bryan Adams, and Theresa
Slominski regarding email and internet access for all of Elk River Municipal Utilities
employees. Bob will be available at the meeting to discuss more and to address questions
but a summarization is presented here for your review.
Currently, we have two physically separate networks; computers on the one network have
complete and unrestricted Internet and email access. Bryan, Theresa and two other
machines in the office are on this unrestricted network. The other network is isolated
from the Internet and email. All other office computers and the utility billing server are
on the isolated network. The reasoning behind the isolated network was to have complete
assurances that the billing server would never be exposed to Internet related security
risks.
Bob made the following recommendations:
1. Combine the two internal utility networks.
2. Connect the utility network to the City network with a router that has an access
control list (ACL) configured as follows:
a. Allow all users on the utility network to access a mailbox on the Cities
email server.
b. Allow the computers that were on the unrestricted network to access the
Internet.
c. Deny all traffic that originates outside of the utility network access to the
Utility network.
3. We would eliminate the utilities current Internet connection.
4. Block the Internet access of users from the previously isolated network until later
in 2006 when the City has in place a network appliance dedicated to controlling
and logging Internet usage.
5. Defer a decision on the plant until Bob had a chance to review their network
configuration.
Bob explained that the City does have a state of the art appliance in place for scanning
incoming email for viruses and junk email. He also stated that the Cities email server has
adequate capacity for providing mailboxes for all Utility employees. All of the Utility
computers are running current virus protection software.
We reviewed the costs of the changes as follows:
1. Registering an Internet domain name i.e. elkriverutilities.com $35/year
2. Microsoft Exchange user licensing (for employee mailboxes) $50/user