Enterprise Technology Solutions

Sean Ware is the Director of Enterprise Technology Solutions (ETS) department. He began his role in August 2022 and is responsible for the citywide IT strategy, managing the operations of ETS to assist other departments with their technology needs, and leading the IT Governance effort for the city.

Mr. Ware has over 30 years of experience in various roles in IT. He is committed to improving the availability, integrity, and security of the City’s IT environment with excellent customer service, cooperative partnerships, and financial accountability.

Mr. Ware holds a BS degree in Information Technology from Western Governors University and has obtained many certifications throughout his career.

• Jeff McCord, Deputy Director, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
• Raj Chundur, Deputy Director, CAGIS
• Jim Kovac, IT Manager, CLEAR
• Hanna Khoury, IT Manager, Infrastructure & Security
• Sean Winfield, IT Manager, CAGIS
• Charles Young, IT Assistant Manager, Public Safety

The ETS Office of the Director includes multiple internal administrative divisions that serve the department. These functions include HR, payroll, budgeting, finance, communications, project management, process improvement, I.T. governance, administrative support and division management.

The Enterprise Infrastructure and Security division is made up of four teams that perform core services for the department, City of Cincinnati, and areas surrounding within Hamilton County.

Network Services (NS) provides management of the City’s wide area network, which includes defining security rules and roles for its deployment and establishing guidelines for local area network deployments,  network design, implementation, management, and monitoring including internet access and firewall services.

Additionally, the Network Services team oversees the administration, operation, and maintenance of the City of Cincinnati’s privately owned fiber optic network linking all major City facilities. The fiber optic network provides a wide variety of services to all City agencies, including public safety communications for Police, Fire and E-911.

The Security team establishes controls and measures to minimize the risk of loss of information and system resources, corruption of data, disruption of access to the data, and unauthorized disclosure of information. The team administers effective policies, standards, and procedures that ensure the confidentiality, availability and integrity of City information, applications, systems, and networks for authorized individuals.

Additionally, the Security team collaborates with the other infrastructure teams to develop the Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan, which enables the information systems of the City of Cincinnati/County, clients and customers to survive a disaster, and to reestablish normal operations as soon as possible. The Security section identifies current weaknesses and implements a risk mitigation program to minimize the duration of a serious disruption to operations; facilitate effective coordination of recover tasks; and reduce the effort for recovery.

The Enterprise Data Center team manages the city data center facility to ensure that it is physically and environmentally secure. The team oversees all optimizations associated with the center to ensure proper data storage , speed, accessibility, security, recovery and reliability.

CTS is primarily responsible for supporting the City’s voice communications systems including:

• The administration, operation, and maintenance of the City’s privately owned telephone systems at 85 locations and another 120 locations throughout the city.
• The administration and oversight for telecommunications services provided by outside vendors to the city.
• Mobile services which includes device deployment, maintenance, and updates for leased landline and data services at 300+ locations, approximately 1,300 mobile phones, and 700 smart phones/mobile broadband devices

Enterprise Applications supplies information technology solutions and service desk support for the City of Cincinnati. Enterprise Applications staff support City enterprise systems, including the City’s financial system, the human resource system, and the City’s Internet and intranet sites. They also support various applications used across City departments.

The three teams that make up this division provide enterprise system administration for various hardware platforms; website development and technical support; software maintenance for production application systems; administration and support of computer-based security software; computer scheduling and operations; development and implementation of general-purpose utility software; production job setup, quality control and report distribution; data control; database administration activities for various environments; and disaster recovery planning and testing. Enterprise Applications is also responsible for supporting the City email system and providing Tier 2 help desk services to the City. The primary systems and functions of this division include:

• Cincinnati Human Resources Information System (CHRIS)
• Cincinnati Financial Systems (CFS)
• City Website and Intranet Site (Digital Services)
• PC Support, Training, Application Development, Consultation

The Central I.T Service Desk team provides on-going PC support for desktops from initial setup to maintaining enterprise applications, as needed. ETS service offerings include:

• Hardware support (i.e., PC, Laptop, Server, Printer and Scanner), including upgrades, diagnostics, configuration, relocation, and deployment
• Installation and maintenance of supported operating systems and service patches
• Management & technical consulting services.

The management and technical consulting services include assisting customers in the analysis and reengineering of business processes; Managing information systems projects, designing, and developing application systems using a variety of technologies and platforms, training end-users of information systems in the use of application systems and/or in the effective utilization of the technology in which the systems are implemented and perform information services needs analyses.

Cincinnati Area Geographic Information System (CAGIS) is an enterprise-wide information consortium that provides Cincinnati and Hamilton County government agencies and private utilities with access to real-time data for decision support, leading to improvements in the coordination, efficiency, and quality of public service. The system embeds existing business rules and the management of information resources directly into departmental workflows, all made possible through the innovative integration of geographic information system (GIS) technology with automated business-process workflow software.    

CAGIS serves more than 2,000 employees of the City of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, and local utilities in mission-critical business operations. GIS is an integral component of the permitting and licensing operations and is maintained through technology embedded in the workflows themselves. It has become the means for integrating work order, customer service, and billing systems. CAGIS technology is now used by front-counter staff, plan examiners, planning, engineering, accounting, dispatch and field crews in many agencies.

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The County Law Enforcement Applied Regionally (CLEAR) Division provides computerized records management systems to the 50+ law enforcement agencies operating in Hamilton County. The primary systems provided include:   

• the CLEAR system, which maintains information regarding persons and property. 

• the AFIS system, which maintains fingerprint information on all persons previously arrested.   

• the MDT system, which provides on-line access to information systems from all police vehicles.   

• the LLE system, which provides information on all crimes reported; and   

• Jail Management, which maintains information on all persons incarcerated in the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Jail.   

CLEAR also maintains a data communications network that links all Hamilton County law enforcement agencies, including police squad cars, with the local systems and information systems maintained by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the FBI and the remaining 49 state police agencies.   

ECCIT is a division of the Enterprise Technology Solutions department that manages and maintains all systems associated with the City of Cincinnati Emergency Communications Center. The Radio team, managed by ECCIT, is primarily responsible for supporting the City’s radio communications systems. This includes the coordination and management of the City’s radio frequencies with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and for the mobile and land-based radio systems throughout the city, including Police, Fire, Public Services, Parks, Recreation and Greater Cincinnati Water Works departments.

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