Jennifer Foreshew | July 08, 2008
case study | DAFF
THE Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was facing a two-year refurbishment of its outdated building to bring it up to commonwealth standards, or make the move to a new location.
Gary Leifheit says cabling has been updated
A $52 million move was then carefully organised to take place over six weeks starting last November, involving 2200 staff.
The department had to ensure business continuity and minimise disruption to its operations throughout the relocation process, especially for Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service systems, which could affect export and import industries.
Mission-critical network and AQIS applications are linked to airport systems, and their relocation was completed in a single day, Boxing Day.
The relocation of the remaining server room infrastructure was also done between Christmas and new year.
Department chief information officer Gary Leifheit says the move was an opportunity to establish core infrastructure to support future technological changes and refresh the desktop computing fleet.
"We have changed the cabling network and taken the opportunity to bring that up to contemporary standards, so it future-proofs us for the next five to 10 years," Leifheit says.
"We wanted to reduce the footprint and establish a better disaster-recovery position and backup arrangements," he says.
"The desktop environment we have now is a gigabit, so we can start looking at things like videoconferencing or video to the desktop later, as that technology evolves."
The department has moved from its Barton, ACT, location to a contemporary and energy efficient site in the Canberra CBD.
About 300 to 400-plus staff were moved each weekend during the relocation. "Basically, people wrapped up their goods and chattels on Friday, then rolled over into a new office environment on Monday and logged on to a brand new kit and it was up and running," Leifheit says.
The department is responsible for increasing the profitability, competitiveness and sustainability of the agricultural, fisheries, food and forestry industries and enhancing the natural resource base to achieve greater national wealth and stronger rural and regional communities.
It employs about 4425 staff in Australia and overseas, with 2500 based in Canberra.
Commander's Volante Managed Services managed the project for the department as part of its Group 8 agreement with the public service.
Commander assumed responsibility to deliver five key programs.
These involved a desktop refresh: capturing data from 2500 individual PCs, transferring data to new PCs and ensuring new desktops were ready for business.
The project included a printer relocation and refresh, and recabling for sharing between teams.
About 400 servers were relocated from the Barton building.
The disaster-recovery centre was moved from Barton to an off-site facility at Fyshwick, in line with commonwealth and industry best practice.
New data and voice networks were established using CAT 6A Systemax cables.
"We have now moved to voice over internet protocol and that is moving through," Leifheit says.
"Ultimately we want to start looking at how we might handle that converged space to pull together the two environments with some of our business operations."
The department's virtualised environment is also up and running and stable.
"We have reduced the space that the computer room used to take up by about 25 per cent," Leifheit says.
"We have had no glitches in our communications technology and the environment is better controlled and managed by the building itself."
Leifheit says the department is becoming more mobile, particularly with its AQIS operations.
"We are starting to look at wireless to see how that might enable us to better meet our client requirements," Leifheit says.
"For our remote and overseas offices we are looking at thin technology so they have better experience when they come back into the department."
THE PROBLEM
The department needed core infrastructure to support changes in technology and refresh the desktop computing fleet when moving from an outdated building to a contemporary and energy-efficient building.
THE PROCESS
Volante Managed Services from Commander assumed responsibility for key programs: desktop refresh, printer relocation and refresh, server room relocation, disaster recovery centre relocation and WAN-LAN infrastructure.
THE RESULT
There was minimal impact on operations during a six-week relocation. A smaller technology footprint ensured smooth communications delivery. The technology environment is better controlled, and managed by the building itself.