Queensland Success Stories
Highlighting outstanding achievers in Queensland’s ICT industry.
Working Together – Department of Education and the Arts (DEA) and WebCentral’s Managed Internet Service
Working together, Queensland’s Department of Education and the Arts (DEA) and Queensland IT company
WebCentral, have developed a state-of-the-art Managed Internet Service for 1,350 schools and 550,000 users. Impressively, this project was implemented within the ambitious time-frame of 90 days – on time and on budget.
This successful collaboration between Queensland Government and industry partners has resulted in the largest Managed Internet Service in Australia and one of the largest Sun ONE education installations in the world.
The Project
In April 2003 WebCentral entered into a contract for up to five years with DEA to create a Managed Internet Service (MIS) for the State’s 1,350 public schools. The MIS includes a directory service, email, web hosting, content filtered web browsing, virus scanning for email and a customised portal and was developed in conjunction with project partners Dimension Data, as project managers and Sun Microsystems as agent. It is based on high quality, proven infrastructure, utilising the Sun ONE platform as well as Sun Microsystems SAN technology and BMC monitoring software. It is a highly available, secure solution protected by firewalls, plus biometric and physical security measures.
The Agency
The Department of Education and the Arts is responsible for:
- Setting the direction for education in Queensland;
- Managing the state education system;
- Developing and implementing government arts and cultural policy and programs;
- Supporting non-state and higher education portfolio responsibilities;
- Administering arts and cultural funding of capital works programs.
Industry Partners
WebCentral Complex (www.webcentralcomplex.com.au) is a strategic business unit of
WebCentral, a Queensland-based SME which was formed in June 2002 to provide customised high-end infrastructure and innovative managed solutions to enterprise clients. Established in 1997, WebCentral is a leading supplier of internet solutions for business, including a wide range of web hosting and messaging products for small business through to large corporations and governments. As a niche division, WebCentral Complex provides specialty, consultative services to WebCentral's enterprise, government and corporate customers, leveraging WebCentral's experience in installing and scaling enterprise grade application infrastructure.
Dimension Data Australia is a leading global technology company. As WebCentral’s incumbent Sun Microsystem’s service provider, Dimension Data Australia sourced and integrated Sun hardware and Sun One infrastructure into WebCentral’s hosting environment. They also provided the project management expertise for the project.
Sun Microsystems is a leading provider of Internet-based hardware, software and services.
Background
Prior to 2003, DEA had relied on a single provider to deliver Wide Area Network, Internet, Managed Internet and Facilities Management Services. When the contract was due to be renewed, DEA included the planned release of the tender for the contract in their advice to industry as part of their Significant Purchase Plan. This included industry briefings facilitated by the Information Industries Bureau (IIB).
Feedback from industry was that DEA would get much better value for money if it separated the requirements into four separate purchases. DEA accepted this advice, which proved to be very beneficial, and issued separate tenders. This was useful because they were able to associate different levels of risk with the separate purchases and apply risk mitigation strategies accordingly. The most high risk of the four purchases was the Managed Internet Service, because of the technical complexity of the requirement. DEA identified that this implementation would require substantial management of the implementation from their side, and could not be treated as a commodity purchase like the wide area network and the Internet requirements. Web Central was the successful tenderer for the prime contractor role for the Managed Internet Service Component
The issues
By the time DEA’s previous provider’s contract was at an end, DEA had identified a growing number of requirements and issues that they wanted to address with the new MIS. Core to this was the issue of managing user identities and integration across a growing range of related programs and solutions – all requiring separate passwords and with some doubling up of information. DEA wanted a system which was integrated, scalable to cater for significant future growth, and in which they had a greater degree of ownership and management. Of particular concern was the ability to deliver a ‘safe’ internet browsing experience for students across the Queensland public education system as well as allow students to “take their profile with them” as they progress through the school system.
Partnering for Success
There are key factors that DEA consider were major contributors to the success of this project and they would recommend that other agencies considering a partnership arrangement with industry take them into account. These critical success factors are:
- Skilled and dedicated project management - DEA provided a full-time project manager for two and a half years from the commencement of the planning phase right through to implementation. They also ensured that the appropriate technical skills were available to the project manager as required. Dimension Data provided skilled project management from the industry side, ensuring that they chose staff with a good understanding of the workings of Government.
- Excellent communication between all parties at the appropriate levels - there were weekly technical meetings and weekly operational meetings which were kept separate so as not to confuse the issues. There were also quarterly strategic meetings between senior management of DEA and WebCentral right throughout the project.
- Early and appropriate involvement of the legal area – DEA ensured that their legal staff were involved early and that the people working on the project had appropriate IT skills and background to understand the issues.
- Audit – an internal and external auditor and a probity auditor were involved throughout the entire process.
- Procurement resourcing – DEA provide a full-time procurement person and strongly recommend this to other agencies embarking on similar projects.
- Tender Briefings – DEA took the opportunity to present their procurement plans to industry. Industry provided the agency with excellent feedback and advice, which was followed and resulted in a good outcome for all parties
Where to From Here
After an extraordinary 90 day implementation, WebCentral Complex and its partners are now scoping a range of enhancements to meet the challenging 35% compound growth targets set by DEA for the download capacity of the system. This will be achieved by once again working closely with the Department, demonstrating the impressive outcomes which can be achieved when government and industry work together.
