The Challenge
With its incumbent agreement about to expire, MPI reviewed its current and future requirements and found it needed a new IaaS solution and is one of the first agencies to make the transition to the Government IaaS offering. MPI also wanted to realise significant cost-savings from the new system.
To achieve this, MPI outlined a complex migration project attaching a challenging timeframe of seven months. The project had to be completed with minimal disruption to the organisation and the services it provides.
The Solution
When MPI adopted a commercial cloud offering in 2009, it was one of the first agencies to embrace the benefits of IaaS. The intent was to migrate from a commercial platform to the Governments new Infrastructure as a Service offering once it was established.
Following a review of its existing systems and other providers’ offerings, it was found that a clear differentiation point for Datacom was how we demonstrated the cost savings we could produce around transition of services. The savings made during the migration could also be achieved in further consolidations and ongoing operations.
We proved our promise. Our team migrated MPI’s IT infrastructure from the existing data centres into our Wellington and Auckland data centres. Overall, this involved moving 650 servers and 100 Tb of data.
Our flexible approach also enabled us to adapt our requirements to meet MPI’s needs, specifically around the introduction of a new service, called Bare Metal as a Service, to meet a unique MPI need.
The project involved 120 people from five companies and was delivered on time and within budget. This was achieved through collaboration and teamwork between MPI’s partners. We were also able to leverage our existing relationships with other providers to deliver the project.
Today, MPI’s server environment is significantly simplified. Datacom’s solution reduced MPI’s data centre footprint from 31 racks to only seven, while network switches were dropped from 70 to 12.
“The project has allowed MPI to achieve a range of benefits including cost reductions and reduced complexity. It would not have been a success without the dedicated effort from your technical teams and the true partnerships that have been formed with aggregated vendor model the teams have worked long hours to make this project work.”
Tracy Voice - Director Business Technology and Information Services, MPI