Data Centre Migration for Defence Single Information Environment

Insitec, with partners Accenture and HP, formed a multidisciplinary team to design, build and equip a new scalable Tier 3 data centre for the Australian Department of Defence. The project was critical to achieving Defence infrastructure goals for the Defence Single Information Environment (Defence SIE).

Communication and teamwork were critical to the successful migration of the main Defence data centre, including 126 applications, on time.

More than 126 active software applications were successfully migrated as Defence moved to deploy a new central data centre, replacing a 30 year-old facility that had reached the end of its serviceable life.

The ambitious project involved architecture and engineering for the new facility, including testing of software before deployment, and installation of hardware including:

  • Network and Security Architecture
  • Multiple storage systems and Storage Area Networks
  • IBM P and Z series servers
  • Over 70 Solaris zones and servers
  • 2500 virtual machines
  • Gateway, firewalls and networking
  • Security across multiple security classifications including cross domain solutions

  • Design and installation of a state-of-the art Defence data centre.
  • Relocation of 126 active software applications – careful planning and communication ensured key software tools, from accounting to flight operations, continued to be available to Defence operations around Australia.
  • Multidisciplined team of 80 technical, stakeholder and support staff.
  • Innovative processes delivered this demanding project on time and budget.

Communication and teamwork were critical to the successful migration of the main Defence data centre. More than 17 stakeholder and project managers were employed in the project team. At least one team member was assigned to each of the main software applications, to liaise with stakeholders and monitor the user experience, to minimise any disruption to daily operations.

An innovative integrated test environment was developed and every minor patch and migration script was thoroughly tested before it was deployed to the production environment to avoid any risk to program. This ensured any issues were found early in the testing process so the production migrations went smoothly. This included full DR and availability testing.