The Australian Crime Commission's (ACC) decision to overhaul its voice and networking infrastructure has led to cost savings for the commission.
The ACC flagged a consolidation of fixed line voice telephony contractual arrangements in April, with a view to also deploy a higher capacity secondary data network, in order to cut costs as part of measures in response to the Gershon Review.
The organisation was operating a partially converged voice and data network between its Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth offices. The ACC implemented the project before its deadline on 30 June.
People and business support executive director, Jane Bailey, said it has made significant savings on fixed line carrier charges which then offset the additional cost of an improved backup wide area network (WAN).
“The project has given the ACC greater resiliency in its network communications which will ensure that our offices maintain communications in the event of a primary network failure," she said. "This will allow critical operations to continue uninterrupted.”
The ACC is also working on a backup and storage refresh project to replace aging equipment and improve efficiencies. It plans to finish evaluations for a $2.2 million unified communications tender later this year.
“When complete we will be conducting a video conferencing refresh agency wide.”
She adds that the ACC is rolling out a desktop refresh to replace existing equipment with thin clients to deliver a Windows 7 standard operating environment through Citrix including web conferencing capabilities. This is to improve collaboration across the ACC’s offices.
“This will also assist in reaching the ACC’s Green ICT targets,” Bailey said.
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