Department of Education, Employment and Training (DEET)
Victoria, Australia
Paul Doherty, General Manager of IT, Department of Education, Employment and Training
Company Profile
The Department of Education, Employment and Training (DEET) is an IT power user. Noted as the number one user of IT among Australia's top 500 companies, it is also the leading user of IT among Australian government departments. DEET's Information Technology division provides centralised IT
services and strategic directions in technology for corporate and school-based staff located throughout Victoria.
In terms of the education, this equates to approximately 536,000 primary and secondary students and 35,660 permanent teachers in 1,625 government schools. In addition to this, there are another 8,600 employees consisting of casual and relief teaching and non-teaching staff. DEET has over 200,000
computers spread across 2,000 locations Victoria-wide. The department is further responsible for the management of schools, adult education, training, employment and youth services in Victoria.
Solution Overview
|
Business Situation
The initial challenge for DEET was to provide business tools which enabled project teams and workgroups to collaborate and share information simply and efficiently in the corporate division of the education environment. Replacing over 20 paper-based line-of-business office procedures with
sophisticated intranet services was a primary goal. According to Mr Paul Doherty, General Manager of DEET's Information Technology Division, "DEET's size and nature were factors which presented many business challenges to the organisation, requiring unique solutions that were, in many
places, not readily available in the market place. "An aspect of great significance in DEET's operations is the ability for ongoing contributions from a whole range of people. Given the enormous geographical locations from which people might wish to contribute, a centralised collaboration
environment was seen as critical. Although email is already used extensively in the department, Doherty emphasised that email alone is not capable of bringing a project together.
The department, in changing from its paper-based system wanted a solution which would:
- assist the department in publishing high-quality content in an almost effortless manner;
- build a centralised document repository for easy access and location of content;
- replace the multitude of document storage areas in existence currently;
- increase organisational productivity; and
- embrace a knowledge-sharing culture
Solution
SharePoint™ Team Services is being introduced to provide project teams and business units with a collaborative workspace in which to exchange ideas, documents and general information specific to a workgroup or team. SharePoint Portal Server is also to be used within DEET to index and
catalogue other corporate information maintained in Microsoft Exchange, Web sites and traditional Windows® NT file server environments.With SharePoint Team Services project teams and business units are now able to more efficiently organise meeting times, gather information using the survey
tool and collaborate around documents and ideas.Team Services gives power to usersThe Team Services environment is centrally hosted within a fully redundant environment which is indexed and catalogued. The administration of specific sites is delegated to individuals within the teams,
empowering each team to control their own workspace and tailor the site to their needs. Brian Cook, Technical Director from Microsoft Certified Partner, OBS, makes the point, "From an IT perspective, Share Point sites can be established with minimal IT overhead with responsibility and
ongoing maintenance for the site delegated to the team".
Quote
"We have experienced tremendous savings in time and money. Communication between schools and the department is now totally electronic and this has saved us money in publishing, printing and distribution for a start. Web-based processes are timelier than paper-based systems; the benefits
of direct entry, immediate access and the ability to share information through the use of SharePoint™ Team Services, means that business is conducted in a more productive way, with greater integrity."
Paul Doherty
General Manager of IT, Department of Education, Employment and Training
Microsoft Products and Technologies Used
SharePoint™ Team Services
SharePoint™ Portal Server
Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server
Microsoft SQLServer™ 2000
Active Directory
DEET develops world class intranet by using SharePoint Technologies
|
|
Ensuring success with a Microsoft Certified Partner
To ensure the seamless transition to the new solution, DEET sought the assistance of OBS. A leading specialist in Business to Employee (B2E) infrastructure and applications, OBS has extensive experience in design, development, implementation and support of Microsoft Technologies for some of
Australia's largest corporate enterprises and government departments.
Benefits
By using a centralised Microsoft SQL Server database and data store, DEET has been able to provide workgroup-based services while maintaining centralised data storage and security using Windows 2000 and the Active Directory™ platform. SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server
interact with this secure platform seamlessly.
Transforming the business
Doherty is clear about the benefits that the SharePoint tools will provide to the department as a whole. "We expect to experience considerable savings in time and money. Communication between schools and the department is now totally electronic and this has saved us money in publishing,
printing and distribution for a start. Web-based processes are timelier than paper-based systems; the benefits of direct entry, immediate access and the ability to share information mean that our business is conducted in a more productive way."
Interoperability of Team Services and Portal Server
A major value in the use of SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server is the interoperability of the two products. Doherty states "While Team Services is ideal for ad hoc collaboration, Portal Server provides the enterprise view to DEET documents and content. So we know that
content maintained within Portal Server has been formally approved and published, therefore insuring high-quality content to all DEET staff".
Empowering users state-wide
One of the key aims for DEET as it evolves is to develop a stronger collaborative culture. The deployment of team collaboration has been seen as a first step in this process. Doherty explains "We are now getting the most out of our investment in underlying Microsoft technology. The intranet
provides a multi-directional link between back and front office applications, connecting desktops to the department's core processing power with a single entry point".
Technology
The DEET SharePoint Team Services environment is hosted on a single Windows 2000 Server. The dual Pentium III 900 Mhz processor runs 768GB RAM. The system drive is a mirrored 9GB SCSI disk. There is also a data drive with 144 GB disk storage with a RAID 5 array (Redundant Array of Inexpensive
Disks). To improve performance and minimise down time, the SharePoint Team Services sites have been configured on a RAID data drive while the system and application components are located on a mirrored system partition. The SQL Server 2000 requirements of SharePoint Team Services are provided by
the department's SQL Server 2000 Cluster which is used by numerous Web services throughout the infrastructure.Using this configuration, DEET can expect SharePoint Team Services to scale to a large number of users while ensuring high availability and minimal overhead in maintaining the
infrastructure.
Maximising Success
From the moment DEET began to implement SharePoint Team Services, there was a wide and rapid adoption of the tool and functionality within the application. This is further complemented by the fact that Victorian schools are based on sophisticated LAN and WAN connections, video-conferencing and
have access to digital satellite communication. This is enabling easier online access to relevant documents, as well as entrenching DEET's position as a technology pioneer. The role that SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server will play in maintaining this is most important. Its
robustness, along with its scalability is paramount in maintaining this accessibility.
The Future
By using SharePoint Portal Server Web Storage technology in conjunction with Exchange 2000, the DEET vision, with the assistance of OBS is to build a centralised document repository that will enable all corporate documentation and content to be maintained in a single, central, secure and easily
accessible environment. The DEET Corporate document store will replace the multitude of document storage areas currently in existence, assisting in building the path to a knowledge-sharing culture. To this, Doherty adds "Without doubt, our schools and TAFEs will be the biggest winners in
this process and that is what we are all about".
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products or services in Australia, contact Microsoft on 13 20 58. To access information via the Web, go to www.microsoft.com/australia/business
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as
of the date of publication. Microsoft, the Microsoft logo, SQL Server, SharePoint, Active Directory and Windows are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual
companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
|
