During the search for new premises, the government of a particular Dutch province incorporated the Future Ready Workspace (flexitime, mobile working, working from home) as a key criterion. The relocation will take place in 2012, and the new premises will accommodate 30% fewer workstations. By doing this, the government of this province hopes to cut costs whilst raising efficiency and effectiveness. In order to achieve this goal, it was clear that the IT infrastructure required significant modernisation: no investment had been made in workplace technology for years.

The time had come to put this right. Furthermore, the new premises did not include space for a data centre: the computer equipment was to be relocated to a commercial data centre. All in all, it was a complex operation that directly affected all employees. There was also a fixed deadline, as the old premises had to be vacated by a set date.

Aranea was assigned the task of planning and executing a smooth transition based on meticulous analysis of the existing situation and the needs that would arise as a result of the Future Ready Workspace. As a consequence, the terms ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ lost all meaning as it was essential that every employee retained access to the servers and the services of the data centre, whether at the office, in transit or at home. Obviously, the equipment also had to support communication between these workstations.

Large-scale IT restructuring such as this requires solid architecture to guarantee that the organisation has access to a reliable system that meets all wishes and requirements and is compatible with an external data centre. In addition to this, stringent cost-cutting objectives also had to be met.

Approach

Arenea analysed the existing infrastructure and determined the risks and consequences involved. Based on its knowledge, Aranea was able to give the provincial government insight into the available solutions. In order to provide a sound financial basis for the projects, we also created a comprehensive business case which included all relevant aspects. We demonstrated a number of scenarios, including explanation of all consequences and advice with regard to outsourcing.

Result

Aranea’s consultants provided clear and well-founded advice regarding the combination of technology that the provincial government could apply in order to realise an effective IT infrastructure that was not only capable of fulfilling all business objectives, but also greatly facilitated management, flexibility and cost-cutting. The advice was based on a solid business case that included all consequences affecting both OPEX and CAPEX.