Unisys & The Isle of Man Government
Breakthrough: Isle of Man Government Improves Service and Supports Economic Growth with a Virtualised, Real-Time Infrastructure.
Imagine it.

Enhance service delivery while improving infrastructure management.

Done.

With Unisys help, the Isle of Man Government achieved a responsive, integrated real-time infrastructure that maximises its existing technology and human resources to improve the delivery of current and future constituent services. Server consolidation and the use of virtualisation technology in a new twin data centre environment have helped the Government to improve efficiencies, enhance security and reduce downtime.

 
Unisys & Isle of Man Government (.wmv, 5:16)

Improved Service Delivery Helps Citizens, Supports a Growing Economy

The Isle of Man Government relied on Unisys processes, expertise, partnerships and technology to enable top-down change in support of a desired transition to a real-time infrastructure. The resilient, secure and scalable solution allows the government to lower the cost of service delivery while enabling a more agile response to new requirements. In this way, the Government not only satisfies the needs of local residents, but is attractive to new investments through its business-friendly operations.

 

Metrics

Business Challenge: Improving Service, Supporting Transformation

Located in the heart of the British Isles, the Isle of Man is a self-governing territory of the British Crown. In 2001, the Isle of Man Government (IoMG) adopted a new e-government strategy – called JUPITER – that changes the way services are delivered by providing a 24x7 environment that supports Internet-enabled operations. “We needed more efficient ways for citizens and businesses to communicate with the government and receive services,” explains Allan Paterson, Director of Information Systems Division for IoMG. “That meant understanding how top-down change could be implemented to cost-effectively modernise our infrastructure.”

 

To achieve this, the Isle of Man Government would have to re-evaluate its use of technology and lay a foundation for a more integrated, responsive real-time infrastructure. A key target was the ever-increasing number of servers and disparate operating systems and databases. IoMG soon realised it needed an experienced partner who could help simplify its IT environment, maximise resources, provide consistency across its enterprise – and significantly reduce risk.

 

Brian Osborn, Production Services Manager for IoMG, explains, “By 2002, we were suffering from server sprawl – adding about one new server a week. Without additional resources, the situation was becoming unmanageable. We needed to streamline our data centre and create a real-time infrastructure – and we needed help to do it quickly and cost-effectively.”

 

This effort – dubbed the Host Mann project – tapped into Unisys expertise to build a modern infrastructure capable of supporting critical transformation. “We chose Unisys because they brought a structured approach, a clear understanding of the technology and they stood out above the competition,” comments Paterson.

 

By surveying the Isle of Man Government’s IT environment and identifying current capabilities, Unisys helped prove that the Host Mann project could deliver true business value. Unisys provided a dedicated on-site team to help IoMG achieve centralised ownership and governance of the consolidation process.

 

Solution:  A Consolidated and Virtualised Real-Time Infrastructure 

Unisys expertise in business continuity, consolidation and virtualisation was essential to the success of Host Mann – and to returning fast results. Unisys consultants worked with the Isle of Man Government to plan, design and implement a twin data centre environment, thereby addressing its previous problems with resilience. With Unisys help, the Government has consolidated servers and storage using an EMC storage area network (SAN) split between its two facilities. Today, the new environment supports a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and incorporates ITIL service delivery standards. In addition, IoMG now has the ability to test the effectiveness of its data backup and restore procedures.

 

The Isle of Man Government’s cost-effective, real-time infrastructure features four clustered ES7000/one servers. “The ES7000/one servers provide the scalability required to implement operating system patches and run multiple applications,” explains Osborn.

 

And when IoMG’s Information Systems Division needed to quickly establish development environments to support multiple, concurrent projects, Unisys leveraged its relationship with Microsoft® for solutions to virtualise the development environment. To date, IoMG has 50 virtual servers.

 

“Rather than making a quantum change – which is high risk – virtualising has allowed us to upgrade on a continuous basis and reduce server sprawl. Now, we can cost-effectively run many instances of Microsoft Windows® on a single piece of hardware,” explains Osborn.

 

Rather than making a quantum change – which is high risk – virtualising has allowed us to upgrade on a continuous basis and reduce server sprawl.
Brian Osborn
Production Services Manager
IoMG

Results: Cost-Effective Service Delivery in an Optimised IT Environment

The Isle of Man Government is enjoying several critical benefits, such as:

Paterson comments: “By using existing resources to handle growth, we’ve avoided significant costs. We now support greater levels of service with fewer operating systems – and we’re saving money in data centre operations. As we move to consolidation, we are seeing realisable savings, with Unisys playing a key role in helping us drive down both our management and unit costs for technology. With our new infrastructure, we are also coping with continuous growth in our user base and in the number and complexity of application services we deliver, without incurring any additional IT operational costs.”

 

By using existing resources to handle growth, we’ve avoided significant costs. We now support greater levels of service with fewer operating systems – and we’re saving money in data centre operations.
Allan Paterson
Director of Information Systems Division
IoMG

Unisys expertise has also been invaluable to the IoMG. “Unisys technical consultants have educated us about consolidation and virtualisation while accelerating our results. They work with our staff on site – that level of commitment is very important. Unisys expertise with enterprise-wide solutions, and its experience implementing systems across data centres, has created positive results,” says Osborn.

 

Paterson adds, “Unisys put processes in place that helped us simplify IT management – and today we’re providing better service and value to customers with fewer complaints.”

 

The Isle of Man Government’s new infrastructure offers some key advantages. “We can now add applications without increasing IT resources,” says Osborn. “Our real-time infrastructure has reduced server and data centre downtime. Internet and email run 24x7.”

 

In addition, IoMG is seeing the benefits of increased business agility. “With Unisys help, our IT team is contributing to business change, helping to bolster our credibility. We’ve improved agility – enabling us to be more responsive and share information more widely,” says Paterson.

 

The Relationship: A Proven Partnership

“Unisys offers a vision and an affordable solution that is compatible with both our Microsoft strategy and IT goals. Over the past 32 years, the greatest value Unisys offered has been its expertise successfully running an enterprise-wide IT infrastructure,” explains Paterson. “Through this partnership and transfer of knowledge, we are now better able to resolve our ongoing challenges independently.”

 

Profile: Isle of Man

Solution at a Glance

 

 

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