The Isle of Man Government (IoMG) went from having a
highly diverse IT infrastructure in 2002 to standardising on
Microsoft's software platform, and recently told Computer Weekly it
will soon replace its Oracle Financials ERP system with Microsoft
Axapta.
IoMG's main objectives were to reduce total cost of ownership
(TCO) and better manage IT. The infrastructure originally comprised
UnixWare, Novell NetWare Sun Solaris, and Windows.
Allan Paterson, director of information systems at IoMG, said,
"When I started in 2002, the IT infrastructure was fragmented. We
had multiple databases and versions of Oracle's desktop client, and
money was going on non-IT projects. The servers were four or five
years old and failing."
In 2003 the government conducted a full review of its IT assets
and in 2004 embarked on a project to migrate its legacy
applications to Unisys ES7000 and Clearpath servers, and adopt
Windows Server 2003.
It will continue to migrate applications though 2005 and 2006 as
they come to the end of their lives. One of the first migrations
involved moving a flagship hospital's Oracle Financials system from
Unix to a Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition platform.
In May, the government finished upgrading its 4,400 users'
Windows XP desktops to the latest version of Office, linked by
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter, SMS, Sharepoint Portal Server and
Active Directory.
IoMG's IT overhaul follows three stages: it consolidated 14
Novell file and print servers onto one Microsoft box. It will soon
implement a £5m Cisco-based converged voice and data IP network to
support 5,000 government staff.
At the same time, it aims to move 300 servers into a second
datacentre, consolidating them physically and logically on to
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter, while moving applications over from
older platforms.
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