The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport is centralising its storage, consolidating its Pietermaritzburg-based head office servers and automating the backup of regional data in a project kicked off with the help of IT services and solution provider, Datacentrix.
According to a KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport spokesperson, the department has several key objectives to meet with this project.
"We have eight servers storing company data at our head office, which we decided to consolidate using an HP EVA 4000 Storage Area Network (SAN) solution.
"We also needed to automate backup of our four regional offices in Durban, Empangeni, Ladysmith and Pietermaritzburg with approximately 60 users each; 12 cost centres with around 40 users each, situated across KwaZulu-Natal; and 37 additional sites known as Area Office and Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) offices, using a Virtual Tape Library (VTL).
"Another key objective was the storage of data amassed by the department for legislative and compliance reasons, including road survey data, road information data, design documents and aerial photographs. Road Information Services data, such as digitised maps, CAD drawings, property plans and GIS information also needed to be catered for. We also needed a content management system."
The department took a phased approach to the implementation, with phase one, head office storage and data consolidation, already completed. According to Marlene Brady, account manager at Datacentrix, phase two is in progress, with implementation of backup on 20 remote sites still in planning stages. The third stage will be the implementation of the content management system.
"The department is already seeing benefits linked to the project, with head office seeing a performance increase within a shorter backup window thanks to the centralised storage."
Other benefits seen so far include improved management with the consolidated servers and an increase in available space. "We chose Datacentrix to roll-out the new infrastructure because of their track-record with SITA and their high level of HP skills. The company's excellent technical knowledge, good project management and effective delivery have ensured the success of this project so far," says the department spokesperson.
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