Department of Justice, Equality & Law Reform choose Origina to

implement Server Infrastructure Upgrade

Introduction:

The Department of Justice's Finance Division, based in Killarney, County Kerry, is being developed to establish itself as a shared services centre serving the Irish Prison Service, An Garda Siochána, the Courts Service and the department itself.

Project Summary:

This initiative led to a requirement for an upgrade of the existing server infrastructure to efficiently run the new Oracle Financials E-Business Suite 11.5.7 that was also being implemented as part of the shared services project.

The Challenges / Issues:

Although the department already had two production servers running Oracle, it became apparent that these servers didn't have sufficient capacity and performance for the installation of the Oracle Financials Project. As a result the department needed to purchase two servers; one Application and one Database, on which to house this environment. The proposed solution had to meet the minimum server configuration and be scalable in the future. It also needed to provide sufficient storage and suitable backup technology. In addition, the department already had a development box (IBM RS/6000 F80) in place running AIX V5L, meaning the new solution had to be compatible with this or else cater for the supply of a separate development server. Finally, due to the extremely sensitive nature of the data backed up by the department, the solution had to guarantee high security.

The Solution:

There were three main components of the solution Origina implemented: servers, storage and backup. These included IBM p660 large-scale database servers, IBM D40 SSA disk storage drawers, an IBM 3583 LTO tape library and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) back-up and recovery software. TSM allows the department to have an automated, centrally managed, storage back-up and recovery solution, which saves time and money, and also provides a very high level of security for the data being stored by the department. The new infrastructure was also aimed at ensuring that the department's existing technology facilities, running on Oracle technology, could cope with the additional demands that would arise from servicing the four organisations.

The Business Benefits:

Tomás O'Leary, Managing Director of Origina said: "The expansion of the department's technology function meant that a new technology infrastructure was required, one that was scalable, reliable and secure. The department has invested in an infrastructure that not only offers maximum performance and availability, but by opting for IBM's latest technology, they have future proofed their environment with a solution that offers significant scalability."

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