Sustainability, resilience, and mobility transformation for a Museum in Australia
Challenges
Accompanying the renovations was a need to modernise their IT environment. The museum set out to see what solutions would best suit their needs. They faced the following challenges:
- The current IT environment used legacy technology, was limited in its capability, and would not support the new vision. Any new solution and decommissioning works needed to comply with government and security regulations.
- There was a need for a robust video conferencing solution to cater for the internal and external needs of the museum. There were further challenges as the solution needed to comply with heritage building regulations, considering the wall thickness and the echo within the Board room.
- End user equipment needed to be procured quickly to support the mobility requirements of the museum staff.
Solution
Virtu was engaged to provide the following services:
IT environment refresh and decommissioning.
Microsoft Azure was selected as a cloud server solution due to its robust, secure platform and its integration with Microsoft365. It’s ability to comply with government regulations and maintain that compliance was also an important factor.
Once the infrastructure and data were migrated to Microsoft Azure, the old network infrastructure was decommissioned and disposed. Certificates were provided to show compliance with government disposal regulations.
Video conferencing and collaboration.
Video conferencing technology with Microsoft Teams was chosen for onsite and remote conferencing and collaboration. The heritage listing compliance and physical challenges were all considered to create this customised solution.
End user computing.
Laptops, monitors and docking stations were procured to enable mobility. To support the mobility requirements of the staff, Virtu selected a range of laptops that supported staff based on their range of needs, including new and refurbished.
Note: the solutions were implemented over a period of time and not at once.
Results
Results for the People
- Mobility, ability to work from anywhere, whenever they need to
- Collaboration tools for staff to be engaged and connected
- Increased productivity due to modern laptops and cloud technology
- Saving staff travel time as they can now work remotely
- Improved and modernised the way the museum works
- More flexibility for the organisation and the user
Results for the Community
- Complying with government regulations for the new solutions
- Complied with the decommissioning of legacy technologies
- Saved money by upcycling and recycling technologies
- Secure and resilient network that allows visitors to engage with the exhibitions
- An enriched visitor experience with new technologies
- Created new business and employment opportunities
Results for the Planet
- Reduced e-Waste by upcycling and recycling devices and parts
- Saved cost by purchasing some refurbished laptops
- Saved space in landfill and prevented more impact on the environment
- Saved resources and energy by recycling technologies
"Virtu has been very responsive to our needs by fulfilling our software and hardware requirements. They are at hand to assist when we need them, and they deliver on time and on budget."