SUCCESS STORY

HigHligHts

The Department of Education and Training in Western Australia (WA DET) slashed running costs when they consolidated their back-end computing environment onto a centralized data centre running Red Hat and Ingres. WA DET eliminated costly support contracts from previous proprietary hardware and software vendors. Microsoft CRM and SharePoint have both been implemented in the new environment and link to Ingres to streamline delivery of training across Western Australia.

CHallenge

The Department of Education and Training in Western Australia (WA DET) managed a range of administrative activities to support programs that are delivered by 11 colleges and 8000 staff throughout the state. The systems collectively manage in excess of 1 million student records with 120,000 students processed through the state’s training systems annually.

Regional locations had to manage their own back-end environments, but this imposed ian expensive support burden on WA DET staff and vendor support engineers. proprietary unix server environments, often built on a variety of hardware models of differing ages, had to be managed remotely, along with the complex applications they were running. WA DET needed a reliable and secure solution that would scale with large peak volumes.

“It was proprietary across the board, and we paid handsomely for whatever support we got,” said Anthony Nocciolino, manager for learning technologies with WA DET. “As we made the transition away from heavily policy-driven systems to more customer-focused systems, we recognised that we needed agility that we could not get in a proprietary environment.”

With many DET colleges hundreds of kilometers apart, it had become too expensive and cumbersome to maintain this computing environment.

SOLUTIONThe department began an initiative to centralize and consolidate its back-end computing environment around a central data centre using the Linux and Ingres platforms. WA DET’s developers and technical staff selected Ingres Database to migrate away from the existing proprietary environment. This was built on commodity servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ingres.

Minimal change on the front end ensured continuity of service throughout the project, which was an essential requirement in such a high-use environment.

DEpaRTmENT Of EDUCaTION aND TRaININg IN WESTERN aUSTRaLIa makES ThE gRaDE WITh INgRES aND RED haT

Customer

Department of Education and

Training – Western Australia

industry

Education

Challenge

Centralize IT operations

without affecting complex

application and database

environment

solution Migrate to Ingres database,

running on commodity

servers

Benefits

• Eliminated costly support contracts

• Centralized data centre

• No end-user interruptions during migration

• Improved reliability

• Connects with Microsoft CRM and SharePoint

SUCCESS STORY

ingres Corporation500 arguello Street, Suite 200Redwood City, California 94063USaphone: +1.650.587.5500

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Ingres is the leading open source database management company. We are the world’s second largest open source company and the pioneer of The New

Economics of IT, providing open source business-critical solutions at dramatically reduced cost than proprietary software vendors. as a leader in The New

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No immediate changes were required to .NET-developed applications as data was channeled through the Ingres .NET Connector. These applications processed enrolment, resource management, timetabling, student fees, assessments, results, Web course catalogues and more.WA DET’s technical staff were supported by Ingres database specialists throughout the course of the migration, ensuring a smooth transition to the open source platform. The new, centralized environment is performing better and has proved far easier to manage than the previous disparate configuration.

“We knew the new environment would provide a huge gain in performance as a byproduct, but our main goal was simply to move away from proprietary solutions and centralize our infrastructure,” said Darren Pointer, coordinator of technology systems with WA DET. “Ingres have always provided very good service, and provided solid and consistent support throughout the project. In the end, it has given us a stable environment, which is essential given that our enrolment and other core systems all run off this platform.”

Since introducing the new open-systems servers and shifting to Ingres Database, WA

DET has introduced a range of systems that improve self-service capabilities for students and staff. Microsoft CRM and SharePoint have both been implemented in the new environment and link to Ingres to further streamline the delivery of training across Western Australia.

RESULTSWA DET has eliminated costly support contracts for the previous proprietary hardware and software.

Database and application servers from across the state were centralized into a single data centre with 5 physical servers running 11 Ingres databases and 31 supporting server instances.

Consistency in Ingres application interfaces meant there were no interruptions to end-user services during the migration.

Microsoft SharePoint Collaboration Server and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, have been rolled out and easily linked with the Ingres database for better customer service across the department.

The open standards design of Ingres and Linux have provided a totally transparent, reliable platform that will grow with WA DET’s requirements.

“Ingres has always

provided very good

service, and provided solid

and consistent support

throughout the project. In

the end, it has given us a

stable environment, which

is essential given that our

enrolment and other core

systems all run off this

platform.”

Darren PointerCoordinator of Technology

Systems WA Department of Education

and Training