Justice counts on $1m savings

A CHANCE conversation between Queensland's Department of Justice and Attorney-General and its laptop provider led to the revelation that a simple change in software licensing models could deliver more than $1million in savings.

The switch was a precursor to more savings, including the ability to efficiently consolidate Justice's data centres, said the agency's infrastructure management manager, Christopher Ruffin.

In mid-2008, the department changed laptop suppliers, choosing Dell over Toshiba thanks to new machines that came embedded with 3G connectivity. Several hundred Dell laptops running on Telstra Next G were purchased and, during the course of the transaction, the issue of VMware software licensing management arose, Ruffin recalls.

"We had to buy more VMware licences to continue our virtualisation plan and Dell recommended that we enter into a VMware enterprise licensing agreement (ELA)," Ruffin says Justice was using a Brisbane-based company to purchase VMware licences piecemeal but switching to an ELA with Dell would initially save the department up to $200,000, he said.

The department has about 4000 users and 320 virtual servers running on 20 physical hosts. It's mainly a Microsoft shop with some Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Sun Solaris. On the back of the ELA, Justice is set to save more than $500,000 on a server refresh in regional centres.

"We've got a regional rollout to put in a new file and print server and digital recording system for the courts. We're going to virtual those on two pieces of hardware and have multiple virtual environments that can be managed centrally," Ruffin says. - The Australian

news.com.au 2 Jun 2009