GTR28 JanFeb2015 sample by Annette

JAN/FEB 2015 • ISSUE 28

GADGETS GALORE THE LATEST CAMERAS ON THE MARKET

GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

ROUNDTABLE: CAN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WORK?

A WAKEUP CALL ON ASSET MANAGEMENT

HIDING YOUR CLOUD DATA: to encrypt or not?

GEOSPATIAL: DESKTOP GLOBE TROTTING

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Contents

Cover Story HIDING YOUR CLOUD DATA:

TO ENCRYPT OR NOT?

At first glance, the use of encryption technology would seem to be a no-brainer. But as government IT infrastructure changes and data protections are revisited, many organisations are finding that the challenges of implementing encryption outweigh the potential benefits. Here's why.

REGULARS

2 Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letter 4 News 38 Gadgets Galore: High-end compact cameras 50 Opinion: Ovum, Esri, Australian Business Register, SMS Management & Technology, Spatial Vision, Outback Imaging 56 NBN Update

FEATURES

8 Geospatial: Globe trotting from the desktop

Special Features

20 A wakeup call on asset management Old methods of tracking ever-ageing asset bases are slowly giving way to more efficient, effective methods across government bodies of all size.

34 Interview: Dmitri Mirvis, Mercy Health

26 HOW AUSTRALIA HOSTED THE FIRST CLOUD-ENABLED G20 The massive technology infrastructure to support November's G20 summit in Brisbane relied heavily on careful planning and a highly scalable cloud infrastructure that kept back-end services available and mobile devices humming along.

It once had enough implications to keep GIS engineers up at night, but the socialisation of geospatial technology is paying dividends for government bodies.

Mercy Health reviewed its IT infrastructure and decided to take the plunge, migrating its entire IT infrastructure to a cloud environment. CIO Dmitri Mirvis explains why.

CASE STUDIES

25 Sydney Trains An asset-management revamp is using mobility to great effect

ROUNDTABLE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

30 Tasmania Police

The government's new Digital Transformation Office (DTO) will provide a centre of gravity for efforts to improve the responsiveness, accessibility and consistency of online government agencies. Our panel of industry experts weighs the government's transformation to date and the DTO's chances for the future.

32 NSW Rural Fire Service A major infrastructure upgrade

Windows 8 tablets have replaced laptops and desk work for every Tasmanian police officer

has helped NSW RFS embrace videoconferencing across the state. GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 1

Editor’s Letter To encrypt or not to encrypt? The need for better information security is hardly a revelation – but the steady stream of problematic new attacks often can be. And, just when you thought you had it under control, rampant mobile and cloud adoption have come to blow the old models to pieces. Keeping up with the hackers has become a constant problem that is only set to be compounded as high-level cloud-first policies push a growing volume of government data into the cloud. This is particularly the case after the announcement of the newly created Digital Transformation Office (DTO) – announced in January by communications minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has been charged with hauling the digital-government laggards online as soon as possible. Encryption technology would seem to be a no-brainer in ensuring that sensitive government secrets don't end up in the wrong hands – but many agencies are, through omission or intention, still not using it to encrypt data on their systems or those of trusted cloud providers. This may seem at first glance to be a glaring mistake – but, as we find in our cover feature, security by encryption isn't everything it is cracked up to be. Something that is definitely proving to be more than it was cracked up to be, is geospatial technology. Once the purview of back-room staff whose jobs consisted of dealing in the arcana of geospatial information system (GIS) platforms, geospatial technology has undergone a renaissance in recent years as the popularity of consumerfacing mapping applications drives government authorities to expand their scope and look for ways to engage citizens in mutually beneficial ways. The potential benefits of such engagements are massive, since so much of what governments do has a geospatial element to it. Easier data entry and updating of existing information all promise smoother and more efficient government, both in terms of citizens' interactions with their governments and in governments' own execution of mandatory processes such as asset management. The opportunities for improvements in this critical area is explored in our secondary feature this month, as are a number of other topics – including a look at the massive cloud-based IT project played out during last year's high-profile G20 conference, and a roundtable in which several industry experts debate the challenges of building digital government and their thoughts on the DTO's likely successes in Australia. We also have the usual range of interviews, case studies, opinion pieces, and – in our regular gadget feature – a look at the latest high-end compact cameras on the market. How is the digital transformation playing out at your department? Drop me a line to let me know – or to share your thoughts on anything else at all.

EDITOR David Braue e: editor@govtechreview.com.au NATIONAL SALES MANAGER Yuri Mamistvalov e: yuri@commstrat.com.au Tel: 03 8534 5008 ART DIRECTOR Annette Epifanidis e: annette@commstrat.com.au Tel: 03 8534 5030 DESIGN & PRODUCTION Nicholas Thorne CONTRIBUTORS Beverley Head, Kevin Noonan MELBOURNE OFFICE Level 8, 574 St Kilda Rd. Melbourne Vic 3004 PO Box 6137, St Kilda Rd Central 8008 Phone: 03 8534 5000 Fax: 03 9530 8911 Government Technology Review is published by CommStrat ABN 31 008 434 802

www.commstrat.com.au All material in Government Technology Review is copyright. Reproduction in whole or in part is not allowed without written permission from the Publisher.

To subscribe to GTR magazine phone: 03 8534 5009

David Braue, Editor E: editor@govtechreview.com.au

2 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

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Cloud Technology

HOW AUSTRALIA HOSTED THE FIRST CLOUD-ENABLED

IT MAY HAVE GONE OFF QUIETLY, BUT LAST NOVEMBER'S G20 LEADERS' SUMMIT IN BRISBANE WAS ANYTHING BUT A LOW-KEY EVENT. A YEAR OF ON-THE-GROUND PREPARATION, COMPRISING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PERSON-HOURS, SUPPORTED EFFORTS TO WELCOME 27 LEADERS OF THE WORLD'S MOST SIGNIFICANT COUNTRIES TO AUSTRALIA â&#x20AC;&#x201C; AND ONE OF THE KEY DELIVERABLES WAS THE CLOUD-BASED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE THAT HELPED MAKE IT ALL POSSIBLE. BY DAVID BRAUE

26 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

hat architecture was built around efforts by systems integrator Dimension Data, which took a lead role in the IT effort around G20 and supported the G20 event with a scalable cloud architecture based out of Melbourne (a redundant site – which never actually needed to be used – was also set up in Sydney). The episodic nature of the G20 event meant that a cloud architecture was a natural choice for the new environment – and it proved to be perfectly suited for the task, given that the actual operating parameters for the network were not conveyed to the integrators until soon before the event began. “We had to design a network out of Melbourne that would support what was, for a very long period of time, an unknown number of delegates and bandwidth,” Dimension Data director of business units Pete Murray told GTR. “The design principles had to be incredibly elastic around performance. The number one concern – apart from 'don't embarrass the Australian government' – was all about the experience of the delegate, how they would register, sign on, access a printer and email, and access the plethora of Web sites that supported the event.” The stakes couldn't have been higher, with a massive peak of usage set to correspond with the arrival of foreign staff and a return to zero bandwidth just days later after the delegates had left. Between those inflection points, Dimension Data knew that downtime was simply unacceptable.

“We had to provide a 24x7 managed service to all of the delegates from very senior members of foreign bodies, and have people that were vetted to work around prime ministers and presidents, through to a small army of people providing support through the press area. And it all had to be completely seamless.” NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE The G20 event was supported by two networks: the private and previously-existing Pnet, which already links government sites around Australia and the new Gnet, a massive new network that included extensive switching, wireless, and other components. A massive volume of hardware – including delegate PCs, printers, kiosks, and in particular an extensive Wi-Fi network that would support delegates in all G20 venues – had to be installed across 12 hotels in the event area. Those hotels were even disconnected from their primary Internet providers and rerouted through a carrier-grade trunk line to Gnet in order to faciliate smooth access from every part of the G20 activities. That trunk offered a lead-in to a private fibre network, with dual redundant connections to Dimension Data facilities in Sydney and Melbourne, that built on the capabilities of parent company NTT. Given the difficulties in consistently managing the variety of extant Wi-Fi networks that were in place, Dimension Data installed around 300 new Wi-Fi access points across the Brisbane Convention Centre and “took over the rest”, Murray explains: “The Wi-Fi

already in the convention centre was from a vendor unknown to us, so we had to learn a brand-new topology that we hadn't seen before.” Long before the event had begun, network was set up in a laboratory environment in Canbera and put through its paces as many of the “incredible” 112-strong team of Dimension Data staff assigned to the G20 event – and sourced from the company's operations around the country – worked to ensure a seamless and high-performance environment over what would eventually include more than 100km of cabling. That early and ongoing testing laid the groundwork for what would prove to be a shining example of good Wi-Fi design. “During the event we had tweets from people saying they couldn't understand how they were getting 40Mbps over Wi-Fi,” Murray says. “We never got below 15Mbps over Wi-Fi and had over 30,000 devices registering on the network. There was not one murmur of a complaint about the performance, and we had reports from the government that it was an absolutely flawless experience for the press and delegates.” A number of subsidiary service providers were also involved in the G20, with cloudbased telephony provider UXC Connect implementing an extensive voice platform based on its iTaaS cloud environment and using Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise's OpenTouch communications platform. The cloud-based iTaaS platform helped UXC Connect deliver telephony, unified

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 27

Cloud Technology

messaging, presence, instant messaging, conferencing, and mobility capabilities to the thousands of G20 attendees. Extensive design work before the event saw telephony services rolled out and tested across the venues, Brisbane Airport, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, and other sites. “Together UXC Connect and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise provided a capability that was technically sound and adaptable to the unique needs of government leaders and delegates in attendance at the G20 summit,” UXC Connect CEO Ian Poole said in a statement. “iTaaS lets UXC Connect technically deliver communications services quickly, for a specified time, and has the customer pay only for the required duration.” INTEGRITY AND SECURITY Building the access network was one challenge, but the leadup to the G20 saw Dimension Data working equally hard to ensure its cloud environment performed as expected. Change freezes were instituted on the company's 17 global data centres during the week leading up to the event, ensuring that performance and accessibility weren't compromised by any unexpected changes at the last minute. This was crucial not only for the performance of the delegate networks, but

28 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

for media organisations that required massive amounts of bandwidth for the transmission of voice, video and data. Supporting these requirements not only meant offering significant volumes of bandwidth – a need that was satisfactorily met with the use of NTT's dark fibre – but ensuring that the supporting network infrastructure brought by TV and other media organisations was integrated seamlessly into the Gnet environment. “This was one of the most complex challenges we faced,” Murray recalls. “We didn't just have end-user devices; we had physical devices connecting into the newtork that were also running through the media centre. We didn't know what was turning up until it did.” Supporting this was a security environment, details of which Murray still cannot fully share. Yet he will say that

there were “multiple facets” to the security infrsatructure, including the incorporation of technology that Dimension Data obtained in its May 2013 acquisition of managed security services provider Earthwave. “We had a centralised team offering 24x7 monitoring of any form of issue either on the network itself, or on our traditional cloud environment,” he explains. “We had to watch what was coming through the cloud connections, and utilised the government gateway for connectivity into and out of the network.” A team of ethical hackers was deployed to test the network's defences well before the actual event, with extensive testing ensuring that potential security issues were identified and ironed out well before the real thing. Given the large number of delegates and their reliance on the wireless network, device security was also enforced using a process that included an RFID tag that was issued to every delegate and scanned when they walked through entrance gates. These tags were used to “very cleverly link” the RFID tags with the devices to create a “security posture” about which Murray declined to offer any more details. “Other than the delegate experience, risk was the number-one criteria that we had to address,” he said. “Suffice it to say that there were no security issues whatsoever during the event.”

LESSONS LEARNED By the time the last delegate had boarded their plane to return home, the G20 was being hailed as an unqualified success. Security was maintained throughout, and the strong performance of the cloud-based architecture both validated its capabilities and ensured that the Gnet environment delivered exactly as it was required to. “It was all done in maths,” Murray says. “We scoped the entire environment mathematically and plotted the actuals against the mathematical formula to see how accurate it was, in real time.” Having performed to its design specifications, Gnet was quickly picked up and taken away once the event was over: “we packed up everything within three or four days of the G20,” Murray says. “It was intended from the outset that the entire environment would be done as a service, and not one asset was on anybody's balance sheet afterwards.” As 2015 kicks off, Australia's G20 stands as a showcase of the cloud's real-world capabilities and suitability for even the highest-level applications. Murray hopes the solid performance at the G20 will help allay the fears of many other government agencies about committing significant infrastructure to cloudbased providers – including Dimension Data, which last November took the wraps off a major Managed Cloud Platform facility in Canberra, which has been designed specifically to cater to Australian government clients when it opens later this year.

“The G20 was a very dramatic statement about the 'cloud-first' policy an the ability for IT to actually deliver something in a truly elastic fashion,” he explains. “We've had this incredible experience of IT.” UXC Connect's Poole was equally enthusiastic about the opportunities for hosted telephony after the G20 successfully delivered 100 percent communications uptime throughout the event. “This project is testament to the growing demand in the market for consumption-based communications offerings,” he said, “that can adapt to meet changing business requirements in all industries from government and larger enterprises to universities and health care providers.” The expertise accumulated at the G20 will be offered to the next G20 host nation – Turkey – to smooth its own preparations for this year's meeting, while Dimension Data parent company NTT is also drawing on the company's learnings, which are being presented to Olympics officials in Japan as they prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Such events will all benefit from the growing body of expertise around rapid scaling utilising cloud infrastructures – but Murray is pragmatic about the G20 experience. “There won't be another one of this magnitude in Australia,” he says, “and there is nothing on the immediate planning horizon for us of that sort of size.” ●

BU I L D I N G THE GNET COMPUTING AT THE G20 WAS NO SMALL EFFORT. SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETING THE PROJECT INVOLVED:

30,000 mobile devices

700

concurrent thin-client desktop sessions

300

wireless access points

220

tonnes of hardware

112

Dimension Data staff

14,000 resource hours

“Other than the delegate experience, risk was the number-one criteria that we had to address. Suffice it to say that there were no security issues whatsoever during the event.”

100km of cabling

2km of duct tape

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 29

Case Study

UBIQUITOUS TABLETS ENABLE REAL-TIME POLICING IN TASMANIA A MAJOR TECHNOLOGY REFRESH HAS SEEN MORE THAN 1100 TASMANIA POLICE OFFICERS EQUIPPED WITH WINDOWS 8 TABLET COMPUTERS THAT HAVE BECOME FRONT-LINE TOOLS IN THE FIGHT TO BRING REAL-TIME SITUATIONAL INFORMATION TO THE STREETS OF THE ISLAND STATE.

30 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

he decision to roll out the tablets came as part of the police force's efforts to improve the reliability and accessibility of relevant informational tools to its statewide force. Previous initiatives had seeded a number of laptops throughout the force, but the devices's relatively high maintenance burden had kept them from delivering the benefits of ubiquitous information in the field. “Traditionally the police would use a notebook and a pen,” senior sergeant Jason Hutcheon explains. “You would use the radio to get any intelligence in the field, then come back to the station. Any reports you did, you did on a desktop PC – but we were trying to develop that mobile capability in the field.” The desire to move mobile computing into the police car led the organisation to consider alternatives to the laptop and desktop PCs previously in use. Some 600 of the force's Windows XP-based

desktops were at the end of their useful lives, while 200 in-car mobile data terminals were also showing signs of ageing. Battery-life issues, among other things, were impairing the usefulness of full-fledged laptops and the force wanted a more energy-efficient alternative that could still be complemented with a keyboard for lodging incident reports and other administrative tasks from the field. “We needed a single device that would be suitable for all officers, in all situations,” he says. “They needed efficient, online access to all administrative and reporting functions whether they were in the station or in the field.” This search, in turn, recently led the force's technology team to kick off a pilot program in which 37 Acer Iconia W511 tablets – each with a 10.1-inch screen and running Windows 8 – were initially seeded throughout the police force's Training Academy.

“That efficiency equates to 37 working days plus 43 hours in overtime. In dollar terms we saved $2,600 from the pilot alone.” Each tablet was given a 3G wireless broadband account, allowing officers to access the force's core applications while in the field. Over the course of the six-month pilot, administrators estimated that 280 hours of administrative time were saved by users of the 37 tablets alone. “That efficiency equates to 37 working days plus 43 hours in overtime,” Hutcheon says. “In dollar terms we saved $2,600 from the pilot alone.” FULL ROLLOUT The success of the early trial led to the devices being rolled out throughout the rest of the state's 73 police stations, with 1044 devices rolled out in total. The transformation in productivity has been marked, with officers now constantly connected to systems enabling rapid access to driver license details and other systems allowing them to confirm the identity of people in the field. Officers are able to type witness statements and incident reports into policing systems while in the field instead of waiting until they return to the station. This saves duplication of effort, potential errors while transcribing from written notes, and allows officers to capture witness signatures in the field to save them from having to go back to the station. Rapid entry of information into police systems has even helped in solving crimes: in one case, Hutcheon says, an officer was able to immediately enter details of a burglary on

a street; when another house on the same street was hit in the same night, police were quickly able to match the offender to the first incident. “We've seen a few cases where that has occurred,” he says. “It would otherwise have taken 24 hours for the report to be added to the system. But because the first report was already in the system, it allowed the offender to be matched and cleared the incident straight up.” A key element of the tablet rollout has been the ability to provide direct access to Tasmania Police's Web-based back-end systems, which Hutcheon says reflect “a deliberate move years ago to modernise a lot of our apps into the Web-based format so they could be device agnostic.” “We're not particularly wedded to any one device,” he continued. “It's now our core operating system and we have the base infrastructure down. That means it's now more about the app development” than the particulars of the technology platform in use. The Web-based environment also allows the police force to ensure the security and integrity of the data sent to and from police, since all data is stored on central servers. “We don't store local copies of databases or anything sensitive on the device,” Hutcheon explains. “It's just secure link back to the server, where the apps live.” The fact that each officer has their own broadband connection offers other benefits. For example, in the past to ensure connectivity to police, the force would have to set up a command bus at an investigation scene and set up a Wi-Fi hotspot to enable access to core policing systems. Using the tablets, however, each officer remains connected even at the scene. “Traditionally we'd have to have someone set up the network infrastructure to connect in,” Hutcheon says. “That's been a good efficiency improvement and a major advantage, particularly for major incidents.” NEW APPLICATIONS This flexible architecture has facilitated the rollout of new applications such as the Police Infringement Notice System, which has allowed police to digitise the process of giving infringement notices to drivers. In the past, officers would write details of the driver and infringement into a carbonated book and give offenders the ticket on the spot.

A pool of transcriptionists would then transfer those details into the system at a later date. Using the new system and tablet, officers simply enter the driver's details into the tablet and the infringement notice is sent to their home. The data-entry staff are no longer necessary, producing additional savings. “The advantage here is that there is data validation upon entry,” Hutcheon says. “If you type in someone's name, you can instantly get their details and a photograph. And if you type in the offence, you get the right monetary value for the offence and correct details about it.” Another system being considered will allow officers to formally caution drivers and have the details of those cautions stored centrally – removing the chance that drivers will be repeatedly cautioned without actually receiving a moving violation. The new architecture is creating new challenges for Tasmania Police, however, which is in the process of building new applications for tasks such as managing the influx of CCTV, smartphone and other video files that are submitted by citizens to police on a regular basis. HANDLED WITH CARE While the new devices have ticked the boxes in the connectivity, functionality and batterylife stakes, they have also proved more than adequate in terms of their durability for the field. After eighteen months in service, the pilot devices are “still going along alright”, Hutcheon says, noting that only 6 units have been damaged “beyond repair”. This low damage rate reflected a recognition that officers will take care with the devices even in the range of difficult situations in which they regularly find themselves. “We had the whole debate about issuing devices to persons versus stations,” he says, “but have pretty much proven that if you issue a piece of equipment to a person they take responsibility for it – and generally care for it pretty well.” Officers are allowed to personalise the devices “within reason” and bring them home for personal use, with the Microsoft Software Center tool allowing control over which applications are installed on the device. Administrative staff can always monitor the devices, log into them remotely, and see who is using what, when. ●

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 31

Case Study

VIDEOCONFERENCING USAGE HEATS UP AT NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE FEW ORGANISATIONS WOULD HAVE A BIGGER NEED FOR INSTANT, UBIQUITOUS COMMUNICATIONS THAN EMERGENCYSERVICES BODIES, WHO MUST OFTEN COORDINATE EMERGENCY RESPONSES BETWEEN THOUSANDS OF STAFF SPREAD ACROSS DOZENS OF LOCATIONS ¬ MOST OF WHOM ARE OUTSIDE THE OFFICE.

Several years ago, the organisation began working on ways to tap into new videoconferencing technologies to simplify this process and minimise the reliance on time-consuming and expensive physical trips. Over time, the installation of Polycom standalone videoconferencing units in around 60 of RFS offices had delivered some improvements, with staff regularly turning to videoconferencing as an alternative to drives of many hours. Yet this solution had its limitations – most notably, that many of the more far-flung offices were struggling to support videoconferencing streams over what were typically ADSL broadband services offering extremely low bandwidth. This effectively prevented key staff in many offices from being a fluid part of the emergency response, with physical meetings still necessary to overcome the limitations of the technology.

Photo credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Bidgee

BY DAVID BRAUE

eeting this challenge had proved tricky for NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) in the past, with staff generally spending hours on the road to travel between locations for meetings. In a catchment area that spans 87 offices and 70,000 staff – managerial staff, operational staff, fire fighters, and volunteers – across 800,000 square kilometres, this was no small task. “We've got a big organisation spread out across NSW, and communications can be a problem,” says Ashley Van Amstel, manager of information technology with NSW RFS. “During our big fires and emergencies, there's a lot of communications back to head office and surrounding districts. But going from one district office to the next can be 300 or 400 kilometres, and having people drive four hours for a half-hour meeting is pointless.”

32 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

CLOUD COVER With its new environment in place, RFS was freed to think outside the box when it came to deploying an improved communications solution. Given its investment in virtual data-centre infrastructure, it seemed logical to look for a solution based on similar technologies. RFS eventually adopted Polycom's RealPresence One video collaboration solution, a virtual platform that can be easily scaled up to support videoconferences of nearly any size. The environment was rolled out as a complement to the existing hardware-based videoconferencing, allowing more flexibility in who could participate in video meetings and from where. The decision to embrace the cloud-based architecture was a natural one given the increasing need for broad collaboration across the state, according to Van Amstel.

Photo credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Ajayvius

INFRASTRUCTURE BOOST Despite the benefits of in-office videoconferencing, it soon became clear that the RFS' endgame was something even better: why should videoconferencing not only be available in every one of its offices statewide, but also to laptop and smartphone-wielding staff joining into operational meetings from the field? Realising this goal required a fundamental rethink of the architecture, since managing an ever-growing network of videoconferencing units was clearly going to be limited by available bandwidth well into the future. One part of the solution lay in a major infrastructure upgrade that saw the organisation consolidate its IT services around two data centres built on entirely virtual workloads using VMware vPlex technology. That upgrade saw critical systems moved onto the new infrastructure during the course of 2014, with the new design providing much higher reliability and redundancy for the organisation's application workloads. As part of that project, WAN optimisation devices from Riverbed Technology were installed to maximise the usage of whatever ADSL or other inter-site services were available in any given location. This architecture – which Van Amstel says is “greatly improving things” – gave new life to the videoconferencing equipment at the various remote sites, since they no longer had to deal with as much network contention as in the past. It also gave rise to discussions about the videoconferencing architecture that would enable the organisation's long-term vision of ubiquitous videoconferencing to fixed and mobile devices.

NSW Rural Fire Service headquarters in Lidcombe, NSW

“Because the videoconferencing has become so critical and important to our operations, we wanted to beef it up. It was so helpful that we needed to make it even better, basically.” “Because the videoconferencing has become so critical and important to our operations, we waned to beef it up,” he explains. “It was so helpful that we needed to make it even better, basically.” “The goal was to make it highly available and redundant, and it's all virtual now so we have full redundancy,” he continues. “And, because everything is being compressed on the WAN, there is more bandwidth available for things like videoconferencing.” Having cloud-based videoconferencing available from the organisation's two data centres means there are no concerns about availability: the vPlex infrastructure allows loads to be moved between resource pools to ensure smooth performance and continuous availability. Even more importantly, however, is the capability that the new architecture provides for mobile users. Since the virtualised servers can be just as easily accessed from mobile devices – smartphones, tablets, and laptops are widely used across RFS – those

devices can join the videoconferences easily and from anywhere there is enough mobile bandwidth. Staff can also join videoconferences from their desktop computers, without having to physically travel to a a conventional large meeting room. The mobile capability is being tested and rolled out this year, but the new system was an instant hit from its deployment in July 2014. Some 455 meetings were held on the videoconferencing system in its first four months of usage, and this has continued to increase with the arrival of the summer and current bushfire season. Savings come from many areas, but the sheer reduction in travel has been a major boon for the organisation. “We're doing a lot of conferences,” Van Amstel says. “There would be a lot of savings on travel, and money not spent where traditionally people would have been travelling for these meetings. Usage is increasing, and it's just going to continue to go up.” ●

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 33

Interview

Interview:

CLOUD PROVES A SHOT IN THE ARM FOR MERCY HEALTH

At a time when many government and pseudo-government organisations are taking their first cautious steps into the cloud, some organisations are already seeing the benefits of taking the plunge. Healthcare provider Mercy Health has been a leader in the move to the cloud, recently working with Dimension Data to migrate the systems supporting 5500 employees across 31 sites nationwide. Dmitri Mirvis, CIO with the healthcare provider, believes the decision to move the cloud has not only helped modernise the organisation and saved it $1.2 million as compared with upgrading its massive legacy environment. GTR recently sat down with him to hear how it went, and how he managed the transition without interrupting the business.

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GTR: You have recently made a very big commitment to the cloud environment. It's not an easy transition to make. What were you running before and how did you decide to commit to the cloud?

their primary cloud in Port Melbourne. The project went relatively smoothly – 'relatively' here is because big undertakings, obviously, would encounter certain issues. We also faced additional complexity not just because of the skills gap but because we are a healthcare org and disruptions to the IT services, MIRVIS: Mercy is a non profit organisation that especially in the hospital space, would require a lot concentrates on providing services around health of co-ordination and planning. care – we have a number of hospitals that we're The good news was that Mercy as an organisation managing including Mercy Health for Women in had done a good job in planning for such disruptions, Heidelberg, runs one of 4 NICOs in Victoria – as well and our hospital staff handled it rather well. We had as a general hospital in Werribee in one of the fastest over-provisioned for downtime, and hospital staff growing population areas. Also in aged care we have trained in advance for the situation. 10 facilities and around 1500 aged care beds and independent living units. GTR: Managing this kind of tradition involves many stakeholders. How do you go about When I joined Mercy 2 years ago, our first review changing that, not only in terms of it being showed that Mercy's infrastructure was somewhat outdated. In order to continue supporting growth and such a large change but also to keep running the business as well? uplifting our environment, when we took a review we identified the data centre as one of the major problem areas. This led us to review other options MIRVIS: It required a lot of buy-in, and cogoing forward and we decided that going into cloud ordination and a joint effort with the whole would be the best solution, both from cost efficiency organisation. What was surprising to me when I as well as flexibility. joined Mercy was an attitude in the executive where We had an existing relationship with Dimension we're not so much looking at the downside, but Data, which was our network equipment provider, looking at the upside how to make things happen. and all of our market researcher showed that they Mercy is a mission-based organisation and one of were also some of the bigger players with advanced the core values is innovation. That permeates the technology capabilities, engaging in the small and attitudes throughout the organisation. medium size niche of the market and where we fit as So I had great cooperation and support from an organisation. the senior management and staff, as well as from So we undertook a review of Dimension Data's the hospitals. And people were looking forward cloud capabilities in Australia, and that was quite to the benefits. A lot of overtime was being put in important for us because of the data sovereignty without any complaints and not just by the staff, but issues that we would face as a healthcare by the senior staff in hospitals as well. There was a organisation. We then engaged with them, but lot of over-provisioning in terms of catering to the around planning for the data centre migration – but downside, and as far as our continuing business, with a view that we would establish a long-term working on the new environment, we had teams partnership. that worked around 18 hours a day for a stretch of 3 Our needs as a small organisation with an weeks as well as senior managers throughout the outdated technology base would require not just a organisation, who helped co-ordinate this exercise. data centre provider, but also a technology provider So, careful planning with the right staff, and buy-in that could shape our data centre into the new from senior management across this organisation, environment. And cloud is not just a different mode were keys to the success. I also have to mention of hosting; it requires organisations to undertake Dimension Data because, as I said, we were looking a leap into a different technological environment, for a partner and not just a data centre provider. particularly around virtualisation. We needed our counterparts to understand our So, the engineering component of it was quite limitations and specific concerns. Whether it was important for us, and we had gaps in our internal skill data sovereignty, or the limitations in the skill sets, set. We needed a partner that would provide both or some of this additional guidance in needing to system integration support as well as education for provide this planning. our IT staff and in the data centre. And it was clear that DiData would be that partner. GTR: How hard was it for your staff to make the transition to thinking about things in the In July 2013 we commenced implementation. We cloud? first moved into production in the Dimension Data cloud in Sydney, were undertaking the buildout of

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 35

Interview

MIRVIS: Ironically I would say that as far as the organisation beyond the IT department, they only saw the upside. That may be because of having a somewhat outdated starting point. But the upside for the organisation was improved performance, less downtime of applications, and because of less sharpening of old hardware, as well as better quality of the software. Why am I talking about better quality of the software? When you are constrained, as are most non-profit healthcare organisations would be in IT investments, certain areas suffer. When you are delivering software, for example, the amount of infrastructure you can dedicate to testing and quality assurance is actually quite minimal. With cloud infrastructure, where you are paying for utilisation as opposed to making long-term investments, it gives you a lot more flexibility to bring up a fairly sophisticated and comprehensive testing environment for short periods of time. And that in turn allows you to improve your QA and, hence, the quality of deliverables. So from that perspective it has actually been mostly positive. It didn't necessarily require adjustments from the user community, and the feedback has been mostly positive. I have also noticed the amount of calls to help desks has declined, and the amount of escalations to me declined. In the IT department, though, it required quite a big adjustment, mostly in the mentality of the folks. So, they don't need now to keep track and to diligently bring environments down to ensure that we are taking advantage of it. It required them also to think of new capabilities and new limitations. The fact that everything is virtualised does allow for more flexibility, but it also creates its own limitations. For example, certain capabilities cannot be virtualised, like environments that require multiple network interface cards. The SAN is not available to you directly anymore. Folks undertaking quite a bit of training, and that's where Dimension Data also helped quite a bit by providing guidance, being flexible, and helping us to minimise productivity. This is still an adjustment that I would say is ongoing, in terms of my infrastructure.

GTR: You previously had 157 servers in place. How do you go about executing that? MIRVIS: It was a great opportunity for spring cleaning. By that time around 70 percent of our servers were past lives – they were past warranties, and there were no spare parts. They were also running old operating systems, some Windows 2000,

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some Windows Server 2003 environments. So we definitely needed to get away from that just to be supportable. But we also needed to ensure that our applications were compatible with new Windows Server versions as well as operating properly in virtualised environments. So, that necessitated a big conversation with our members, as well as careful planning in terms of sequencing our migrations. We had a lot of help from Dimension Data for utilising their tools. It also helped us to revisit a lot of our vendor relationships: because we were on older versions, some of these were neglected. So, we had to plan for upgrades of our applications and then also to understand how to optimise running of these applications in the new environments. We also had to ensure that when we were virtualising, we would not necessarily create another set of inefficiencies by creating another instance for each application. And that's where planning from Dimension Data helped, as well as planning for applications, which allowed us for the first time to document our application space properly. So, I would say it was going back to the whole planning part of it which helped us to execute relatively successfully.

GTR: How much of your legacy environment did not make the transition?

“About 80 percent of our applications that made it through had to be upgraded. So, it was a massive exercise which is why it took over a year. But that had another positive side to it because, as you are upgrading your applications to the latest version, you are also taking advantage of new capabilities that have been developed there.”

MIRVIS: In terms of applications, probably about 20 percent were either canned or replaced. About 80 percent of our applications that made it through had to be upgraded. So, it was a massive exercise which is why it took over a year. But that had another positive side to it because, as you are upgrading your applications to the latest version, you are also taking advantage of new capabilities that have been developed there. And that helped the user community to take advantage of these disruptions, because they could see they were getting some additional benefits. So, I would say pretty much, we had 60 mini projects to upgrade our software on the back of it.

GTR: That in itself is quite a lot of complexity to manage. MIRVIS: There was a lot of complexity, to manage co-ordination, integration, data flows and just also the user change management perspective. But again I've seen the attitude of staff and I was relatively new when we started on that road. I was quite surprised how helpful our staff were, especially in hospitals and the finance department. They just rolled with it. And, for the IT department to have so much support from the rest of the user community, was great. ●

The 4th Annual Social Media for the Public Sector Conference will answer the key questions facing the three tiers of government and the wider public sector as they look to continuously improve communications, information and service delivery, and community engagement through social media channels. Conference topics will include:

4th Annual

Social Media for the public sector Conference 2015

29th & 30th April | Rydges Melbourne

• Practical tools to improve the impact of your social media activities • Integrating social media with existing communication and engagement channels and strategies • Creating social media platform specific communication plans • Building and maintaining an engaged online community • Social media monitoring, analytics and ROI tracking

The 4th Annual Social Media for the Public Sector Conference will be held on 29th and 30th April 2015 at Rydges Melbourne in conjunction with the Strategic Communications for the Public Sector Conference – making it the one-stop event for all the communications needs of the three tiers of government and wider public sector.

The Strategic Communications for the Public Sector Conference will assist the three tiers of government and the wider public sector to improve the quality and impact of their external communications. The conference will address topics including: • Designing, implementing and aligning internal and external communications plans and strategies • Aligning communications with organisational goals • Developing your message – and sticking to it • Choosing the most effective and appropriate communication channels • Measuring and evaluating the ROI on communication campaigns

Strategic Communications FOR TH E PU BLI C SECTOR CONFERENCE 2015

www.socialmediacomms.com.au

Gadgets Galore Canon PowerShot G7 X Star performer with the lot RRP: $700 from www.canon.com.au This is the latest entry in Canon's popular PowerShot range, which is known for its strength in image quality and, in the G7 X, packs in everything but the proverbial kitchen sink as well. Its 20.2 megapixel sensor, 24-100mm f/1.8-f/2.8 lens and support for ISO settings up to 12800 are designed to boost low-light performance, with RAW shooting capabilities, a 4.2x optical zoom, image stabilisation, flip-up screen for framing selfies, and more. GPS co-ordinates can be read from a paired smartphone, and there are more than 2 dozen image modes including a series of 'star' modes designed to capture star trails with a tripodmounted Bulb exposure. At 304g it's not the lightest unit going, but all those features have to go somewhere.

Samsung Galaxy Camera 2 Most phones have a camera; this camera has a phone RRP: $499 from www.samsung.com.au Given its dual pedigrees in smartphones and in cameras, it's unsurprising that Samsung has combined the two in its Galaxy Camera. This update refines a concept the company first floated some time ago, upgrading the operating system (to Android 4.3) and processor (to a quad-core 1.6GHz chip) as well as boosting the camera performance. Built-in Android allows high-quality image capture directly into powerful image-handling and social-media apps, while the high-resolution screen allows for immediate viewing at much better resolution than most standalone cameras provide. The 21x optical zoom allows for long-distance zooming, and a host of camera modes allow this unit to do just about anything creative you're likely to want. There's also built-in NFC for easy pairing and tagging, and direct access to cloud-storage platforms like Dropbox.

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 Critics' darling – but will it be yours? RRP: $1,200 from www.canon.com.au Panasonic has been lauded far and wide for its DMC-LX100, a Micro Four-Thirds format advanced compact camera that seems to have found just the right balance of features and image quality. In addition to the 12.8 megapixel sensor, there's the usual assortment of features – ISO up to 25600 for use in dark conditions, continuous shooting at up to 6.5fps, Wi-Fi connectivity, and a 40fps super high-speed mode to name a few. Significantly, the LX100 offers 4K-resolution video recording – something that is only now trickling down into the highend compact camera market. Manual aperture and shutter controls work during video recording, reflecting the feature-packed design of a camera aimed at those who want a bit more control over their photos – and superb photos to match.

Nikon Coolpix P340 Step up from your smartphone camera RRP: $450 from www.nikon.com.au Its body may be small, but its specs aren't. Nikon's latest compact digital weighs just 194g and measures just 103mm in width, but it packs in a full range of features including a 12.2 megapixel sensor; 921,000-pixel 3-inch monitor; 5x optical and 4x digital zoom; maximum f/1.8 aperture for good low-light results; support for RAW images; HD video up to 120fps; Wi-Fi connectivity; and a full PSAM dial that lets you control photographic parameters or just use one of 18 automatic exposure modes. Positioned as a step up from a smartphone camera, this is one whose small size and broad feature set make it easy to keep around no matter where you go.

REVIEW:

Sony's A5000 proves a sharp contender BY DAVID BRAUE

Recent improvements in smartphone camera technology have put the squeeze on camera makers, who are now working hard to cram in as many features as they can to justify the additional cost of their standalone compact cameras. With most vendors offering what has become a standard suite of features – automatic picture modes, face recognition, Wi-Fi, HD video with 60fps or 120fps slow-motion options, and the like – it is only recently that enterprising camera makers have begun trying more radical redesigns to deliver affordable cameras that deliver a little bit extra. Sony's $699 A5000 (since superseded by the $799 A5100 and complemented by the A6000, which adds a few bells and whistles) is one such effort, and in testing during a recent overseas trip it delivered consistently excellent photos thanks to one significant innovation.

The large APS-C sensor in Sony's A5000 not only offers high sensitivity and smooth tonality, but increases detail to the point where individual Christmas lights are discernible at high zoom.

That, of course, is the inclusion of an APS-C sensor – a physically larger image sensor more comparable to those found in high-end digital SLRs. In theory, the larger size allows the sensor to capture more light, with better resolution between the sensor pixels and a sharper picture overall. Tests showed this to be entirely true, with extremely sharp pictures, good resolution of shadow detail and excellent low-light performance in which even the edges of individual Christmas light bulbs were sharply defined – at night. Its lack of physical PSAM dial may feel like a limitation to some users, but in everyday usage the unit proved easy to use, with a broad range of modes (including PSAM programs) selectable using the single rotary control. Built-in HDR (high dynamic range) capabilities boosted overall image quality, while the fine detail made possible by the APS-C sensor delivered jaw-dropping 20.1 megapixel stills. There are other nice touches, such as the flip-up screen that is visible over the top of the camera to facilitate easy framing of selfies. The 16-50mm kit lens protrudes from the unit, making it a little awkward (but by no means impossible) to slip the unit into a pocket – but this is because of the sheer size of the E-mount lenses that can be swapped onto the flexible and lightweight body. In a field flooded with contenders, Sony's APS-C offerings stand out for their flexibility and excellent image quality. Perhaps the only significant feature missing is GPS, which is seriously useful in a travel camera – but when you see the pictures this unit produces you won't mind. GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 39

Roundtable

THE MASS TRANSITION FROM LEGACY ANALOGUE PROCESSES TO NEW DIGITAL ONES HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR MORE THAN A DECADE – AND, WITHIN GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONS, WITH VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS.

ROUNDTABLE: DRIVING THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

et for every success, the inexorable pace of progress has moved the goalposts again. With new cloudbased service models forcing even established digital players to revisit their processes – and a newfound government push to promote cloud usage along with greater adoption of Web and mobile technologies – the pace of change remains significant and frantic. The announcement that the federal government will move to establish a formal digital transformation office (DTO) will add further impetus to the change. But what will it involve – and how can government agencies at all levels benefit?

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For this GTR roundtable, we brought together a range of experts who have been involved in past digital transformation efforts and will continue to do so into the future. Participants included Bart Jawien, founder and projects partner with AVOCA Ventures; director of digital transformation Mark Paterson and public sector strategist Michelle Narracott, both with Fuji Xerox; Ivan Seselj, CEO with Promapp Solutions Limited; and Vaughan Stott, solution strategist with Wacom. GTR: How well have government organisations made the transition away from paper-based processes?

STOTT: In line with the government's Digital First policy, many government organisations have begun using digital channels as their preferred method of service delivery. However, the transition away from paper-based processes is inconsistent for many. Some local councils and state government departments have had enough independence and flexibility to really come up with a true end to end paperless solution that works well for them and their clients, while some of the larger organisations have gotten really tied up and not made a lot of progress. If they have gone paperless, or at least reduced their reliance on paper, they may have something that makes the process more manageable for them but the client experience has suffered. Alternatively there are those who have largely left the paper front end of the system but in the back end are having to scan or otherwise digitise the information on the paper documents. NARRACOTT: There are definitely differing levels of maturity that we've seen across agencies and services, here in Australia and overseas. I guess Australia is still resolving its way forward and getting a clear digital agenda, particularly at the federal government level. But with the announcement of the establishment of the DTO, we get a really strong feeling that we're heading in the right direction. In terms of how far we have to go, recent figures from the government suggest there are something like 250 million letters per year going out annually from Commonwealth agencies. In terms of face-toface, over the counter transactions it's probably like 150 million transactions – and with those transactions you've got multiple paper-based communications and emails as well. These are really expensive if you compare them to the digital alternatives, which are self service, online smart forms, and minimising your counter interactions to your truly complex cases. JAWIEN: Paperless is happening, but I still believe it's only halfway there. We are purists when you talk about paperless or cashless business. We use tools like Evernote, Dropbox, email, Skype, and mobile phones. This is all in terms of being a progressive business – and trying to introduce that same ethos to a government department would be almost impossible. Most things are printed for no reason; if we were to stay in the digital space we wouldn't need to print things. But this is a mind shift, and I still believe government sectors are around 10 years behind. Trying to put new-age processes into play might take another 10 years. Everything is just so paper-focused in that sector. It is a massive ship that moves very slowly and turns very slowly, whereas the digital age is moving day by day and changing extremely quickly.

SESELJ: We get to see the ongoing transition from a unique perspective: Promapp is the process management platform that many government organisations use to manage, control and improve their processes. The progress of the transition away from paper based processes is mixed across both local and central government organisations – it really is a bite, or project, at a time approach in most cases. Many processes, unfortunately, still struggle through an 80’s approach of paper and signatures. Once an organisation has seen solid gains proven by a successful on-line transition, and as confidence in this approach grows, the rate of change tends to accelerate. PATERSON: The DTO holds promise for its advice and principles that will allow the partner to think digitally by default. This will allow us to partner to rethink and reimagine, from a customer perspective, the services that should be delivered. And when they build those services, they can really leapfrog generations of growth. We see that opportunity across many departments. GTR: Online forms and digital workflow technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to engage customers and stakeholders in the collection and dissemination of information. How can this best be accomplished, and what risks does it present?

“In terms of how far we have to go, recent figures from the government suggest there are something like 250 million letters per year going out annually from Commonwealth agencies. In terms of face-to-face, over the counter transactions it's probably like 150 million transactions.”

SESELJ: We have seen a number of individual processes transferred to online data capture. Most of these have been accomplished through a program of projects deploying one service (or process) at a time. Overall these have been received well by stakeholders – the only risk is pushing too hard and alienating parts of the community that aren’t as comfortable with online interaction. For some processes you still need to consider the cost and implications of providing the manual back-up process.

Michelle Narracot is an active contributor to both government and corporate sector service delivery reform initiatives. Her ongoing reform passion comes from her work with Australian, ACT, NSW and Victorian government agencies and their leadership teams as they navigate the big policy and service delivery reforms especially digitalisation, and from strategy assignments for global NGOs and corporations in North America, AsiaPacific and the UK. Prior to joining Fuji Xerox in 2015, Michelle was a senior executive with the Australian Government’s science and sports portfolios, Partner with PwC, Deloitte, Brooke Institute and Helmsman International, and Senior Principal with Accenture. GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 41

Roundtable

“New-age technology can be scary to adopt, and the thing holding some government departments back is the people driving this change. You need to hire people who aren't scared to push boundaries.”

Bart Jawien is the Projects Partner and founder of Avoca Ventures and has 10yrs+ agency, eCommerce and digital media experience. 42 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

TROTT: Crowd sourcing could be an effective way for enlisting clients and stakeholders for streamlining information dissemination. This could be done effectively through social media or online forums to ensure that staff play only a moderator role instead of responding to all enquiries. However, a channel management strategy would need to be employed as there is a risk that the channel could quickly become unmanageable. PATERSON: One of the most significant elements of successes to date has been where departments put customer experience at the heart of all digital design. That might sound obvious and logical, but it has been one of the issues in digital development work to date; there hasn't been that really clear customer-facing approach. If you build your service from the customer end, you'll end up achieving far more in terms of service and efficiency than if you had started with a cost reduction target alone. And that's something we're starting to see recognised in the Australian environment. GTR: What processes have proven difficult to digitise, and why? SESELJ: As you’d expect, simpler transactional processes have been the easiest candidates to push online. Higher complexity processes with many variations, decisions, legislative impacts such as resource management approval and consenting, have proven more challenging. The transition is impacted by how well the process is understood: the better you understand the requirements and the clearer the picture of how the process needs to be managed in future, the more likely it is that the implementation will be successful.

STOTT: Signature has been a real sticking point for a lot of organisations, particularly when dealing with document types with a legal requirement for a signature. Some organisations have just put transitioning to paperless processes in the too-hard basket because they don’t know how to deal with signature in a simple and legally valid manner in a paperless environment. Others have gone near paperless but still revert to paper where a signature is required and then digitise the paper document. Worst is a poorly executed paperless process involving signature with something unnatural to the client, like a finger on a touch screen or stylus on a poor quality capture device. In either case the end result is not a natural signing experience for the client and the resulting signature is often not visually similar to their paper signature and of dubious legal validity. Anyone looking to enable annotation, document mark-up and diagram drawing has faced similar hurdles. Why? We are just so used to operating our devices with pointing devices and, in recent years, touch, that it just does not occur to us to look for a digital pen to enable handwritten input on these devices. JAWIEN: New-age technology can be scary to adopt, and the thing holding some government departments back is the people driving this change. You need to hire people who aren't scared to push boundaries. That's why we exist as a business: we are purists, and not scared to push boundaries for clients. GTR: Transformation is often about adding a new face on an old environment – but legacy only goes so far. At what point should government agencies start looking at overhauling their IT infrastructure to be ready for the next generation of digital transformation? SESELJ: Government agencies have always had to contend with shifting technologies. Just like the private sector, they have been exposed to the risk that their IT infrastructure investments no longer meet the needs of their stakeholders, nor support the services they need to provide. No-one can predict what advances will be made in future. The impact of cloud solutions on this cycle of infrastructure investment is that this has been somewhat de-risked, and the need for capital investment has significantly reduced. Instead of the massive investment in infrastructure needed to build and run their own data-centres, many government organisations are turning to cloud based ‘solutions as a service’ infrastructure. With this approach, specialist organisations make the investment in leading edge infrastructure, hardware, and specialist

teams, and clients pay them for the right to use their service. JAWIEN: We have worked with a number of very big organisations, and the number of systems they need to use to get through an entire day of work is just staggering. To create efficiency, they will need to shut down a number of the legacy systems out there that are still making it all work. These were built 20 to 30 years ago and have to keep moving for these giants to move – and that's a massive limitation. These organisations are being held back by the legacy systems they still have to run. STOTT: IT infrastructure does need to be overhauled to ensure that servers can effectively manage online systems and increased traffic – particularly IT infrastructure that is shared amongst multiple government organisations. The addition of additional cloud based services cannot cause other services to slow down or fail. PATERSON: The use of cloud by government is already there, but it's not ubiquitous. That is now about to change quickly, with government policy now driving departments to consider the use of cloud in a more aggressive way – and the market will respond. This is part of the global phenomenon that cloud is becoming the easiest way to provide digital services. GTR: The shift to electronic document management systems was a big win for digitisation, but many EDMSes are showing signs of age. How can government agencies keep them relevant? STOTT: Inconsistent record keeping protocol is the major Patersonfall. They need to ensure that staff are following consistent procedures and filed documentation is accessible for other areas within the same organisation. Once documentation has gone electronic it should not remain in or revert to paper form. Additionally, they need to understand the risks involved, especially through the Freedom of Information act where clients can access their stored information. The organisations with aging systems need to be going to market to find a new solution that will future-proof their organisation and further refine the transition from old to new. SESELJ: Technology is constantly evolving, and it feels as if the rate of change is continuing to accelerate. Cloud hosted platforms are resolving many of the issues of older systems. They introduce a degree of ‘future-proofing’ because of their ease of implementation, flexibility, access and ease of scaling up as required. How should government bodies respond to this? Change is something technical teams already deal

Ivan Seselj is founder and CEO of Promapp Solutions, a Deloitte Asia Pacific Tech Fast 500 company. With a finance and internal audit background, and 10+ years’ experience in business process improvement roles across a diverse range of organisations and industries, Ivan founded Promapp in 2002. Today, Ivan owns and runs Promapp with business partner Richard Holmes. with through robust, transparent reviews of the cost of staying on platforms (be it an EDMS or other core system like a Financial System or CRM) vs the benefit of shifting to newer alternatives. PATERSON: One of the impediments to a service delivery focus has been the silos in government. Classically, public servants within a particular department hold jealously onto the data they've collected. This is for a whole range of reasons: some believe that the information they collected was only relevant to the purpose for which it was collected, and therefore they feel restricted in their ability to share it with other departments. It is therefore important to free them up so those previous restrictions on sharing data are no more. GTR: Cloud's promise is now widely accepted, but how will cloud models facilitate digital transformation? STOTT: It depends on the technology. If the organisation are looking at using cloud based solutions to globalise their operations and reduce operational costs, then cloud hosted platforms can be suitable. Security and privacy is the concern with cloud based technology and the storage of client information. Both the organisation and their clients need to be aware of and satisfied with how secure and private their information is. The risks to the organisations in terms of secret information falling into the wrong hands is also a major consideration, which requires a conservative and measured approach when looking at cloud based solutions.

“Cloud hosted platforms are resolving many of the issues of older systems. They introduce a degree of ‘futureproofing’ because of their ease of implementation, flexibility, access and ease of scaling up as required. ”

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 43

Roundtable

“The Digital First policy has been driving the digital transformation in terms of providing a framework for what is required by 2020. However, in terms of application and implementation, there are a number of inconsistencies and a lack of transparency about the changes.”

JAWIEN: I personally use Dropbox and Evernote, which are cloud-based storage information tools, and my entire life is on Dropbox in terms of all the data and files that I store. In Evernote I have photocopies of all my credit cards, passport, and driver's license – which means I can be everywhere at any time. If I were to lose my wallet I would be able to prove my identity. If the government sector adopted similar ideas around the cloud, things would happen a lot quicker and those efficiencies would get better and better. That would be the start of moving into a new age for the government. But a lot of government organisations are still old school in the way they treat security. They are quite conservative around that aspect. SESELJ: The main obstacle of the last decade has been fear of the unknown. The term ‘cloud’ didn’t even mean anything to most of us even a decade ago. As with any new idea, there were concerns around the implications of this change. How can we possibly store our information outside of our four walls? How secure can this be? Can we still own and control this information if we don’t physically hold it on our equipment, on our sites? As the benefits of cloud solutions have been proven by many government bodies now (and some of the myths dispelled) this is no longer an obstacle. For most organisations the obstacle has shifted back to the fundamentals – for this particular process, and this particular challenge, does this cloud platform provide a better business solution? As a cloudbased process management software provider, our discussions with our clients revolve around the costs, benefits and business advantages of our solution. The cloud-hosting aspect is not core to the decision, it’s just an advantage for implementation and ongoing management – and something that is usually reviewed by a technical team as a matter of due diligence.

Vaughan Stott has worked with Wacom in Australia for over 10 years and last year joined Wacom’s Asia Pacific Business Solution’s team as their Solution Strategist. In recent years Vaughan has worked closely with a number of major Australian Telecommunication companies, Logistics companies, Universities and Government Organisations on large scale eSignature and eDocument projects.

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PATERSON: The first area of concern we hear around cloud is really about the capability within the department to leverage the new opportunities the cloud presents. It does require new skill sets and new ways to think about and architect their business internally, and the services they provide externally. It definitely is an inflection point, and there are many experienced providers able to help government move into cloud. GTR: To what degree are governance requirements driving the digital transformation, and can this transformation keep up with rapid changes in customer expectations? STOTT: The Digital First policy has been driving the digital transformation in terms of providing a framework for what is required by 2020. However, in terms of application and implementation, there are a number of inconsistencies and a lack of transparency about the changes. Also, what is the governance structure to ensure that all government agencies adhere to the digital transformation – and, particularly, the return on investment and benefits realisation? I’m very interested to see what the soon to be established DTO can do to help government organisations achieve these goals. NARRACOTT: Over the past year we've had some experience with a Commonwealth agency that has a really strong regulatory mandate. They're quite early in the stages of designing their digital future. And just in that one agency alone, and it's a medium sized agency, they found something like 300 different paper forms that were being used for customers to complete. If you look at what the old set of functions are, probably only 1 percent of them were being made available online. And they have worked out an incremental approach to increase this. When you ask what are the blockers and barriers, for that agency it was really the Australian Public Service Commission's capability review. They were focusing on how digitally advanced the agency is, and they're looking at the capability of the agency to actually deliver on what the government needs it to do. In that sense, they have a strong regulatory and service delivery focus but had these really antiquated service delivery modes. Part of that is around internal capability, ICT and digital fluency. The last genuine online strategy was prepared in 2000, and a lot has happened in 15 years. And while some great work has been done, we do need to recognise that if we want a whole of government approach across all layers of government, we really do need a strategy that informs the customer

experience through engagement. Citizens view the government as one body and expect a seamless set of services and interactions with government. JAWIEN: Avoca is a concept business and we help ideas come to life. In sectors like education and banking we are doing some great cashless innovations, and pushing the envelope in terms of the latest and greatest. Having something like that within the government would absolutely help springboard new technologies into action â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but I have not heard of any government department, perhaps apart from Defence, that are pushing new technologies. And I would be happy to mentor and showcase a number of cool things that we're doing that could help the government space. This sort of thing will have to be driven from local applications and work its way up. GTR: The first part of digital transformation was to digitise paper records, but the goal now is to avoid creating those documents at all. How well has the concept of device-independent, universal information access translated in practice?

SESELJ: Many government organisations have found this to be a major hurdle â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not only technical, but also the challenge of shifting the interaction with their customers. On the technical side, there are now solutions that make it easier for vendors and customers alike to deal with the breadth of different devices. Examples of this are some of the technology standards that have been agreed, like HTML5 for web browsers. As a vendor, we made the decision to comply with this particular standard early. So, it no longer matters which browser or mobile device clients use to access Promapp. We now focus on design â&#x20AC;&#x201C; making the user interaction as simple as possible, regardless if the person is accessing the platform via a mobile device, or a touchscreen in a training room, or at their desk on a PC screen. PATERSON: We've done research on Australians' appetites to consume government services digitally, and the key message out of it was that citizens said they will use the easiest channel. They want convenience and access, 24x7, and they want mobile access because they believe it is the easiest channel to use.They don't have a 9 to 5 mentality and they

GTR JAN/FEB 2015 | 45

Roundtable

expect their service providers to match that – and government is no different. Work done around a proposed apprenticeship scheme, for example, showed that almost 100 percent of apprentices in Australia have a smartphone. That's significant information if you're going to be designing a workplace scheme to be used by apprentices. Design it that way and the market will respond. JAWIEN: There is absolutely interest to make mobile phones supersede the likes of a screen on the laptop or PC. Because people are using mobiles more frequently, and on the go, things like Macs and PCs are being superseded. There are tools and applications being created on a day to day basis that make our lives more efficient. STOTT: Within a number of government organisations, this has been done quite well where instead of applying for service through paper applications, online applications are eliminating paper. It’s important, though, to remember that business process reengineering is required to support the integrity of the new process. Online services should be device independent to drive as many clients to online systems as possible. If the information is easy to access and user friendly, clients will prefer to use this system, particularly as they can access it at a time and place that suits their needs. This will in turn lead to a reduced demand for higher cost service and information channels such as service centres and counters. GTR: Despite the benefits of digital processes, agencies also need to ensure that customers preferring physical interactions don't fall through the cracks. How can this be ensured?

STOTT: There is still a client cohort that will require access to a person-based service due to access and equity. Government organisations will need to work for the digitisation of the processes to not hinder this cohort. Additionally there are certain document types that have a legislative requirement for a signature. In these cases the goal should be for the document to be digital from the start and never revert to paper. In these cases self-service kiosks will need to be considered. These could be in the organisations offices or distributed at other government locations (Medicare/Centrelink), especially where rural clients are concerned. A good example is the Virtual Counter NICTA has been working on which incorporates video chat, a document camera and a signature capture tablet. JAWIEN: We are also working in online innovation, helping consumers connect with certain products a lot easier and helping products become more intuitive. That's through the user experience design, and also the technology we build. We work with a lot of companies and I almost cringe when I walk into a hospital or the legal system, for example, and the processes are going to take a lot of time and are inefficient. Having a clear understanding of the digital space, there are certain things you could encourage the government to do to minimise the time required to make that more efficient. For example, we are working with a client that has around 100,000 vending machines. We have developed a technology based on NFC so that you can, for example, walk up to a vending machine, tap your card or mobile to the machine, and get your safety equipment out. This lets us provide more knowledge about which miners aren't using the right equipment, or if it has dated over time and needs to be replaced. It's all about bringing true science to how humans interact with the online space – creating products that you can intuitively manage and interact with. GTR: There are so many tools available for digital transformation that it can be difficult keeping tabs on them, and ensuring that change remains compliant with requirements. How can these tools be best managed to reduce risk during the digital transformation?

Mark Paterson is a Digital “evangelist” and a “transformationalist”. He is passionate about Digital Government and the empowering effect this can have on a nation. He brings deep experience in innovation and transformative change from a long career in financial services where he held executive roles in Product Development and Management, Retail Banking, Wealth Services and Major Program Leadership. Mark had 11 years at MLC and National Australia Bank before joining Fuji Xerox 4 years ago. At Fuji Xerox Mark was the Global Account Director for ANZ Bank leading Fuji Xerox initiatives supporting ANZ across Australia, NZ and South East Asia

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STOTT: Further analysis of the digital channels is required to understand how they are being used. Is it for information only, two-way communication or online applications? How will the channels be serviced by staff and how user friendly will the channels be? Without these considerations, there is a risk of unnecessary new channels being created or clients preferring to use higher cost channels (eg service

centres, counters). Furthermore, with online channels, there is an additional risk of security and privacy that will need to be mitigated. SESELJ: It’s obviously better to leverage your existing platform before looking into new solutions for every problem. Make sure you understand the full capabilities of your existing core systems before considering other alternatives. That said, we are seeing a new breed of solution in both public and private sectors – a specialised application targeting a specific problem. While this approach does present some risk (like managing more systems, integration and information control), these risks can be managed with effective processes. Clients of ours, who evaluate stand-alone systems, factor in the additional overhead in time, integration and support costs. In our case, as a process management software provider, we are always evaluated against the status quo to manage process knowledge – often an existing document management system. The costs, including risks, of the new system are

weighed up against the benefit of a solution that has been specifically designed for process management, and proven by many other government organisations. PATERSON: There has been a lot of activity in the last 6 months, but what we're not seeing yet – and maybe DTO is the forbearer of this – is any hint of a common set of principles, or a design mandate. In the absence of that, we're having individual departments replicate the innovation cycle on their own, and come up with their own interpretation of the answer. And that's probably inefficient. NARRACOTT: The last genuine online strategy was prepared in 2000, and a lot has happened in 15 years. And while some great work has been done, we do need to recognise that if we want a whole of government approach across all layers of government, we really do need a strategy that informs the customer experience through engagement. Citizens view the government as one body and expect a seamless set of services and interactions with government.

GTR: How can organisations maintain security throughout the process of the digital transformation, especially as the cloud shift takes hold? PATERSON: There have been concerns about security, but I would quote a prominent government department CIO who in a cloud forum noted that the major cloud providers will spend vastly larger sums on security than he will ever be able to do. And, so, security from his perspective isn't the first area of concern. TROTT: All secure information should be retained through current systems and digitised processes should not contain any secure information. Identity verification through biometric technology is starting to become prevalent in our digital society for securing and accessing information. Passwords, user IDs and PIN numbers are just not good enough to know for certain who has done what in the digital world. However, people are still pretty hesitant to hand over anything as a biometric (eg

JULY 15 & 16 | MELBOURNE

2015

BEST PRACTICE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONFERENCE Achieving excellence at a time of change

AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT & PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

MELBOURNE, JULY 15 & 16, 2015

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

The 8th Best Practice in Local Government Conference will again provide attendees with the latest information on how to improve their organisation’s culture and performance.

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Returning to Melbourne in 2015, this event is Australia’s national conference on local government organisational development and performance improvement. Official Endorsing Organisations of the 2015 Conference include the Local Government Business Excellence Network and the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government.

WHY ATTEND The 2015 conference will again provide attendees with knowledge they can immediately use to drive continuous improvement, generate improved organisational performance and achieve a culture of excellence within their own local government organisation. With councils across Australia facing significant financial stresses and the need to consider new methods to generate organisational efficiencies and deliver services, the 2015 Conference will provide delegates with expert advice and case studies detailing how to pursue excellence at a time of change.

CEOs / General Managers

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Directors

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Organisational Development and Performance Improvement Managers

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Manager Corporate Services

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Human Resources Manager

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Manager Corporate Planning

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Manager Workforce Planning & Development

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Business Excellence Manager

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Other managers of local government departments, units & projects

DATES AND VENUE The 2015 Best Practice in Local Government Conference will be held in Melbourne on July 15 & 16 at the Melbourne Park Function Centre, located adjacent to Melbourne’s CBD.

Key focal points of the 2015 conference will include:

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Those registered to attend the Best Practice in Local Government Conference can also attend sessions of two other events that will be co-located with the conference: •

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The National Local Government & Public Sector Risk Management Conference (July 16)

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Roundtable

fingerprints or retina scans) that they would not do in the normal course of interaction with an organisation. There is also the possibility of a private medical condition being revealed through the capture process of certain biometrics. However, facial photos, voice and signature are three potential biometrics that are commonplace in transactions between an organisation and their client. JAWIEN: Security will always be an issue, both in terms of the mindset and the support. It will need to scale up, and staff will need to be brought up to speed with the right security measures so there aren't any breaches. But the technology is continuing to move at an extremely fast pace, and security will continue to be just a thing that we have to try and mitigate. SESELJ: New cloud security standards have evolved (and are continuing to evolve) to the point that specific control and security levels are specified. Requirements include information access, privacy and security. These sorts of standards help customers and

vendors alike because they provide a simple means of proving that good security practices have been applied. In terms of information ‘floating around’ – it’s actually much more controlled if that information can only be accessed after a viewer has entered their credentials to view it. This is just one control option introduced by online platforms. Compared to emailing information or mailing paper copies, this is actually a far more secure approach. GTR: How can governments enlist SMEs and other stakeholders to drive acceptance of paperless processes? STOTT: Clients are already getting used to and even expecting digital interactions with government and large corporate organisations. They will be impressed by smaller organisations offering a similar experience and they will even start to expect it. Many vendors will have an SME version of their systems or technology that they

have developed for government and large organisations. Wacom, for example, has an off the shelf paperless eSignature solution available through Officeworks. PATERSON: The cost of digital delivery is an order of magnitude less than analogue alternatives, and we all benefit from that. But the middle ground can be awkward as you transform. Customers who go into a government office are told they don't have the forms available and they must be downloaded online – and then completed and brought back in. So, in an effort to digitise, they've made the customer experience worse. My.gov, in its early days, was an example of that: it had the right idea of pulling together multiple agencies in a common portal, but if you wanted to do something like change your address it was still quite a torturous process. But they have made good progress, and the intent is right, and it is starting to impact millions of Australians. There is the start of an understanding about how to do this properly. ●

Opinion

WHAT HAPPENS IF PUBLIC CELLULAR NETWORKS FAIL DURING AN EMERGENCY? BY KEVIN NOONAN, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, PUBLIC SECTOR TECHNOLOGY, OVUM

SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS HAVE BECOME A KEY TECHNOLOGY FOR MANY FIRST RESPONDERS, BUT THESE DEVICES OFFER LITTLE VALUE IF THEY FAIL DURING AN EMERGENCY. CRITICAL CELLULAR NETWORKS MUST CONTINUE TO OPERATE EVEN IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS.

As mobile networks mature, congestion management has essentially become a question of economics. Each network provider must make its own business decision about how much spare capacity needs to be allocated to cater for peak loads. However, providers understandably struggle to deal with unexpected peaks of unknown magnitude in unplanned locations. This is exactly what happens in times of disaster.

As public networks become clogged with loved ones try to call each other, network modelling goes out the window. If emergency workers are sharing the same mobile network as the general public, all these carefully procured advanced capabilities slowly grind to a stop. Given Australia’s vast distances and the frequency of natural disasters, there are some particularly complex and unique issues to consider. Fulfilling an earlier election promise, the Australian Federal Government has initiated a formal cost benefit analysis of allocating spectrum to a dedicated national emergency services network. Globally, each nation is considering its options. With the experience of 9/11 still resonating in the minds of government planners, the US Government has already

opted for an ambitious solution based on a separately constructed network. This is a massive project that will take until 2022 to deliver. FirstNet is essentially a completely separate (4G LTE) wireless broadband network covering all US states and territories, running separately from the commercial mobile broadband across the country. FirstNet also owns a valuable piece of mobile spectrum real estate with 20MHz within 700MHz band. In Australia, three possible alternatives have emerged in industry submissions: • A dedicated first responder network based on exclusive spectrum, similar to the US solution. • Exclusive spectrum allocation, which could be leased back from a commercial provider through what is essentially an outsourced arrangement. • Telstra’s LANES solution, which is essentially a spectrum-as-a-service offering. Spectrum can be either dedicated or dynamically allocated based on changing requirements. Recently, LANES was successfully deployed for the 2014 G20 Leaders Summit. However, it would be a mistake to only consider mobile spectrum allocation in terms of the direct needs of emergency workers. In times of emergency, reliable public mobile facilities not only provide a valuable channel for government to inform the community, but also a valuable channel for the community to inform government. Today, emergency services agencies receive better intelligence because they have ready access to firsthand observation from members of the community. Mobile apps are also driving greater community resilience in new and unexpected ways. Public network communication is now core business, not an optional extra. The challenge for contemporary government is to find new ways of engaging with an increasingly sophisticated and digital society. First responders have legitimate requirements for priority infrastructure and these must be addressed. However, consideration must also take account of the community at large, rather than just facilities for the public sector vertical. hnology research and advisory firm. Through its 180 analysts worldwide it offers expert analysis and strategic insight across the IT, telecoms, and media industries.

50 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

NBN LOCKING IN THE NEW NBN The transition to the Abbott government's alternative multi technology mix (MTM) model for the national broadband network (NBN) has moved slowly and steadily since the 2013 election, but the effort took a big step forward in December with the announcement that the government had finalised the complex renegotiation of its Telstra Definitive Agreement (DA). Originally signed by the previous Labor government, the Telstra DA set out the terms by which the NBN would be installed through the pervasive network of ducts carrying its copper access network (CAN). Labor's plan was to secure long-term leases to this infrastructure to allow the passage of fibre-optic cables, but the MTM approach relies on the government owning the CAN so it can be upgraded to support fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology. The new agreements – which still face ACCC scrutiny before they can proceed – amend the original DA to facilitate the MTM's different architecture, ensuring that Telstra hasn't lost any

NBN UPDATE THE END OF 2014 WAS A BUSY PERIOD FOR NBN-RELATED EFFORTS, DOMINATED BY THE CONCLUSION OF THE GOVERNMENT'S RENEGOTIATIONS WITH TELSTRA AND OPTUS. BUT IT WASN'T THE ONLY THING HAPPENING IN THE WORLD OF THE NBN. HERE'S WHAT ELSE HAPPENED IN THE NBN WORLD IN RECENT MONTHS:

value from the deal while giving the government access to the infrastructure without which its broadband vision cannot proceed. In January, the government finalised supporting legislation – the Telecommunications (Migration Plan Principles) Determination 2015 and the Telecommunications (Migration Plan – Specified Matters) Instrument 2015. These two legal instruments will enable Telstra to lodge its revised Migration Plan, outlining the process by which it will disconnect customers from its networks and move them to the NBN over time. Concurrent with the finalisation of the Telstra deal, the government also renegotiated its deal with Optus, whose hybrid-fibre coax (HFC) network was scheduled to be shut down under the previous government's plans but will now be retained and upgraded to deliver services to customers where it is available. Telstra's HFC network will also be suborned, with Telstra permitted to use it for delivering Foxtel but NBN Co assuming responsibility for delivering broadband services across the network.

NBN CO: Released its 2014-17 Corporate Plan, setting out rollout targets and strategies for the coming 3 years • Completed its network of satellite ground stations, to support the two Ka-band satellites that will be launched this year to deliver broadband to around 400,000 rural homes and businesses • Announced that 20,000 homes and businesses in the western Sydney suburbs of Penrith, Blacktown, Homebush, Riverstone, Richmond, Windsor and Lidcombe will be the first in the region to be disconnected from their Telstra services and migrated to exclusively use the NBN • Will also migrate over 700 Northern Territory premises to use the NBN only • Announced the first 43 apartment blocks to be connected to its new fibre-to-the-basement (FttB) services. AKAMAI: Global content network provider flagged Australia's broadband as the 44th best in the world, throwing fresh fuel on the fire of the NBN debate. TPG TELECOM:

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Released a new carrier license condition forcing operators of fast broadband networks to offer wholesale services over those networks • Laid groundwork for reform of telecommunications legislation • Confirmed that telecommunications providers will need to pay a levy to fund the rollout of the NBN in rural areas.

56 | GTR JAN/FEB 2015

Stopped selling its FttB services – long a source of consternation for NBN Co because of its potential role as a competitor – after admitting it could not meet the January 1 deadline imposed by Malcolm Turnbull for it to provide a wholesale product over its network. TECHDRILL: NBN contractor was liquidated citing a lack of work under its contract with NBN Co.

2015

Digital Government Conference QT Canberra | 17 & 18 March 2015 DIGITAL STRATEGIES | ICT LEADERSHIP | TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

The 2nd Annual Digital Government Conference 2015 is an annual must-attend event for IT executives, directors and managers from all three tiers of government and the wider public sector to gain insights from discussions about how technology can drive innovation and transformation in service delivery and generate organisational efficiencies.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE Ewan Perrin, Chief Information Officer, Australian Maritime Safety Authority Al Blake, Chief Information Officer, Department of the Environment Paul Chandley, General Manager, Digital Strategy and Engagement, Department of Justice (Vic) Joana Valente, Oceania IT Advisory Leader, Ernst & Young Dr Tim Turner, Director, Undergraduate Studies, School of Engineering and IT, UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy

Jodie Rugless, Manager, Information Services, City of Charles Sturt and 2014 ICT Professional of the Year Award Winner Warwick Graco, Senior Data Miner and Convenor, Whole of Government Data Analytics Centre of Excellence Dr Jonathan Gray, CEO, Performance Assurance Pty Ltd (A NICTA Spin-Out Company) Ben Dornier, Director of Corporate and Community Services, City of Palmerston Rebecca Fealy, Senior Director, Corporate Analytics Branch, Australian Taxation Office

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