The Australian Federal Government’s central economic agency, the Commonwealth Treasury, is using an Avaya software-defined network architecture, SDN Fx, to enable the reliable, day-to-day operation of its department and the production of critical government policy, including the Federal Budget.
With responsibility for informing Australia’s macro- and micro-economic future, the Treasury required a means of improving the delivery of services and applications to its ministerial and administrative employees, and running day-to-day systems. Following a comprehensive evaluation of networking technology based on government eligibility criteria, Treasury commenced a staged progression to implement the Avaya SDN Fx architecture to replace its legacy network infrastructure.
Avaya SDN Fx, which is based on Fabric Connect networking technology, introduces a dynamic environment without the complex protocols of traditional architectures, bringing the Treasury significant productivity benefits and operational resilience in the network. Avaya Fabric Connect utilises a single, industry-standard protocol, Shortest Path Bridging (SPB), to provide the simplicity, speed and resiliency required for modern network architectures and the applications that run on them. Avaya SDN Fx enables a single end-to-end service that accelerates network configuration and deployment, and helps provide a seamless transition from legacy environments.
The network also provides reliable access to key applications, such as the Treasury’s Budget Management System (BMS) and other economic and tax modelling software, which are critical to its ability to deliver the Budget on time. It also underpins systems such as security services, archiving, VoIP and CCTV/IPTV. The simple architecture of Avaya SDN Fx allows the Treasury to drive these services internally rather than contracting various parties to maintain separate systems across multiple networks.
The initial stages of the implementation have seen the introduction of stable, network-wide IP television (IPTV) to livestream Parliamentary sittings directly to all staff. With multiple agency employees responsible for closely monitoring proceedings, access via the Avaya network accelerates the speed at which Ministers and employees can relay information into the sittings. Prior to the new network, the Treasury experienced a number of outages as its multi-vendor environment struggled to manage hundreds of streams due to the amount of data flowing through the network.
Since the beginning of the Avaya SDN Fx implementation, the Treasury has reduced operational costs and expects return on investment to continue as its small network engineering team is able to roll out new projects and applications quicker. Similarly, the Treasury has increased the productivity of its staff by enabling a mobile workforce that is able to access critical applications without interruption regardless of location.
“As we upgrade to Avaya SDN Fx architecture, we can take on more services, and provide the speed and reliability enabling greater efficiency for our staff in fulfilling their roles. The teams work on strict deadlines, so it’s extremely important they can access data and all the resources they need to inform their reports. With these capabilities, we can ensure that critical documents, such as the Budget, are delivered on time,” said Ricardo Alberto, Chief Technology Officer, the Commonwealth Treasury.