news The Commonwealth Treasury has deployed a virtual desktop platform from Nutanix with the aim of facilitating the delivery of Australia’s economic framework, the Federal Budget.
Nutanix’s technology serves as the platform for the Treasury’s core business applications including the Budget Management System (BMS) and other economic and tax modelling applications.
As the central economic agency within the Australian Federal Government, the Treasury analyses and predicts policy issues across the whole Australian economy.
A statement from Nutanix said: “To ensure it could continue to operate with its high standard of precision and urgency, Treasury implemented Nutanix to give employees uninterrupted access to its key applications anytime, anywhere and on any device.”
Previously, the Treasury ran a number of applications on specific desktops, requiring staff to move between various terminals to complete tasks. Meanwhile, employees could only connect to a very limited number of applications while out of office. This “inhibited productivity and jeopardised deadlines,” the firm said.
The Treasury is using Nutanix’s web-scale technology to support its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) comprising up to 850 endpoints.
“By virtualising its applications, the Treasury provides secure, login-based access to all software on any device in or outside the office, delivered by Nutanix’s ‘invisible’ platform that operates and maintains itself,” Nutanix said.
As one example cited by the company, the Nutanix Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) pushes live IP TV streams to any device, enabling mobile employees to observe parliamentary hearings. With staff then able to “feed data” to ministers in Parliament, questions can be potentially be answered immediately, rather than forcing ministers to follow up at a later date.
“Without our various internal systems, and in particular the BMS [building management system], we can’t produce the Budget,” said Ricardo Alberto, Chief Technology Officer at the Commonwealth Treasury. “With our applications running on Nutanix, our teams have the information they need to inform the Budget and other key policy issues. It doesn’t matter whether they are at their desks or travelling, the tools are always there so the job can be done without delay.”
“While we had the option of extending our existing storage area network (SAN) capacity to run VDI, the Nutanix hyperconverged route proved to provide the flexibility, performance and accessibility we need, without the huge up-front cost and maintenance requirements,” said Alberto.
In addition to helping the Treasury meet its Budget and policy deadlines, Nutanix said its “invisible” platform allows the Treasury’s IT department to focus on other projects, rather than stretch resources on the management of complex SAN architectures.
The Treasury’s Nutanix-based VDI environment was designed and installed by Canberra ICT services provider, Qirx, which won a tender for the project. If and when the Treasury’s application and VDI requirements expand, Qirx, in partnership with Nutanix, will work together to develop the project.
“Calculating and producing Australia’s economic blueprint is a monumental task that relies on accurate, up-to-date data,” said Wayne Neich, Managing Director Australia and New Zealand, Nutanix. “With a web-scale infrastructure supporting its applications, Treasury’s staff can complete analyses, evaluations, reports and assessments uninterrupted.”
budget management system or building management system? :)
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