Fujitsu Wins Three Year Support Contract with Archives New Zealand

Sydney, September 09, 2005

Wellington, 9 September 2005…Fujitsu New Zealand Limited has signed a three year contract to provide Archives New Zealand with third level support for its servers and network infrastructure. The announcement underpins the launch last week of Archway, Archives New Zealand’s new online system for documenting government records.

The contract, worth almost NZ$1 million over three years, requires Fujitsu to deliver 99 per cent availability for Archives New Zealand’s production systems, including those supporting the Archway application. Fujitsu will monitor around 20 servers spread across offices in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, as well as supporting its clustered Exchange Server environment and demilitarised zone, which encompasses the firewalls, VPN box and mail gateway.

Archives New Zealand’s Chief Information Officer, Ken Spagnolo, said Fujitsu was awarded the contract after a thorough tender process that attracted responses from all the major players.

“The selection of Fujitsu as our support partner comes at the end of our IT Transition project, which aimed to simplify our technology environment and rationalise the number of technologies and vendors supplying the organisation. By creating a more homogenous, streamlined environment, we simplify life for users as well as reducing our support costs,” he said.

“Fujitsu made a very professional submission, demonstrating a high level of knowledge and expertise in our technology platforms and offering a comprehensive support service at a cost effective price. We are very confident in their capabilities and received positive recommendations from existing customers to whom we spoke. While size was not a deciding factor, we also hope to benefit from the fact that Fujitsu is a large international company and will be able to apply its wide knowledge of the IT industry to our advantage.”

Although Fujitsu will not be supporting the new Archives Archway application directly, Mr Spagnolo said its management of the underlying network infrastructure is critical to maintaining a high degree of availability both to internal users and the wider community.

“Apart from our corporate website, Archway is the first major public-facing service we’ve ever had so round the clock up-time is important. We’ve built a lot of functionality into Archway, such as workflow and process management, to facilitate and enhance our internal processes. It’s also a platform on which we plan to build additional functionality over time, to increase the level and breadth of information available to those making enquiries on the system,” Mr Spagnolo concluded.

Fujitsu New Zealand’s new General Manager, Joel O'Halloran, said Fujitsu was delighted to win the Archives New Zealand account.

“This new contract is an important milestone in our strategic campaign to retain and win new business by delivering service excellence through our regional service capabilities which are developed around the ITIL® (ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited) framework. The Archway system is a major step forward for Archives New Zealand both in building its public profile and enhancing the level of services it provides to government and the community. We are proud to take responsibility for ensuring Archway delivers maximum availability and performance both now and into the future,” he said.

Notes to Editors

Archives New Zealand

Archives New Zealand, a New Zealand government department, works as the keeper of the public record to ensure there is an authentic and reliable record of government decisions and activities. It advises government agencies on how to create and maintain records of their activities and interactions. Archives New Zealand also preserves and provides access to records that need to be kept permanently. Archives New Zealand has over 82 linear metres of text records as well as 600,000 maps, plans, film and objects housed in special temperature and humidity controlled environments in its Wellington Head Office and 3 regional offices (Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin).