For more information please contact our Australian Distributor - ACA PacificCall: 1300 761 199 Email: sales@acapacific.com.au Web: www.acapacific.com.au

© 2011. ACA Pacific Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. All product and brand names are the property of their respective owners. *Selected Models only. RTB Warranty stated is for i2000 Series.

ACA

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12

COVER STORY BIG DATAIT’s current big buzzword is Big Data, a catchall term

applied to the analysis of data to fi nd non-obvious insights. We explore the concept and ask if Big Data is more than

just this year’s jargon for old ideas like business intelligence.

THE NEW GOVTECHREVIEW.COM.AUGTR has relaunched our website, which now features daily news and opinion. Check out a preview of the new site here.

THE STATE OF THE CLOUDThree experts debate the state of the cloud, covering issues about its readiness for government usage and how to assess the risks of making a cloud commitment.

INTRODUCTION4 Editor’s letter

8 Ovum commentary

FEATURES20 Airservices Australia fl ies through data

Airservices Australia has built a data warehouse to link 85 different sources of information into a new decision-making system that might just help your next fl ight land on time.

24 What went wrong in Victoria?

Victoria’s Ombundsman delivered a damming verdict on the State’s ability to execute IT projects. We look at what went wrong, why projects crashed and how you can avoid similar failures.

28 Social media success

Victoria’s Better Health Channel, The City of Sydney and the Victorian Department of Justice explain how they have made a success of social media.

40 Inside Out

Editor Simon Sharwood recalls a decade-old conversation in which he heard a proposal for a technology-led solution for a problem that has recently made news all over again.

SPECIAL FEATURES

2 32

The new GTR website

NEWS AND ANALYSIS

When big events or policy changes happen, we’ll talk to the people that matter to analyse the news so that you can understand it better. In this case, we investigated the announcement that federal government agencies will be limited to three IT supplier panels. We spoke to industry groups, vendors, the IT Supplier Advocate and AGIMO and came away with the story that this new initiative has no savings target!

PROJECT PROFILES

As big projects evolve, GTR will check in with key personnel to learn about their progress. You’ll be able to see the expression of policy through technology unfold in front of you!

WORLD NEWS

When governments around the world innovate or make big policy decisions, GTR will bring you timely news of their efforts. In this case we learned about a fascinating social media stoush between a public transport authority and its workers that resulted in an online rat-spotting competition.

APPOINTMENTS AND INDUSTRY NEWS

If we hear the sound of a desk being cleaned out or learn of a vendor changing the way it addresses the public sector, we’ll be there to bring you the update.

OPINION

The new GTR website will feature daily doses of authoritative commentary about technology and its role in the public sector. You’ll read ideas and analysis from your peers in the public sector, plus opinion from analysts and vendors.

GTR’s website will relaunch soon, complete with daily updates! We talk you through the site’s new features.

CASE STUDIES

GTR’s lengthy profi les of important and innovative private sector IT projects will regularly appear on our site. The case study links appear on every page so insights into the experiences of your peers is never far away.

SOCIAL MEDIA

All GTR stories will be posted to our Twitter feed (@GovTechreview) and to our Facebook page (Search for “Government Technology Review”). There’s also an RSS feed for those of you who like to consume news that way.

GTR TV

We’ll bring you the best presentations from GTR’s events, plus outstanding examples of government video online. We’ve already posted the Victorian Department of Justice’s internationally-acclaimed social media policy for your viewing pleasure.

E-NEWSLETTER

We’d love you to visit the new site every day, but fi gure you may be a little busy. So why not sign up for our e-newsletter? We’ll send a weekly digest of our best stories to keep you up to date.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Why not subscribe to GTR magazine? You’ll fi nd our subscription form here.

4 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012

EDITOR

Simon Sharwood

E: editor@govtechreview.com.au

Tel: 02 8923 8017

NATIONAL SALES MANAGER

Peter Ratcliff

E: peter.ratcliff@govtechreview.com.au

Tel: 02 8923 8016

NATIONAL SALES & MARKETING

MANAGER – CONFERENCE & EVENTS

Chris Rodrigues

E: chris.rodrigues@govtechreview.com.au

Tel: 02 8923 8002

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Russell Montgomery

E: russell.montgomery@commstrat.com.au

Tel: 02 8923 8025

DESIGN & PRODUCTION

Annette Epifanidis, Tim Hartridge, Monica Lawrie, Odette Boulton

NEW ZEALAND REPRESENTATIVE

Debbie Bishop

General Manager, Hawkhurst Media Services Limited

E: debbie@hawkhurst.co.nz

Tel: +64 9 589 1054

DDI: +64 9 571 9494

Mobile: +64 021 340 360

CONTRIBUTORS

Andrea O’Driscoll, Rex Pannell

SYDNEY OFFICE

Level 12, 99 Walker St. North Sydney NSW 2060

Phone: 02 8923 8000 Fax: 02 8923 8050

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 CommStratABN 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 arrange delivery of Government Technology Review email: subs@govtechreview.com.au

W hen we launched GTR back in 2010, we felt there

was a niche in the market for a magazine that shared

experiences about technology powering government

services. Th at belief remains steadfast today, because

almost every government service we encounter – either as citizens or when

compiling the magazine – relies on technology.

We feel we’ve done alright in our eff orts to meet the brief we created for

ourselves, but we also felt that as a bi-monthly magazine we did a poor job

of delivering news.

Th at’s why we’ve redesigned and relaunched our website –

www.govtechreview.com.au – and started a daily news service.

Th ere are lots of sources of IT news out there and we don’t think we

can always match them in terms of breaking stories. But we know we can

bring you a more focussed news service, in which news from and about

government are concentrated and aggregated on a single site.

Some of that news will come from around the world, because we see so

many interesting initiatives around the world that it makes sense to bring

them to you as part of our aggregation service.

We’re also going to bring you plenty of opinion. We’re lining up a

formidable team of writers from the highest echelons of vendor-land,

research institutions and your peers from all three tiers of government (If

you’d like to share your voice let us know at editor@govtechreview.com.au).

Please let me know what you think of the new site. And if you’re feeling

bold, don’t hesitate to send us inside gossip!

Simon Sharwood, Editor

E: simon.sharwood@commstrat.com.au

When a major automobile club wanted to find better ways to connect with their members...We helped shift their business into a higher gear.

NEC. The communications systems integrator.

legacy ICT environment to integrate with a new generation of

We offered them a Unified Communications solution that allowed their

communications technologies – like smartphones, social media,

instant messaging and more – giving their members more and simpler

ways to interact with them. It’s just another instance where

we’ve used next-generation technology to connect businesses

to a new generation of customers.

For more information visit NEC.com.au/UC

6 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/20126 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011

The Department of Human Services (DHS)

is closing in on major milestones in the

project to integrate systems from its

component agencies.

DHS comprises Centrelink, Medicare, the

Child Support Agency and the Commonwealth

Rehabilitation Service, all previously

independent agencies but now operating as

a single Department. One of the reasons for

forming the new entity was to realise savings

in IT, which meant not renewing outsourcing

deals in operation at some of DHS’ component

agencies. As the outsourcing deals expire

DHS is taking responsibility for more and more

systems, but along the way came to realise that

it did not possess the tools or understanding to

create the necessary compliance reports.

“We are picking up unfamiliar workloads,”

says Nigel Cox, DHS’ Operations Director,

Security IT Services. “There is no knowledge

of the outsourced systems and how they are

monitored. The knowledge is there but it is in

the private sector and it is knowledge about

compliance with contracts, not knowledge

about security compliance.” That important

but subtle shift in point of view about what

constitutes compliance means DHS has to

ensure its team can understand potentially-

relevant minutiae that could represent

compliance concerns in its newly-enlarged fl eet

of systems.

“The main outcome we want is to produce

a set of reports so that when the Australian

National Audit Offi ce (ANAO) calls, we can

show them we control the environment,” Cox

says. “I can do that now for the Centrelink

environment but I don’t want to give ANAO a

blank stare when they ask about Medicare.

We need the same reporting rigour for

unfamiliar workloads.”

Centrelink’s strong compliance culture

has come about because of the longevity of

some staff.

“We have lots of people with grey hair who

know our systems and have good knowledge

of our applications,” Cox says. But the ranks

of those veterans are thinning and new hires

have little mainframe experience. Staff across

DHS unfamiliar with its systems also lack the

perspective to understand whether certain

events represent compliance incidents.

“The problem we have is that people see

the logs and think everything is bad,” Cox says,

as an event that looks anomalous or a threat to

security to the untrained eye can be a normal-

if-quirky part of doing business.“Some of our

team are fairly young. They know Windows

and UNIX but not what is right and wrong in

the mainframe world, so we want a framework

so that someone who understands modern

operating systems can apply the same level of

understanding to the mainframes.”

DHS has therefore acquired CA

Technologies’s Compliance Manager software

to help automate compliance testing and

reduce the chance of false positives being

‘detected’ by inexperienced staff.

“Using a modern compliance reporting

suite you can start to teach it patterns,” Cox

explains. “The things we look out for are

changes to confi guration and environments.

Then we can see whether a change has been

through a testing process, whether it is an

authorised change and if security controls are

being changed.”

“In the appropriate context that change

could be okay, but we want to fi nd those

patterns, eliminate the false positives and

automate the process.”

That effort is progressing well, with the

new software implemented across most

old Centrelink systems. By the end of 2012

the software will also cover Medicare’s

infrastructure.

The project has even won an award –

CA Technologies decreed DHS’ compliance

work represented the project displaying the

most visionary use of its mainframe products

for 2011.

“The award was about the business case

we put up to buy the product, which had a lot

of alignment with other business objectives

and security management infrastructure,”

Cox says. “It’s all tied to having a road map

that we can link these things to so we can

justify the investment.”

Human services readies compliance suiteStory by Simon Sharwood

“I DON’T WANT TO GIVE ANAO A BLANK STARE WHEN THEY ASK ABOUT MEDICARE.”

GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012 | 7

Would you like to network with Multinationals and Government?Would you like to gain the skills necessary to succeed in the ICT industry?

If you answered YES to any of these questions then CollabIT is the program that will help you to grow your business.

CollabIT is an engagement and business development initiative that links small and medium sized ACT-based companies with multinational corporations and other stakeholders in the ICT sector.

CollabIT is a joint initiative of the ACT Government and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).

Are you an ICT SME looking to win bigger deals?

To register your interest in becoming a member of the CollabIT Program contact Nicole Campbell, n.campbel@aiia.com.au. Mention this advert when speaking with Nicole and you will be invited to attend one of the 2012 Canberra Managers’ Forum events as a guest of CollabIT.

www.aiia.com.au/group/collabit_act

Fifty full buses of IT professionals required by June 2012 to fulfi l employers’ demands

SPONSORED CONTENT

AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYERS will fi nd it increasingly

diffi cult to fi nd skilled IT professionals to meet their

growing demands in the coming months.

According to the latest Candle Skills Index,

utilising a forecasting model developed by our

research partner KPMG Econtech, there will be a

shortage of 1,200 IT professionals by June 2012. In

other words, Australia will need 50 fully loaded buses

fi lled with IT talent to meet employers’ demands.

Whilst permanent hiring has gone off the

boil in the last quarter of 2011, IT contracting is

performing quite well, this trend is likely to continue

in at least the fi rst three months of 2012 said Linda

Trevor, Executive General Manager at Candle.

However, as the economy should fi rm in coming

months and uncertainty about the global economy

abates, contractors will become too expensive and

there should be a push towards hiring permanent staff.

Ms Trevor said continued demand from

major private and public projects would

increase competition in the marketplace for

prospective employers and force many to move

from contractors to permanent as wage salary

demands increase.

“We are very close to the optimum supply of

Computing Professionals and competition is going

to increase wage demands. Employers will need to

manage the changing job climate and plan ahead,”

Australian employers adopting a ‘wait-and-see’

approach to recruitment could be doing themselves

more harm than good with skilled IT professionals

being lured offshore by immediate and lucrative job

opportunities, primarily the Asia-Pacifi c.

This could be further exacerbated by the

changes to LAFHA (Living Away From Home

Allowance) coming into effect July 1, effectively

reducing the take home pay of some IT

professionals, making places like Singapore and

Hong Kong increasingly attractive due to its low

tax rates.

Having refi ned our sourcing strategy for over

27 years, Candle has the ability and expertise to

uncover talent to meet your growing demands.

Contact us today at www.candle.com.au

8 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012

Consumerisation of IT is one

of those subjects that creates

passionate discussion any time it

is raised.

The case for consumerisation is a strong

one. Australians already carry formidable

computing capacity in their mobile phones.

Cloud computing is already offering commodity

services, sometimes directly to business

managers. Why then can’t IT be considered

as just another commodity service, just like

electricity, water and building services?

There is also a strong opposing point of

view. Today’s IT budgets are significant, and

consumerisation just adds more complexity to

already complex systems. No other part of the

business would allow large amounts of money

to be spent by just “letting a thousand flowers

bloom”. Indeed a number of recent government

audit reports have looked into high profile IT

project failures, and have recommended greater

senior executive attention and more stringent IT

governance. The bottom line is that IT services

are not easy to deliver. If it were easy then we

would not have so many project failures.

Much of today’s discussion has its roots in

a landmark Harvard Business Review article

written in May 2003 by Nicolas Carr, called

“IT Doesn’t Matter”. The article caused quite

a storm, with claims and counter claims from

industry heavyweights. In his article, and

later book, Carr argued that IT had become

a ubiquitous utility. Eventually, this ubiquity

would itself limit the capacity of IT to continue

to deliver any real competitive advantage for

their organisation. Carr noted IT had already

become an “infrastructural technology” and part

of the DNA of every organisation. IT had run

out of its transformative ability and had become

an expensive commodity.

Carr noted there was still potential for

unique IT developments from time to time.

These, he called “proprietary technologies”.

However, he argued these will quickly morph

to become legacy systems, or commodity based

“infrastructural technology”. This is due to the

rapid and widespread adoption of technology and

the trend toward standardisation.

Innovation beats commodificationWhile Carr’s arguments are persuasive, it is

important to note his predictions happened almost

nine years ago, and so far the value of his ideas has

been patchy at best. Indeed since 2003, a number

of IT companies have become highly successful by

ignoring much of Carr’s advice. These companies

bet their future on taking a more innovative IT path

to business success.

Such companies include:

on to deliver iconic technology innovation;

public companies in 2004 and went on to be

highly successful in the emerging cloud market;

2005 and has grown to be a household name.

The flaw in Carr’s argument was that he

treated IT as a single homogenous activity and

underestimated the amount of change still to come.

He failed to see that IT enabled innovation

would continue, not only within IT but also within

the business and wider community. This has created

an ecosystem of IT-enabled change that leaders

cannot ignore. For example, a number of Australian

companies and government agencies are now

leveraging the widespread uptake of smartphones in

the broader community and creating new services

using mobile apps and collaboration tools.

production as a way of rethinking government

service delivery. Using this approach, some parts

of a government service might be sourced from the

not-for-profit sector or from wider community

leveraging their technical capabilities.

The challenge for modern leaders is to

manage this balancing act between innovation

and consolidation.

An alternative to Carr’s model might be

to think of IT, not as a single homogenous

commodity, but as a statistical normal

distribution. Innovative services are at one end

of the curve, while outdated systems are at the

other. In the middle, and on either side of centre,

are contemporary/emerging technologies, and

legacy/commodity systems. The big challenge is

to deliver a balanced strategy, acknowledging the

realities of a multifaceted environment, namely:

innovation,

technologies;

commodity technologies;

by internal pressures to cut costs, or have big

workforces trained in a particular technology.

These frequently conspire to position IT as the

blocker to a technically-enabled workforce. The

unfortunate consequence is to just reinforce

Carr’s commodity predictions about IT.

By

“No other part of the business would allow large amounts of money to be spent by just ‘letting a thousand flowers bloom”.

WILL CONSUMERISATIONmake IT irrelevant?

10 | GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012

PANEL CHANGES WIN CAUTIOUS RECEPTION

Story by SIMON SHARWOOD

GTR HAS LEARNED THAT THE DECISION TO LIMIT EACH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

AGENCY TO THREE IT SUPPLIER PANELS HAS NO SAVINGS TARGET.

Special Minister of State Gary Gray’s

December 2011 decision to limit

each federal government agency to

three IT supplier panels has won

cautious support from industry groups and

Australian IT concerns.

Developed after extensive consultation,

the new arrangements “will halve the number

of IT services panels currently operating across

the Australian Government” and “reduce the

administrative overheads incurred by agencies

in establishing their own panels” according

to a statement from Gray. Th e policy includes

a “piggybacking” provision that means a

supplier that wins a place on any panel will be

authorised to sell to all government agencies, an

arrangement Gray said should excite industry

as it will reduce the amount of time and eff ort it

puts into winning places on multiple panels.

Gray’s statement about the change was

brief. AGIMO added some information

in a blog post (http://agimo.govspace.gov.

au/2011/12/12/portfolio-panels-for-it-

services-policy) by First Assistant Secretary

John Sheridan.

That post left many questions unanswered,

including how much the federal government

hopes to save. The answer, provided to GTR

by the Department of Finance’s

communications team and attributed to

Sheridan, is that the initiative has no savings

target. “The key objective of this policy is to

optimise the number of IT Services panels f

or Government,” Sheridan’s email to GTR

said. “Savings are an expected outcome for

both government and industry but have not

been quantified.”

Sheridan also explained that AGIMO

expects agencies will work together to ensure

they create panels that meet their business needs

without creating catch-all panels that mean one

agency need never rely on another’s panel. “[Th e

Department of ] Finance will develop a matrix of

IT Services panels to help agencies locate the ideal

panel for their needs,” Sheridan explained.

Th e Department will also develop what

Sheridan called “an ICT multi-use-list (MUL)”

which will “provide a responsive procurement

tool that can supplement the IT Services panels

by including emerging technologies and emerging

vendors in short time frames.” Th at workaround is

expected to help smaller and emerging IT vendors

to work with government, and Sheridan said the

new policy should mean “SMEs will benefi t from

the new policy as it will reduce the number of

panels for which they will have to tender while

increasing their access to government business.”

ReactionReaction to the change was diverse. “We

have not heard any issues from members on

this, but time of year may be an issue,” said

Australian Information Industry Association

(AIIA) Chief Executive Officer Suzanne

Campbell, who GTR contacted in late 2011.

Overall, Campbell declared herself

satisfied with the new arrangement.

“The AIIA participated in all the

lengthy consultations leading up to this

announcement, and the ability for SMEs to

access the government market was one of our

key concerns,” she said. “From an efficiency

perspective, I’d have to say that reducing the

number from the current 120 to maximum of

three per portfolio has some appeal and AIIA

News

“Implementation of the new regime will possibly be the only way of telling whether three panels per portfolio agency is a help or a hindrance.” Suzanne Campbell, AIIA CEO,

GTR DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/2012 | 11

originally agreed there were too many panels

but warned that implementation will be key.”

“Implementation of the new regime will

possibly be the only way of telling whether

three panels per portfolio agency is a help or a

hindrance; in the meantime current panels run

their course. “Finally, we are pleased there are

no fees to join the panels, we fought against in

preliminary drafts.”

IT Supplier Advocate Don Easter was also

consulted on the new arrangements and told

GTR the commonality of contract terms and

conditions across agencies will be of benefi t to

small Australian IT companies. Easter, who

was consulted during development of the new

policy, also said he has forcefully put the case that

tenders issued under the new arrangements must

continue to off er smaller vendors the chance to

pitch for niche work rather than being required

to pitch for an entire tender.

Cameron Brookes, Managing Director

of mid-sized IT services provider Kiandra IT,

welcomed the new panel policy.

“The government’s decision to reduce the

number of IT services panels appears to be a

good move and one we’re supportive of,” he told

GTR. “As a long term provider of solutions to

the Victorian Government we have found being

a member of one panel - Whole of Victorian

Government eServices Panel – very beneficial

for us. This is also the case in WA where we

sit on the Western Australian Government’s

Information and Communications Technology

Common Use Agreement 14008.”

“As we expand our presence in the Federal

arena, the compliance costs associated with

applying to sit on multiple panels is prohibitive.

The concept of panel consolidation from our

perspective has all the appearances of a good

thing, as it expands our company’s visibility to

opportunities, and reduces the effort and cost

involved to maintain this visibility.”

But Andrew Mitchell of IT consultancy

Transpire had some concerns about the new

arrangements. “I think from a macro level it

makes the appointment to any one of those

panels more important to an individual

supplier because it reduces the scope of

those panels,” he said. “That makes it far

more critical to get onto any panel. From the

perspective of having all your eggs in fewer

baskets it is a worse thing.”

“I think it also reduces the likelihood of a new

panel coming up for tender. Th at makes each bid

for a panel more important.”

Mitchell did welcome the fact that he now has

fewer panels to pitch for, which means less work.

“From a supplier’s perspective it will reduce the

overall eff ort and workload,” he said.

But he also feels agencies could circumvent

the new rules with very broad panels. “Th ere was a

government panel for ICT services that went out

and there were 19 discrete types of services listed,”

he said. “I think that shows it is diffi cult to cover the

ground.” Th e result, he fears, could be less rigorous

vetting by agencies of vendors on their panels.

Mitchell also fears that the “piggybacking”

provisions may not often be applied.

“I haven’t had a piggybacking experience but I

hear it does happen when people cannot bring in a

skill set from an existing panel.”

“My experience is that organisations usually

favour vendors from their own panels. Th ere is a big

air gap between using your own suppliers and using

someone else’s.”

“There was a government panel for ICT services that went out and there were 19 discrete types of services listed.”Andrew Mitchell, Transpire