Unisys has successfully migrated over 1.7 billion driver and vehicle records for the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) in the final stage of a business transformation programme.
Designed to increase the agency’s flexibility and reduce the cost of its IT infrastructure, the IT services and software company used their Application Advisory services to define a ‘mission critical modernisation roadmap’ for enhancing the agency’s software platforms.
This included identifying the issues, risks, objectives, guiding principles and expectations of the NZTA as well as assessing the current business and technology capabilities and defining the ideal future state of the business and its supporting technology.
Unisys New Zealand sales manager Kate Giles says that ensuring the agency’s business continuity was a key focus during the migration.
“The central register is a critical element in the agency’s infrastructure as it holds all information about drivers’ licences and motor vehicle registrations in New Zealand," she says.
"We needed to modernise the IT infrastructure while continuing to deliver our ‘business as usual’ services such as accommodating legislative changes in the agency’s systems.
"Recent major legislative changes implemented while the transformation was taking place include new road user charges and the introduction of an alcohol interlock programme.
The NZTA embarked on the migration project four years ago, with both companies sharing a 20 year working relationship, overseeing over one million daily transactions.
“The NZTA is committed to using technology to reduce operational costs while improving how we deliver services to customers,” says Mr Craig Soutar, CIO, NZTA.
“Unisys developed and implemented an innovative modernisation programme that allows us to develop web and mobile-enabled applications and provides more flexibility in the way that we engage with our customers.”
As part of the modernisation programme, Unisys migrated the department’s driver licence and motor vehicle registries to a Windows-based Unisys ES7000 and ES3000 platform running Unisys Agile Business Suite.
The migration effort involved more than 1.7 billion records, almost 350 database tables, 500 reports, 65 APIs and approximately 700 green screens, with the ES7000 and ES3000 servers are hosted in Unisys’ Auckland and Kapiti data centers.
The NZTA estimates that it has saved approximately NZ$80 million through the modernisation effort compared to the cost of replacing the registry systems.
“Modernising our existing systems by migrating them onto a Windows platform has reduced system complexity to aid faster response to legislative changes as well as provided the opportunity to develop new online and mobile channels to engage with customers," Soutar says.
"We achieved our business transformation without the need to completely rip out and replace our systems, and continued to deliver services to our customers in the process.
"It is an approach that other organisations seeking to modernise their IT infrastructure should consider."
