North Wales signs US email outsourcing deal
North Wales Police (NWP) has signed an outsourcing agreement with Unisys to upgrade, manage and maintain its email infrastructure remotely from the US for the next three years.
North Wales Police (NWP) has signed an outsourcing agreement with Unisys to upgrade, manage and maintain its email infrastructure remotely from the US for the next three years.
The email system is a mission-critical service that the 2,500-strong force relies on as one of its primary communication methods across the policing area.
The force prides itself on responsiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, so the need for a reliable and robust email infrastructure was a key part of our choice of an outsourcing partner, said Geoff Bradley, information management director at North Wales Police. Our officers are increasingly using BlackBerry devices to access line-of-business applications and email in the field, so we need to know we can rely on an effective and fully operational system around the clock.
The force currently has 1,600 police officers and 900 support staff and more than 2,500 email accounts will be migrated and managed remotely.
The UK arm of Unisys, the specialist technology services company, will use its US-based application management and support teams to help design and build the service.
In the first stage of the engagement, a new infrastructure will be designed to support a migration from the current Exchange 2003 platform to an Exchange 2007 platform. The new platform will be replicated to a remote platform to deliver a comprehensive disaster recovery capability which will complement existing business continuity and disaster recovery provisions.
Once the migration is complete, Unisys will host a managed email service from its centre of excellence in Reston, Virginia, which supports secure business operations for public and private sector organisations worldwide.
The new managed email service means that the IT department at NWP will no longer be required to perform time-consuming daily tasks such as inbox management and email infrastructure maintenance. This will free up time for the IT department to develop and test new technologies to further improve productivity and efficiency for frontline police officers.
