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Human Services seeks IT services panel

The Australian Department of Human Services is seeking between 25 and 40 companies to join its ICT Services Panel.
Written by Josh Taylor, Contributor

The agency in charge of delivering welfare and health benefits to all Australians is seeking between 25 and 40 IT companies to join its ICT Services Panel to support the ongoing technology transformation in the Department of Human Services.

In a request for tender released before Christmas, the department stated that it is seeking to appoint members to the panel that can develop an understanding of the department's IT environment, have the capacity for the rapid delivery of managed resources, and are willing to undertake small projects and tasks for the department.

In particular, the DHS is seeking companies that can develop and support SAP, Model 204, and Java. In infrastructure, the department would like the companies to have an understanding of IBM zEnterprise z196 mainframes, Unix servers running Oracle Solaris 10 and AIX 7.1, x86-based services virtualised with VMware vSphere hypervisor supporting Windows Server 2008 R2, SLES Linux 9, and Novell Netware operating systems, as well as Microsoft Exchange mail servers.

For desktop, tablet, and notebook support, the companies should have an understanding of Windows 7, iOS, and BlackBerry devices.

The tender documents also reveal that the department has achieved a lot in its 2012-16 technology plan. In the last financial year, the department said it consolidated its email systems onto a single platform for all 36,000 staff.

The department also consolidated its 13 datacentre sites down to the planned three, but the document also reveals that the Department of Human Services is looking to reduce this down to just two by the end of 2014.

Online services also improved, with the number of major incidents declining from 249 in the last six months of 2011-12 to 49 in the last six months of 2012-13.

In the last Budget of the former Labor federal government, the department was allocated AU$102.2 million in funding over five years to replace its legacy Cuba child support system.

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