Asciano travels to the cloud with Fujitsu

Port and rail operator Asciano has initiated a major ICT upgrade, opting to take on a range of cloud services through Fujitsu.

Over the next 18 months, the company will outsource its entire IT infrastructure and applications to Fujitsu. Asciano is taking on the complete suite of enterprise cloud services offered by the service provider, including desktop infrastructure, messaging, collaboration, unified communications, and database services.

Fujitsu will also be providing consulting services as part of a five year contract. The first phase of the rollout will involve implementing virtual desktops and replacing all IT and communications hardware, including phones, and deploying a single email and messaging system across Asciano.

A major database implementation has been planned for early 2013 that will provide a base for Asciano to upgrade applications for its transport and operating management systems.

"The ICT upgrade program will lay the foundation for the next phase of the application development and enhancements, delivering greater functionality and optimisation capabilities, to be leveraged across all of our businesses," Asciano CIO Kelvin McGrath said in a statement.

He came into the role in 2010, and has been spearheading Asciano's ICT strategy since then.

Telstra has been signed on to consolidate Asciano's WAN and LAN services.

Asciano has a total of 7,500 employees. The company's IT staff will still be responsible for delivering ICT services across the business and collaborating with Fujitsu and Telstra.