News Archive

August 2011 Update

UWA signs major Data Centre partnership agreement with AMCOM

The University of Western Australia's computing power and storage capacity will be boosted through a new partnership with telecommunications and datacentres provider Amcom.

The partnership will provide UWA access to state of the art facilities housing hundreds of computer servers and more than 400 terabytes of storage, delivered across Amcom's secure, reliable dedicated high capacity network between UWA and Amcom's data centres.

Dr Mary Davies, UWA's University Librarian and Director (Information Management), said the new services would put UWA at the forefront of hosted computer power and capacity and allow the University to concentrate on its value-added support for teaching, learning and research.

Once the service is fully implemented the University will be able to move the data and systems that are currently housed in some 40+ server rooms around campus, all of varying standards, to the AMCOM facilities, that will ensure that all of our data is secure and backed up in a high standard centre.  All accessible across dedicated high speed network connections.

One of the first services to be established in the new centre will be student  data storage facilities, so that at the commencement of the 2012 Academic year, all UWA students will all have access to store data in this facility, which they can access at anytime, from anywhere.   This is a major deliverable for the Student Mobility 2012 objective of the Business Investment Programme.

UWA Network Project:

The network project has made good progress installing the core and distribution layers for the new network. Our implementation partner, Alphawest, are busy configuring the new network devices for use and we are on track to meet the "network ready for use" milestone scheduled for the end of September 2011.

Work continues on network migration planning, identifying the activities required to connect each faculty to the new network.  Business School will be the first Faculty to be connected, followed by FNAS.  During the migration phases there will be some network disruptions, which will be published well in advance.  Information Services and Alphawest will be carrying out migration activities after hours and on weekends to minimise the disruption to staff and students.

Student Printing Service

In order to provide a consistent service to students for printing to their closest accessible printer, chargeable to their Campus Card account, we are implementing a print management solution, PaperCut, that will provide a consolidated management service for these printers.  To further enhance this service, and reduce the administrative effort required to maintain student printers, we are about to release a request for services for the management and supply of student print devices, including a full consumables top up service and printer maintenance, charged on a cost per page basis.

More detailed documentation regarding the programme and projects can be found on the Business Improvement Programme Sharepoint site - https://teams.uwa.edu.au/projects/isbip/uwawide/default.aspx

This site is accessible by all UWA staff using your Pheme login details

For further information, contact Alison Trpevski, Associate Director Client Services, Information Services on phone 6488 2119 or email [email protected]