ANS Win £200K Migration Project

NORTH CUMBRIA NHS AGREES TO ROLL OUT A SINGLE MICROSOFT PLATFORM ACROSS ENTIRE HEALTH COMMUNITY.

ANS, a leading UK information technology solutions provider and winner of the annual Inner City 100 Award, has been awarded a contract by the North Cumbria Health Community, following its decision to consolidate the file, print and email services of the entire NHS region. Migrating all required sites to Microsoft Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 and a HP server and storage infrastructure, the project will assist in the delivery of efficient community wide IT services.

The contract, which is valued at £200,000, was awarded to ANS, who demonstrated a unique understanding of both Novell and Microsoft technology and experience in previous network migration projects. It has been agreed by both parties that the project will incorporate the migration tools from Quest Software Inc. to ensure a smooth and successful transition. ANS will work closely with the Health Informatics Team at North Cumbria to encompass all sites under the new 'xncumbria.nhs.uk' domain.

There are two technologies in use across the North Cumbria NHS Health Community. Novell NetWare, Novell Directory Services (NDS) and GroupWise are currently in place at the Acute and Ambulance Trusts, which employ over 4,000 staff combined. Microsoft Windows, Active Directory (AD) and Exchange is utilised at all the other non-Acute Trusts. Although both are recognised as fully capable technologies, there have been difficulties in operational running and projects spanning the community.

Damon Hoggett, IT Technical Consultant for North Cumbria Informatics Service said:

"The migration project will help to establish an integrated, scalable and resilient network infrastructure across the entire North Cumbria NHS Health Community. This will simplify and support any large-scale projects affecting a number of Trusts within the patch and offer a platform for greater collaboration within the area as a whole.

"The Health Informatics Team has been impressed by the breadth of technical skills ANS can offer in order to complete this transition. The proposal will provide opportunities to rationalise existing technology and offer some considerable cost-savings by utilising current investments. We are confident that the project will progress smoothly and look forward to working with ANS in the future to meet both local and national requirements."

Scott Fletcher, Managing Director at ANS, commented:

"We're delighted to be working together with the North Cumbria NHS. Bringing on board experience from similar projects we're confident that the transition for North Cumbria to using a single platform will be efficient, as well as ensure a far smoother running of their day to day operations and community-wide projects."