Multi-million dollar server boost for Ministry of Social Development

By PETER GRIFFIN

The Ministry of Social Development has bought two powerful Unisys servers from IT vendor EDS in a multi-million dollar deal that boosts capacity for the Government's benefit assessment and debt recovery systems.

But the long-term status of the systems, which manage thousands of financial transactions and beneficiary records, is still up in the air as the Government weighs up the pros and cons of spending between $87 million and $178 million replacing or upgrading the systems.

While capital funding of $60 million has already been allocated to fund future development of the two systems known as Social Welfare Information for Tomorrow Today (SWIFTT) and debt recovery system Trace, the Government is yet to play its hand, mindful of the large sums of money involved and the ever-vivid memories of the INCIS police computer debacle.

Replacing its out-dated Clearpath NX5800 mainframes, the ministry is switching to Libra 185 servers, also from Unisys.

Hitting the market in the US in July, the Libra servers have massive processing power and can be loaded with up to 64GB (gigabytes) of memory.

But they don't come cheap.

Depending on configuration, each server can carry a price tag of between US$1 million and US$20 million.

The ministry would not say how much it paid for the servers, saying the information is "commercially sensitive". But the price tag is likely to be at the lower end of the spectrum.

The servers will host the complex SWIFTT/Trace system, which manages all beneficiaries records and payments _ from unemployment benefits through to sickness and superannuation benefits and log debts for recovery.

By moving now to upgrade its hardware, the ministry claims it is able to save money by trading in the old mainframes.

"The Ministry has struck an excellent deal with EDS to purchase two Unisys Libra 185 mainframes and by buying now rather than later we have been able to get trade-in discount on our current machines," said Christine Stevenson, the ministry's chief information officer in a press release.

The cost savings are the main reason given by the ministry for shelling out on new hardware now, rather than waiting for the upcoming SWIFTT/Trace overhaul, which the ministry estimates will take between three and six years to complete.

Government IT experts and consultants are currently deciding whether to ditch the systems and transport the records to new programs, or upgrade them. The cost differential is reasonably significant according to a ministry report obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act.

"Replace strategy has lower ongoing operating costs over 10 years compared with the evolve strategy, however replacement has higher initial capital development costs," the report read.

Evolving the current system would cost between $91 million and $146 million over a ten year period, compared to between $87 million and $178 million over ten years for a complete replacement.