Campbelltown City Council

Client

Campbelltown City Council is a local government entity located in south-western Sydney, NSW. More than 170,000 people across 36 suburbs now call the city of Campbelltown home, making it one of the 10 largest local government areas in NSW.

The council plans on taking full advantage of Campbelltown’s geographical location and embraces their history, while celebrating the opportunities that modernisation offers. They are investing in their future by placing great emphasis on technology and innovation to ensure the city is ahead of the game, while providing the community access to opportunities and ensuring that they celebrate their people and the city.

Opportunity

Campbelltown City Council required architecture and engineering services to rebuild the existing Wide Area Network, and the updating and modernising of their security infrastructure. There was also a need to cater for remote working capability for a modern, geographically decentralised workforce.

The council also wanted to improve their wireless infrastructure throughout their community sites to enable secure, reliable and high-speed connectivity for an increasingly mobile workforce. This included areas such as the libraries and leisure centres so that the community members could also have access to this connectivity.

Solution

We provided a complete transformation of the existing Wide Area Network, leveraging off the council’s preferred fibre network provider. This remediated challenges with the old network, which was slow, unreliable and disruptive to business productivity. Cisco Next Generation switching/routing technologies ensured smart architecture, high-speed and redundant connectivity throughout the network.

Cisco Next-Generation technologies, such as Firepower Threat Defence (FTD) Firewalls, Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA) and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) provided the backbone for modernisation and the upliftment of the security infrastructure for Campbelltown City Council. The agility of this environment was proven through the rapid provisioning of hundreds of remote connectivity profiles for the workforce during the early onset of the COVID-19 crisis. This was instrumental in maintaining business continuity during the global pandemic, while providing the workforce with seamless and secure connectivity to the work network.

“It was reassuring to know that our technology assets were well protected, and we have extremely capable engineering support through Outcomex during these times,” states Ari Aich, Head of Technology, at Campbelltown City Council.

Technologies used

• Cisco Next Generation Firewalls FTD/FMC
• Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
• Cisco Web Security Appliance WSA Proxy/SMA
• Cisco Meraki MR46 Access Points

Impact

Campbelltown City Council has realised productivity gains through a disruption free, high-speed WAN since mid-2020. The ICT team has been able to focus on accelerating project delivery and value-added services rather than providing ongoing break-fix support for networking issues.

A modern, intelligent and resilient security posture has resulted in NIL security breaches, even with staff accessing the work network remotely. The flexibility of this ICT environment has allowed Council to adopt multiple flexible work practices previously not available to its staff.

Next steps

In 2021, Campbelltown City Council plans on expanding and standardising their overall wireless solution. Through the implementation and deployment of the Cisco Meraki wireless platform, staff, guests and members of the community will enjoy an improved wireless experience free from poor coverage/speeds and drop-outs.

The Cisco Meraki MR46 platform offers Wi-Fi 6 performance, can support more devices connected to the network at faster speeds. It also provides improved return on investment by negating the need for expensive wireless controllers, providing business intelligence insights through its onboard analytics and simplified management of the wireless infrastructure. It also futureproofs integration of Internet of Things (IoT), while adding an additional security layer within the wireless network.

Campbelltown City Council is also planning the review of their existing IPTel platform, which is managed by Outcomex. The objectives of this review are to simplify, modernise and increase collaboration capabilities for the organisation.