Te Rūnanganui o Te Āti Awa, a community service provider based in Lower Hutt, has recently revitalised its services through the implementation of new infrastructure from Fortinet. The organization, which offers medical, social, health, and education services, was determined to secure its sensitive data in light of the Waikato DHB ransomware attack. Issues such as inadequate network coverage and the potential for unauthorized access were hindering the delivery of community services and posing a severe threat.
The organization’s medical center was particularly challenged by slow Wi-Fi and limited data protection, causing interruptions in connectivity and the potential for data leaks. As a result, IT Works, Te Rūnanganui o Te Āti Awa’s long-standing service provider, was tasked with finding a solution. IT Works’ managing director, Liam Brady, began his career in tech 20 years ago as an employee of Te Rūnanganui o Te Āti Awa, where he set up the organisation’s original IT infrastructure. After expanding his skills elsewhere, Brady returned to create IT Works with Te Rūnanganui o Te Āti Awa as its founding client.
The challenge for IT Works was to consolidate and secure the data while ensuring it remained usable and accessible to the business. Te Rūnanganui o Te Āti Awa also needed to be more agile in responding to changing government policies and priorities and in applying for funding for service delivery. Costs were a concern, so IT Works’ first task was to develop a plan. After several iterations and with a focus on return on investment, Fortinet was chosen as the platform for the entire solution.
Once approved, IT Works worked directly with Fortinet and Ingram Micro to have the equipment and a preconfigured solution ready for rollout within four weeks. The implementation took place after hours with minimal disruption. “A lot of people didn’t even know there was a change,” Liam told Reseller News. “They just saw noticeably faster IT speeds across their complex.”
Te Rūnanganui o Te Āti Awa’s director of health, Dinah Rea, praised IT Works’ personalized support and open approach. “They know our people by their first name and will continue to be part of our iwi and runanga,” she said. Security was achieved by applying firewall and edge security across the new Fortinet platform, including remote sites and workers. FortiGate, FortiSwitch, and FortiWiFi were all part of the solution. The technical and platform changes were supported by ongoing cybersecurity awareness training for staff by IT Works.
Brady said the biggest challenge of the project was getting it approved. “To be honest, they trusted us and let us go about doing what needed to be done,” he said. The next frontier for the forward-looking runanga, according to Liam, is likely to be the application of artificial intelligence.
Note: This article was produced by Microsoft CoPilot with input being the original article from Reseller News. If you want to know more about how AI can help your organisation, please get in touch.
