With more than 125 applications, 150 project staff, 300 stakeholders and 700 change requests, the Data Centre Migration Project has been a significant and complex journey for Defence.

More than 120 applications are now hosted in the new Primary Data Centre Sydney, meaning the Project has all but completed the migration of Defence enterprise systems and applications from Canberra to Sydney.

The move to Sydney is not just a change of address - the new state-of-the-art data centre provides the foundation and capability for future Defence ICT requirements.

Head Infrastructure Architecture and Applications Hosting Branch Daniel McCabe says the Project underpins the whole Defence enterprise, military systems and applications.

"It allows Defence to retire its aging infrastructure and associated risks in Canberra, and provides secure, robust, integrated ICT services for Defence customers now and into the future," Daniel says.

"For our 90,000 users, the impact is only positive, with the new Data Centre delivering a stable and high performing ICT platform that will enable future enhancements, including the implementation of the Next Generation Desktop."

The Project has run smoothly despite myriad technical and business challenges faced and overcome by the Project Team. At the time of printing Defence, the biggest and most complex migration was taking place - the migration of 17 critical enterprise applications including PMKeyS, ROMAN, BORIS, MILIS and CrimTrac.

The Project is scheduled to finish in March 2013, with the decommissioning of the Canberra Primary Data Centre. The completion of the Project will signify the success of the Chief Information Officer Group's (CIOG) first Strategic Reform Program initiative.

Daniel attributes the success of the Project to the staff involved.

"The Project has been well led and professionally run by a dedicated crew working behind the scenes," he says. "Teams from across Defence, within CIOG and industry partners have worked together to deliver one outcome for Defence.

"The Project Team has led strongly, while the Defence Computing Bureau (now part of Application Hosting Services), ably supported the Project, balancing project demands with normal business activities.

"Our industry partner, Accenture, has provided excellent project orchestration and stakeholder engagement. Their rigour and detailed planning provided us with confidence at every step."

Project Director Stewart Sibree recognises his team's efforts.

"The people, the commitment, the effort and the skill sets are all first class," he says. "I have not worked on a project with such gifted people."

He says the Data Centre Migration Project provides a spring board for more consolidations.

"We can now turn our attention to deliver on major ICT projects such as Joint Project 2080 (see page 26), as well as new finance, logistics and war fighter capability systems."