Cara and Microsoft upgrade Cork County Council

Microsoft Ireland and The Cara Group have announced that they have won a major information technology solutions project with Cork County Council, the largest county council in the country.

The project involves the consolidation of up to 60 servers on to a single server operating system, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, to enhance the productivity and efficiency of the IT infrastructure in the Council for more than 1,200 PC users throughout the organisation.

The main objectives of the project, carried out in partnership with technology consultancy Cara, are to improve productivity of Cork County Council and its constituent departments, and to lower the total cost of ownership of its technology infrastructure.

Cork County Council is also upgrading its desktop operating system to Microsoft Windows XP, to improve the council's desktop infrastructure, in terms of security, network capability and advanced recovery options.

James Fogarty, information technology director, said: "As the country's largest council, we are focused on constantly improving the services that we provide to the people of county Cork, and improving the effectiveness of our technology systems is a key part of that strategy".

The key benefits for Cork County Council of the solutions deployed by Microsoft and Cara range from the regular updates on security and user migration, to the speed and enhanced productivity of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, according to Mr Fogarty.

The new technology also provides for improved remote management of the IT infrastructure.