Online Productivity Productivity takes the gold

BY TIM WILSON

Dundee Precious Metals Inc. (DPM) is a Canadian based, international mining company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and mining of precious metal properties. The company is delivering value with a strong commitment to Microsoft technology, including online services.

“I come from a chip manufacturing background, and from that perspective it is unusual for a mining company to invest heavily in information technology, but I understand the value of investments in IT automation,” says DPM’s Global Corporate Manager of IT, Mark Gelsomini. “We have changed the company from low IT utilization to being heavy on SharePoint, Exchange, Office Communication Server, and Office.”

Gelsomini has embarked on a three phase process to get DPM to the point where it can leverage cloud-based services. It is entering phase two after putting in place a solid infrastructure. The company has fully deployed Office 2007 (with a 15 person pilot of Office 2010 in place), SharePoint 2007, and Exchange 2010. Most recently DPM has begun deployment of Office Communications Server (OCSR2), and is rolling out Windows 7 to all of its users.

“They started at ground zero,” says Hafiz Gafoor, who manages the DPM account for partner Acrodex. “They needed new routers, data centres for storage and back-up. Now they have one centralized domain, down from four, and can manage compliance and patches with Microsoft System Center. From here they have been able to leverage the full capabilities of SharePoint and have recently introduced messaging with OCSR2.”

The online advantage
Microsoft has a set of hosted messaging and collaboration solutions. These online services are designed to deliver streamlined communication with high availability, comprehensive security, and simplified IT management.

“If you’re building web-based applications or collaboration for communication and information sharing, you’d be crazy not to look at these options,” says Jon Olstik, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.

Olstik says that a big part of the value is that operations benefit from always up-to-date technologies that are deployed rapidly, maximizing IT resources and reducing the need for infrastructure investments.

“Especially if, like DPM, you have a widely distributed workforce – then there is an opportunity to take advantage of these options,” says Olstik. “They are available today, whereas a few years ago they were just concepts.”

DPM has mining operations in Bulgaria and Armenia, and most recently communicated its intention to purchase a smelter in Namibia. The metal concentrate produced by the company is sold to smelters in Africa and Europe. In addition, DPM holds exploration concessions and licenses in some of the larger gold-copper-silver mining regions in Serbia. This means that the company needs to access, accrue, and secure data from difficult-to-reach corners of the world for use by its head office in Toronto.

“We need access to everything from the web, wherever we are,” says Gelsomini. “As we move to the cloud, the cost of laptops and workstations will diminish. We need the ability to access information and reports anywhere, whether from a PDA or a desktop.”

DPM’s head office in Toronto has 23 employees. Globally, the company has over 2100 employees consisting of mining engineers, metallurgists, geologists, technicians, and finance experts. Of these, about 800 are computer users.

“Now that the multiple domains have consolidated, everything is streamlined so that any office anywhere in the world has access to the central infrastructure,” says Gelsomini. “All the work can go online, which supports the dispersed nature of the business.”

DPM’s new infrastructure overhaul was completed in six months, and the company now has a self-service model for users wherein they can select what applications they need and install them themselves from a secure portal, with SharePoint 2007 functioning as the core service delivery framework.

“Phase two addresses the application layer,” says Gafoor from Acrodex. “SharePoint can support a help desk ticket system, including language-based support for the various regions.”

As well, application capabilities for HR and Finance, rather than being replicated throughout the regions, are being streamlined through SharePoint.

“They are also wrapping up the OCSR2 2007 build, which will include the ability to federate with presence and have unified messaging across the board,” adds Gafoor.

And later this year the application layer is expected to be ported to SharePoint 2010, including leveraging Business Intelligence off of SharePoint through tighter integration with the company’s data warehousing and architecture.

The right choice for the web
“If you already have Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), Exchange, and a .NET framework, then Microsoft is a good bet to move to cloud-based services,” says Olstik. In order to web-enable any organization it must be IT centric, without pockets of servers or silos. By significantly streamlining processes and application layers, DPM now has a topology and architecture that fully supports web access.

“Our e-mails begin with a transport layer here in Toronto, and then are disseminated across the organization,” says Gelsomini. “For this you need five nines – that’ 99.999% – across the board. We are going to cloud computing next, but before we go there we need to integrate SharePoint with Business Intelligence.” And with a web-based philosophy supported by online services the entire enterprise is enabled, as opposed to only having the capacity to roll out functionality to select users: “SharePoint is for all users,” says Gelsomini. “And OCS is for all users, too.”

The company plans to move to Windows Mobile and push technology, though the mobile strategy will depend on the use case and needs of specific employees. That said, OCS will be able to offer another layer of connectivity and support mobile access from around the world.

“Given that DPM has a Microsoft infrastructure, as long as it has connectivity it is all web-based and the device doesn’t matter,” says Olstik.

DPM is also taking wireless connectivity into its mines, for both voice and video communication. The overall use of video conferencing is, of course, bandwidth intensive, but DPM is committed to this as well, and is leveraging WAN accelerators to improve application performance over the entire network.

Counting change
One of the biggest challenges for DPM has been their geographic reach and mining focus. They have faced a daunting task of geographical and cultural transformation, with the IT investments having to prove themselves based on solid measurements around efficiency, effectiveness, and risk mitigation.

“Dealing with the decentralization was a hurdle,” says Gelsomini. “We had to understand it, and leverage the automation that Microsoft could bring to bear. It has lent itself to a very easy transition.”

Having access to powerful and easy-to-use applications across the enterprise, something that online services provides, helped to empower workers and contribute to job satisfaction – all of which facilitated the transition to make this happen.

“Also, when you aren’t running things in house you can cut capital costs,” says Olstik. “Microsoft can provide enterprise licensing across products that is very attractive. This is pretty well documented. A good service level agreement will give you the security controls, too.”

This has been made easy by the observable returns – something that has also established the IT department’s credibility.

“Our IT capital budget has increased, but we have also saved money on operating costs,” says Gelsomini. “Our run rate is almost one half of what it was a year ago, and that is all through automation and self service. Our enterprise agreement with Microsoft has increased productivity and decreased costs.”

Which brings us to phase three, which is the final move to thin and cloud computing.

“We have taken DPM’s executive team through the roadmap for cloud computing,” says Gelsomini. “This will bring us in 2010 to desktop virtualization and less reliance on end-point devices, with applications residing in the cloud.”

Cloud computing at DPM has a “green” component, too, because unified communications, portals and collaboration can reduce a company’s carbon footprint. As well, DPM is piloting solar technology to power their local data centre in Bulgaria.