Following its move to the cloud in 2018, Anglicare South Australia (AnglicareSA) needed to virtualise its network and upgrade its wide area network (WAN) infrastructure. With more than 1,800 staff and 300 volunteers delivering essential services to communities and people in need across 64 sites in South Australia, they needed a more flexible network solution to better support its workforce.

AnglicareSA’s combined 2,100 employees and volunteers provide support across 64 sites throughout South Australia. This includes providing support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as well as home service and supported disability accommodation, residential and supported aged care services, and allied health support. In addition, they manage 2,100 social and affordable housing accommodations and delivers community support programs including child support, foster care, early learning, suicide prevention, and domestic violence prevention.

For AnglicareSA, following its move to cloud in 2018, the highly mobile workforce needed a reliable infrastructure and improved digital experiences to deliver uninterrupted services to these highly vulnerable communities.

As part of its wider digital transformation efforts, AnglicareSA needed to upgrade its WAN infrastructure to better support its mobile workforce. The organisation had completed its server transition to the cloud prior to the effects of COVID-19; however, its operations remained tethered to a fixed network, creating challenges and limitations for its workers.

There was also an imminent need to upgrade its network infrastructure to deliver more flexibility for its workers without increasing costs exponentially. With its existing infrastructure, AnglicareSA’s myriad sites were operating on a legacy network where workloads and costs couldn’t scale up and down as needed. This meant funds were being spent on maintaining inefficient infrastructure that could instead be diverted towards helping AnglicareSA deliver more essential services to the community.

“The average cost for AnglicareSA to support a family moving on from domestic violence, for example, is approximately AU$3,000, which includes moving the family into a secure, furnished, pet-friendly house. The average stay is approximately three months, and we have a high success rate of helping families to transition and reduce their potential trauma. Anything that we didn’t need to spend on a network overhaul could go towards supporting more families, so it was critical that AnglicareSA found a secure and flexible solution that wouldn’t break the bank.”
Jamie Anderson, Executive General Manager, Technology & Transformation, AnglicareSA

An important part of the solution was flexibility. The organisation wanted to achieve greater visibility and security over its cloud network. As COVID-19 had forced AnglicareSA to expand the number of its employees working remotely, it also needed a solution that could scale as needed across sites and regions.

“Our staff aren’t tethered to an office; we must be able to deliver services on the ground where the customer can accept them. We needed a solution that would let our staff in the field be first-class citizens on the network to better deliver our services to those that need them,” said Mr. Anderson.

AnglicareSA wanted a solution that delivered efficiency while also reducing risk.

Michael Phillips, enterprise account manager, Fortinet, said, “The solution presented by Vocus and Fortinet was unique in that it was a consolidation of network and security technology, combined with a managed service, which made it a one-stop shop. This meant that AnglicareSA did not need to rely on multiple vendors or service providers to achieve their business outcomes."

Powered by Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN technology, the Vocus managed solution delivered a low-risk, scalable, and flexible solution that met AnglicareSA’s needs. Vocus developed this solution after deep analysis and understanding of the organisation’s complex needs. Vocus then designed a holistic solution that met the budgetary, security, and networking requirements for both their staff and clients.

The combined approach of Vocus and Fortinet delivered on every point. It allowed AnglicareSA to segment its network and provide increased security to deliver a network with a greater level of resilience. It also ensured that risk was reduced from a business continuity perspective.

By prioritising redundancy and delivering multiple connection points for their aged care facilities, Vocus and Fortinet delivered a more reliable infrastructure for the organisation’s communications. AnglicareSA’s previous move to cloud introduced some complexities surrounding managing endpoints and users. However, the combined Vocus and Fortinet solution let it roll the solution out to end users in a way that let them better manage end points outside traditional geographic limits.

COVID-19 presented logistical challenges for the rollout. With a number of their aged care facilities forced to go into lockdown, it limited the Vocus and Fortinet teams’ access to sites for the rollout. However, it also let AnglicareSA move forward at a faster pace than otherwise by driving greater acceptance from a change management perspective.

Jamie Anderson said, “The pandemic forced everything to change. Fortunately, it also accelerated AnglicareSA’s digital transformation. Vocus and Fortinet brought a depth of engineering skills to the table that kept the project on schedule. Though COVID-19 presented challenges, especially in terms of accessing sites accommodating vulnerable customers during lockdowns, Vocus and Fortinet were flexible and always able to pivot to different sites as needed to bring each site on board without major delays to the overall schedule.

Chris Bragg, Key Account Director, Vocus said, “Vocus and Fortinet worked with AnglicareSA to categorise its network of sites into a four-tiered roll out based on priorities. This lets them prioritise the network upgrade across their most critical sites. By taking this tiered approach, the project could more easily flex as needed to accommodate lockdowns and restrictions across sites.”

Jamie Anderson said, “Implementing the Vocus and Fortinet solution will let AnglicareSA achieve greater flexibility now and into the future. By delivering a more flexible working environment, we can achieve a greater value proposition and flexibility for staff, which helps to reduce attrition.”