The National Research Foundation (NRF) has partnered with IT solutions provider Datacentrix, to upgrade the Pretoria Zoological Gardens` IT infrastructure.
"The solution installed in August has ultimately helped the zoo to enhance communication, improving service and its care of the animals," says Tom Hickey, network manager at the NRF.
The NRF spent around R1 million on revamping the zoo`s IT infrastructure, which could no longer support its increasing technology needs, he says. This included a point-of-sale system and new financial systems.
"The IT infrastructure provided by Datacentrix has made an immediate positive improvement, and the point-of-sale system provided by Datasmith is now totally integrated with the corporate financial system, which has reduced irregularities," says Hickey.
"Employees at the zoo received a two-week training, enabling them to work more efficiently and productively on the new infrastructure."
"Departments at the zoo had no intranet connection, PCs were out of date, and gate tickets were issued manually, which resulted in the figures not balancing," says Datacentrix account manager Deon Insel.
"Datacentrix reviewed the entire infrastructure, providing a fully-fledged HP solution that the NRF has been using for years. The NRF purchased HP PCs, laptops, HP printers, servers and network equipment.
"To match up the sensitive nature of the environment at the zoo, we installed a two-tiered architecture, using a combination of fibre optics and wireless technology to ensure total network coverage of 80 hectares."
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