Australian Institute of Aboriginal Torres Strait Island Studies Digitises Cultural Artefacts with Nutanix

Extends performance of central data centre to far-flung remote locations

Overview

Australian Institute of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) partnered with Nutanix to assist with digitisation of collections assets of First Nations Australians by providing the modern technologies and platform to make AIATSIS Digitised Collections available online to be accessible for indigenous communities across Australia.

Challenges

For more than 50 years, AIATSIS has developed and cared for a unique collection that contributes to building understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultures and heritage. Its collectionincludes academic research materials and works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge keepers, artists, film makers, storytellers, and writers, as well as important related works by non-Indigenous people.

Housing more than 1 million examples of such materials, AIATSIS recognised theneed for a more sophisticated way to manage large volumes of data – particularly when generated at remote locations.

“Creating opportunities for people to encounter, engage and be transformed by our First Nations peoples is a vastly different challenge in today’s digital society compared with our founding more than 50 years ago,” said Syed Jaffary, deputy CIO at AIATSIS.

“Timely, digitised access to the resources in the AIATSIS collection makes it easier for First Nations communities to access that material and helps in bringing knowledge of the planet’s oldest living cultures before a much wider audience. It all comes down to the power within our IT environment.”

Solution

Core to the institute’s transformation was the implementation of Nutanix AHV and the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine to create a powerful IT layer that extends the performance of AIATSIS core data centre to remote edge locations.

Customer Outcome

AIATSIS can now enable large data sets to be analysed faster and with more accuracy, while the critical IT infrastructure underpinning the digitisation project can be managed remotely from AIATSIS’ headquarters in Canberra. Applications and artefacts can be ingested in minutes, as opposed to days or weeks through its Content Management System.

Canberra-based Nutanix partner Qirx played a key hand in deploying the IT architecture for central and edge applications, which also helped AIATSIS simplify infrastructure management and reduce operational overheads. With these efficiency improvements, the government agency has been able to dedicate more resources toward implementing innovative technologies across its operations.

“Preserving more than 65,000 years of Indigenous history ensures we can celebrate the traditional owners of this land long into the future,” said Jim Steed, managing director, ANZ Sales, Nutanix. “By digitising its vast collection, AIATSIS is making these unique cultural artefacts accessible to schools and communities across Australia. This is vital as future generations can learn from those who first made this land their home.”