The offices of London Borough of Sutton’s Management Information Service (MIS) are an unusual mix of frantic activity and gentle Surrey calm, hidden behind Carshalton High Street and next to a picturesque lake in the grounds of The Grove.

From the outside, it is unlikely that many would guess the level of groundbreaking work that MIS carry out on behalf of Sutton LEA’s schools. From The Grove emanates a Wide Area Network (WAN) linking fifty-six Primary and Secondary schools to the Sutton Educational Intranet and the LEA’s various support departments. The service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing Internet connectivity, filtered web access, LEA and curriculum specific resources, and filtered and monitored e-mail facilities to every pupil, teacher and administrator in the authority. Since going live in September 2000, the system has proved popular and productive, and is already being expanded with additional services and capabilities as enthusiasm grows for this style of central ICT resource development.

The end result makes those involved feel justifiably proud of all the extremely hard work that went into the project. The process actually began early in 2000 with Sutton staff researching their options, including a review of the work completed by Atomwide the previous year for the Kingston Intranet. Already wishing to go further in certain areas, specifications were drawn up in the Spring, and a shortlist of six possible suppliers was finally assembled. Atomwide, again partnering with Xpert Systems after a successful collaboration in Kingston, was one of the six.

After exhaustive discussions and planning sessions, following the obligatory tendering process, Atomwide and Xpert Systems won the contract and began work with Sutton in July 2000. Xpert Systems coordinated the WAN construction based on Cisco routing and switching technology across a mixture of leased lines. Atomwide, meanwhile, took charge of providing the Compaq server systems that would host and manage the Intranet services across the WAN.

Atomwide, a Compaq Preferred Education Partner, worked with Sutton technicians to design a system with a high degree of security, remote manageability and resilience to failure. The rack system pictured bears the brunt of the workload, consisting of two Compaq Proliant ML370 systems and one ML530. These host the Internet, Intranet and Email systems, and are supported by four Compaq Deskpro EN computers operating as dedicated systems for other network IP-based applications. All this equipment is housed in a secure air-conditioned room, protected by a myriad of data and environmental systems, and managed both from The Grove offices and Atomwide’s own local office. From these centres, the entire WAN can be monitored, managed and protected right out to the individual schools.

In December 2000 Gary Shambrook, Project Director and Head of ICT Services in Sutton LEA, observed, "Atomwide has been excellent in providing technical hands-on advice, guidance and support in developing and implementing an LEA-wide e-mail and Internet service for Sutton's schools.

All Atomwide staff have been extremely professional and keen to ensure the success of the project. We look forward to maintaining this close working relationship with both Compaq and Atomwide in the future."