Success Story

Supporting the Tuvalu Government’s Digitalisation

Dynamo6 helped the Tuvalu Government migrate to Google Workspace, overcoming extreme connectivity constraints and a fully remote delivery model. This foundational project was a key step in Tuvalu's "Future Now" initiative to become a digital nation, improving communication and collaboration for a more resilient future.

Services

  • Cloud Services
  • Digital Consultancy

Deliverables

  • Google Workspace
  • Assessments & Reviews
  • Change Management

The island nation of Tuvalu faces an uncertain future due to rising sea levels. As part of its plan to secure its future, it is pioneering a bold solution: becoming the world's first digital nation. A key step was modernising its government's IT systems.

Their on-premise Microsoft Exchange server was unreliable, difficult for staff to access when travelling, and vulnerable to the island's frequent power outages. This led to staff using personal Gmail accounts for government work, creating security risks. Migrating an entire government to the cloud presented a unique and significant hurdle: Tuvalu's internet, reliant solely on satellite, offered a meagre 5Mbps download speed and a 1.5Mbps upload. The project also had to be conducted entirely remotely due to pandemic travel restrictions.

Our approach

  • 01

    Discover & Design

    Working with the Ministry of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs, we began with an "understand" phase to scope the current environment. We designed a migration solution focused on moving their mail, calendar, and contacts to Google Workspace, establishing a secure, best-practice configuration for their new cloud environment.

  • 02

    A Strategic & Adapted Migration

    Given the extreme bandwidth limitations, the mail migration was strategically scheduled for off-peak hours to minimise impact on government operations. The migration of data from their on-premise servers up to Google Cloud had to be carefully managed over the 1.5Mbps upload connection.

  • 03

    Remote Training & Adoption

    To ensure a successful transition, we provided comprehensive training for both employees and system administrators. To work around the connectivity challenges, traditional live training was replaced with data-light video tutorials that could be shared and viewed locally, ensuring knowledge was transferred effectively without straining the network.

The results

The implementation of Google Workspace has significantly benefited the Tuvalu Government, providing a stable platform for growth and a key milestone in their digitalisation journey.

  • The government was able to retire its on-premise Microsoft Exchange servers, reducing maintenance overhead and licensing costs.

  • With Google Workspace, staff can now work and collaborate effectively from other locations, such as Fiji, with readily accessible files and reliable communication tools.

  • The project has fostered a culture of collaboration, with some departments embracing the new tools to power ahead with file sharing and other advanced Google Workspace features.

  • Overall, the successful migration has provided a secure, resilient, and modern communications platform, helping to meet the "Future Now" goal of digitising the nation's operations.

  • This has been one of our first moves into cloud services, and the experience has been great. Dynamo6 worked around Tuvalu’s connectivity challenges. The end result is that emailing and general communication is easier for departments and ministries. More Google Workspace adoption has happened since, and overall it is fostering a culture of collaboration.

    Opetaia Simati

    Director of IT - Ministry of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs

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