Project Objective
The objective of the Supply and Installation of Production and Backup Servers project was to establish a resilient and scalable IT infrastructure to support e-Government services in Lesotho. The project focused on deploying production and disaster recovery (DR) server environments to ensure high availability, data protection, and continuity of public digital services.
Key Goals
- Deploy high-performance server infrastructure for core government systems.
- Establish a Disaster Recovery (DR) environment for backup and failover capability.
- Enable efficient virtualization and centralized management of server resources.
- Support future scalability for hosting multiple e-Government applications.
- Ensure data reliability, business continuity, and operational efficiency.
Brief
This project involved the procurement, delivery, installation, and configuration of server infrastructure components required for both production and backup environments. It formed a foundational layer for Lesotho’s digital government services by ensuring reliable hosting capacity, disaster resilience, and system scalability.
The scope covered:
Enterprise-grade server hardware
Tape-based backup systems
Virtualization licenses and management tools
Core Infrastructure Components
Server Infrastructure
IBM x3650 M5 Servers (6 Units)
Backup & Archiving
IBM TS4500 Tape Library
Virtualization & Management
VMware vSphere 6 Enterprise
VMware vSphere 6 Essentials
VMware vCenter Server 6 Standard
Methodology
The project followed a Waterfall methodology, which provided a structured and sequential approach suitable for infrastructure implementation.
Key Phases
Planning & Requirements Definition: Finalization of hardware specifications and delivery schedule.
Procurement & Delivery: Supply of all specified hardware and licenses.
Installation & Configuration: Physical setup, network integration, and virtualization environment deployment.
Testing & Handover: System verification, backup validation, and final commissioning.
Outcomes
Successful deployment of a redundant and scalable server environment.
Enhanced business continuity through a functional disaster recovery setup.
Infrastructure ready to host current and future digital government services.