Five-star managed services gig for All IT

The "green" office trend has resulted in an unorthodox office IT win for Sydney reseller All IT.

The reseller is the sole IT provider for tenants in 137 office suites in Australia's first five-star Green Star commercial strata office building, the Lifestyle Working on Collins Street building in Melbourne's Victoria Harbour.

Designed to "set a benchmark" for modern office design, the building was designed with leading edge voice and data capabilities in mind, and critically, a single IT provider.

All IT manages Internet access for tenants, manages and deploys Cisco VoIP phones, as well as the building's free Wi-Fi network, lighting control system and other connected devices like IP security cameras.

The project also gives All IT a ready-made market of small businesses requiring outsourced data centre services - All IT has a server room in the building, where as well as running switches for the building network, it has rack space for tenants wanting to put data on servers in the facility.

The project also makes All IT the single support provider for the various businesses in the building.

According to All IT director Dominic Morrow, decision was made to run a single converged network instead of separate cabling for security cameras and other network functions, which results in a "mess".

The project is designed to give small businesses access to the type of office environments usually reserved for large corporations.

As well as a converged network and single IT provider, the building contains numerous technology and design smarts - there is no cooling tower to reduce reliance and spend on air conditioning, offices tap into a rooftop solar grid, office suites have lighting sensors to detect when people enter the room, and the building is dotted with communal meeting areas.

The building is one of two in Australia - the other located in Sydney. Developers Stable Group hopes to license the concept for the creation of similar offices.