CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW GRAND PALAIS
As part of the New Grand Palais project, work to deter- mine the technical platform, conducted jointly by the Grand Palais and the Palais de la Découverte, continued during the architectural preliminary detailed design and study phases of the project with adaptations being made to take account of changes. It led mainly to the speci- fication of the passive technical elements at the future Grand Palais, technical areas, IT networks and service rooms. Studies began in parallel with a view to determin- ing the functioning objectives for the renovated building and to support the future IS master plan of the Grand Palais when it reopens. The IS Department also contrib- uted to studies for the implementation of the temporary structure to be installed on the Champ-de-Mars in the Spring 2021 in terms of infrastructure IT aspects and the networks to be set up. It was also involved in the preparatory work prior to launching construction, closing spaces and relocating personnel.
MODERNISE THE NEW REMOTE WORKING METHODS WHILE CONTINUING TO MODERNISE OUR INFRASTRUCTURE AND STRENGTHEN THE SECURITY OF OUR IS'S
Work on modernising and renewing systems and infra- structures continued in order to ensure continuity of ser- vice and to leverage the latest technologies by integrat- ing in particular a load balancing system on the network. The IS Department provided over 300 laptops to em- ployees working from home during the health crisis. Telecommunications resources were boosted in order to improve network performance (internet speed increased to 500 MB to handle the increase in remote VPN connec- tions to the IS). The system of virtual video conference rooms prepared in 2019 also facilitated the holding of remote meetings with a huge increase in this practice from March 2020 on (12,000 conferences in the last 12 months generating 68,000 user connections). The IS Department also supported the businesses in their search for and implementation of innovative solu- tions to develop online, internal and external distribu- tion media.
Planned projects to modernise and improve infrastruc- tures and user services were all completed or moved forward during this period. The most important of these were:
The fixed telephony modernisation project initiated in 2019 continued in 2020 with deployment effective in March 2021. Among the features of this new system will be softphone" and "chat" services for remote employees, replacing mobile phones;
The new managed services provider was integrated in the Summer of 2020 without any negative impact on users and with improved quality of service;
The security approach set down in the IS Security Policy continued to progress with the main opera- tions being the upgrade to the network security and messaging systems and the completion of an external audit part of which involved a deliberate attempt to breach our security systems the results of which con- firmed the strength of our existing infrastructure.
Finally, in 2020 major work was carried out to lay the groundwork for future developments, including the replacement of the network core infrastructure (which serves all telecommunications facilities in the estab- lishment) scheduled for Autumn 2021, with the goal of implementing a new technology to deliver greater resil- ience and more secure access to our networks.
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