Refine IT Pty Ltd is an ICT advisory and delivery practice for Queensland Government, mid-market enterprise and growing businesses across Australia. Australian-owned, Brisbane-based, principal-led and scaled with a vetted network of specialist sub-contractors. Engaged on QLD Government programs since 2011.
About Refine IT. Most ICT projects don't need an army of consultants. They need senior people who have done the work before, who can write the approach paper, sit in the change board, run the cutover and hand over clean documentation at the end. That's what the practice is built to do.
Refine IT operates on a principal-led model with a vetted Australian specialist network. Every engagement is scoped and led by a senior practitioner — supported by named cloud, infrastructure, security and change-comms specialists drawn from the practice's contractor network. You see who is on the engagement before it starts; we replace the org-chart drama with named people on the tools.
Our recent delivery footprint covers the Department of Justice (Machinery of Government transitions for Queensland State Archives and Forensic Science Queensland), Queensland Health (Medical Imaging Information Systems for Cairns and Hinterland HHS), Powerlink (SAP S/4HANA uplift, Azure Data Lake, Snowflake), and four years inside the Department of Communities as Technical Lead on the ICT Services Transformation Program — including decommissioning the Citec Data Centre and relocating 700 servers to Azure, Polaris and IaaS. Earlier engagements covered Queensland Police Service, Brisbane City Council, Serco Sodexo Defence Services, and 10+ years across UK enterprise and education.
The practice is deliberately right-sized. Engagements run on fixed scope, written acceptance criteria, and senior practitioners on the tools — not a delivery manager and a deck of slides.
David founded Refine IT and leads the practice — 25+ years of senior infrastructure and cloud delivery, the last decade spent leading technical streams on Queensland Government programs. He sets the engagement approach, leads scoping, and stays accountable for delivery from kick-off to hand-over.
Initial enquiries reach a senior practitioner inside one business day. Engagements are then scoped and resourced from the practice's network — David in the lead seat for most government and enterprise work, with named specialist contractors stepping into delivery roles, design, security or change-comms as the program demands.
Holds AWS Solutions Architect — Associate, Microsoft Azure Architect, MCSE, ITIL v4 Foundation, and PRINCE2 / PMBOK familiarity. AU/UK dual citizenship; Australian Government Baseline clearance held. Practice-wide certifications listed below.
All practitioners are Australian-based, vetted by the Practice Lead, and named on the engagement before kick-off. The team scales up for delivery and back down for advisory — you don't pay for a permanent bench.
Principal-led, 1–2 days per week. Architecture review, options papers, business cases, and steering-committee support. Right-sized for boards and execs who need a senior set of eyes without a full delivery commitment.
A named lead practitioner plus specialist sub-contractors as the program demands, embedded with your team for the duration of the engagement. Fixed scope or T&M, against written acceptance criteria.
Refine IT joins your prime's delivery team to plug a senior infrastructure or cloud capability gap. Cleared individuals, short engagements, clean exit when the gap is filled.
Technical leadership for cloud migrations, infrastructure builds, testing and cutover planning. Led infrastructure for multiple MOG transitions including Queensland State Archives and Forensic Science Queensland. Produced business cases, options papers, and executive briefings supporting strategic investment decisions. Managed vendor relationships and ServiceNow change processes.
Infrastructure lead on the Medical Imaging Information Systems (MIIS) Project. Led development and implementation of large-scale, complex technical solutions, providing technical advice while ensuring alignment with contemporary IM/ICT frameworks. Successfully delivered Soliton Radiology+ RIS implementation for Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service.
Delivered several Azure projects: infrastructure lead for SAP S/4HANA uplift, technical lead for the Data and Analytics project (Azure Data Lake, Snowflake), and the Microsoft 2008 Server / SQL Server refresh. Created automated infrastructure deployments using Terraform and Azure DevOps. Identified cost savings via Azure Cost Management.
Technical lead on the ICT Services Transformation Program Portfolio. Decommissioned Citec Data Centre (317 Edward Street) including the relocation of 700 servers / workloads to Azure, Polaris Data Centre or IaaS. Member of the Technical Advisory Group for BaaS / IaaS vendor selection panel. Implemented application whitelisting under Essential Eight.
Disengaged Serco from several divisions of Department of Defence. Server migration from Polaris Data Centre to Equinix Melbourne. MPLS / LAN / WAN / VOIP changes. Migrated email from Exchange 2010 to Office 365.
Member of the Technology Refresh and Improvement Program (TRIP) — rollout of new physical hardware supporting the virtual infrastructure and associated VM migrations. Migrated all virtual SQL servers to recent ESXi hardware.
Managed approximately 900 physical and virtual servers. Implemented stretched VMware clusters and Site Recovery Manager across two data centres for balanced workloads and business continuity. Citrix XenApp 5/6/6.5, AD redesigns, full and partial DR tests.
Initial enquiries are handled by senior leadership inside one business day. Engagements are scoped and resourced from the practice's network — direct, panel, or sub-contracted under your prime.