Data Centres Nerve Centre of e-Governance : December 2009 Issue

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-GOVERNANCE

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INTERVIEW

S P Singh Senior Director, Department of IT, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India

www.egovonline.net - Asia’s Leading Portal on e-Governance VOLUME 5

ISSUE 12

ISSN 0973-161X

DECEMBER 2009

Data Centres Nerve Centre of e-Governance

Government of India has approved a total outlay of Rs1,623 Crores for State Data Centres.

Where do we stand now in e-Governance?

5 Years of Knowledge Leadership

egov Presents 5th Anniversary Issue in January 2010 Share the perspective and experiences of : • IT Ministers • Policy Makers • Senior Government Officials • Industry Heads • International Experts • Global Thought Leaders • Academia

Experience this Journey in Anniversary Issue of egov

For details, contact: Debabrata Ray (debabrata@egovonline.net) at 9899650692

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COVER INTERVIEW:

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SP SINGH: SENIOR DIRECTOR, DIT, MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND IT, GOI

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DILEEP KUMAR, DIRECTOR, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, ADC KRONE

VOLUME 5

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IT AND FACILITIES INFRASTRUCTURE: TWO PILLARS OF AN IT DATA CENTRE

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STATE DATA CENTRE: LEARNING AND WAY AHEAD

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DATA CENTRES: THE HEART OF THE MATTER

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DEBRAJ DAM, SALES HEADSTRATEGIC ACCOUNTS, DIGILINK

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DATA CENTRE OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

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NEETA SHAH, DIRECTOR (e-GOVERNANCE), GUJARAT INFORMATICS CENTRE, GOVERNMENT OF GUJARAT

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KARNATAKA STATE DATA CENTRE: SHARING COMMON INFRASTRUCTURE

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PRATIK CHUBE, COUNTRY GENERAL MANAGER, EMERSON NETWORK POWER PVT LTD RAJESH VERMA, PRINCIPAL DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT OF SIKKIM

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FUTURE OF INFORMATION STORAGE IS VIRTUAL

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MARCHING AHEAD IN SDC IMPLEMENTATION

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P MANICKAVELU, GENERAL MANAGER-ITI DATA CENTRE

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JAIJIT BHATTACHARYA, DIRECTOR GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, HP INDIA

e-GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION IN SRI LANKA

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DATA CENTRE INITIATIVE AS MANAGEMENT APPROACH

URBAN WATCH:

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PROJECT CADM: ENABLING SMART GOVERNANCE WITH GIS

We are thankful to S P Singh, Senior Director, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India and the other State Data Centre Officials, for conceptualing, guiding and for providing their support to us in this Special Issue of egov magazine on State Data Centre.

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INTERNATIONAL GOV: e-GOVERNANCE: THE EGYPTIAN EXPERIENCE

STATE DATA CENTRE-PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

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IPGCL-MEETING POWER NEEDS OF THE CAPITAL

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DECEMBER 2009

RNI NO. - UPENG/2008/25234

PSU WATCH:

MOIZ VASWADAWALA H, GENERAL MANAGER, WIPRO INFOTECH

COVER FEATURE:

ISSUE 12

ISSN 0973-161X

EDITORIAL

Centraly Hosted IT Infrastruture: Need of the Hour With a total plan outlay of Rs. 1623 Crore, State Data Centres are poised to become the back bone of the Government to Citizen (G2C), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Government (G2G) interactions in 28 states and seven Union Territories, under the National e-Governance Plan. Once executed, Data Centres being the core of ICT infrastructure in any given set-up would be integrating the hardware, network, storage, and management resources, that will play the role of a central repository, secured data storage and will facilitate online delivery of services for the whole of state.

President Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Dr. Ravi Gupta Assistant Editor Prachi Shirur email: prachi@egovonline.net Research Assistant Gayatri Maheshwary Correspondent Pratap Vikram Singh Sr. Manager, Marketing Debabrata Ray

However, there are issues related with the implementation, operations and maintenance of DC, which are to be taken care of, for ensuring maximum uptime and 24x7, seamless delivery of e-Governance services to the citizens. Scalability, virtualisation, standardisation, interoperability, data loss prevention and security, audit, disaster recovery, performance testing of state specific standalone applications and higher total cost of ownership are the issues, which needs to be dealt at length.

To manage these issues related with Data Centres, in the long run, states need to have an in-house resource pool and domain expertise. Moreover, even more important factor in the success of the project is the ownership carried by the concerned state agencies and its leaders. The SDC project, even after the approval of NeGP in 2006, by the Centre with substantial financial allocation, has not attracted the states to ride on e-Government highway leading to a knowledge society. According to the recent report of the Department of Information Technology, a few states including Maharashtra, Orissa and Gujarat have been able to issue Letter of Intent for DC and Tripura and Puduchery the bid process.

Rest of the states and Union Territories are lying low in preceding stages of the SDC implementation.

mobile: +91 9899650692 email: debabrata@egovonline.net Sr. Manager, Govt. Relations Anaam Sharma mobile: +91 9910597744 email: anaam@egovonline.net Sr. Executive, Business Development Santosh Kumar Gupta mobile: +91 9891192996

Standalone Central departments like Railways, Corporate Affairs and Income Tax, having their own Data Centres are much ahead of many states in realising the potential of the core IT infrastructure. It’s high time that states understand the imperative of having computerised back ends operations and the need of centrally hosted and shared IT infrastructure for whole of the state.From another angle, it can be noted that the other two key projects for establishing Pan-India IT infrastructure that NeGP envisages- State Wide Area Network and Common Service Centres will not be a complete success unless they are backed by Data Centres.

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COVER INTERVIEW

The Dreamer and Doer of State Data Centre in India ! www.mit.gov.in

S P SINGH SENIOR DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND IT, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

Please give your views on the importance of State Data Centres.

How do you correlate this technological intervention with good governance?

The State Data Centre (SDC) would act as the e-Governance

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application warehouse for the State’s eGovernance applications and Mission Mode Projects (MMPs). The Data Centre in the state would provide common secure infrastructure enabling seamless delivery of Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C) and

Government to Business (G2B) services.

The State and the concerned line departments would get benefited a lot from this secured infrastructure, providing ease of management and improved uptime for services. The SDC initiative would provide the best of the physical, IT

// INTERVIEW

and security infrastructure, well managed centrally and complying to international standards, enabling improved uptime, citizen service delivery thus contributing to improved and better governance.

What is the status of the State Data Centre implementation, under National e-Governance Plan? When do you expect it to complete?

SDC proposals from 31 States/UTs have been approved so far with a total outlay of Rs. 1378.50 Crore. Bid process has been completed in 6 States while it is under process in 9 States. Further, National Informatics Centre (NIC) has initiated an action to provide the technical resources for the Composite Team at the State and this shall be in place in several States by mid December 2009. The Department of Information Technology (DIT) is taking necessary measures for monitoring the progress related to SDC in state for accelerated implementation of the scheme.

It is expected that the SDC will be implemented within a period of 6 months after award of contract by the State.

Considering the progress so far, it is expected that around 8-10 Data Centres shall be set up and be operational by June-July 2010.

Please name some of the mission critical applications that will run on Data Centre. What is your strategy to ensure maximum uptime for these operations, in particular and resilience in IT systems in general?

The State IT Department will facilitate application hosting in the SDC at the State. There would be many mission critical applications including the State MMPs, State Portal and State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), and backup infrastructure for already running applications in the States etc. The State Data Centre would be implemented with adherence to the international best practices and standards. It is envisaged that the Data Centres would minimum meet the Tier – II standards as defined by the Uptime Institute, USA which is widely accepted physical design best practice/ standard. This will ensure an uptime of 99.749% for the Data Centre and its associated infrastructure. Stringent Service Level agreements with the Data Centre Operator will ensure required

uptime and availability of the applications hosted in the SDC. Also high availability and redundancies for power, cooling, network, security, storage and computing infrastructure have been taken care within the design of the SDC ensuring maximum uptime and resiliency for the IT systems.

Public data is invaluable. What is your roadmap to ensure maximum data security?

The e-Governance applications would be dealing with the citizen related services transactions and hence the confidentiality and security of the data is of paramount importance. All necessary measures with tiered security architecture for Physical as well as IT infrastructure have been considered for the Data Centre design.

The policy guideline for SDC entails the physical as well as data security guidelines which would need to be followed by the State during implementation as well as operations and management of the SDC. Physical and authenticated logical access control, intrusion prevention systems, firewalls, antivirus system etc would ensure the security of data. Further, the Data Centres would conform to ISO 27001 standards thus ensuring that the security practices and processes have been followed for the SDC. How do you perceive virtualisation in Data Centres? Also, how you are planning to tackle with interoperability issues with the IT systems?

Virtualisation is most talked about technology in the IT industry these days. Though it provides benefits such as reduction in costs, IT infrastructure optimization, better utilisation of resources, consolidation etc, it also poses challenges in its management, disaster recovery, security etc. As the performance and service delivery needs would be different for different applications, the associated requirements and resource allocation would need to be adequately addressed by the Data Centre Operator while implementing virtualisation.

Interoperability of the systems and applications becomes very important when heterogeneous hardware, software and storage environments exist in the Data Centre. This could be tackled by

having the systems, hardwares, software which is interoperable and easy to integrate with other systems. SSDGs would be hosted in the State Data Centre to provide assured message delivery, interoperability among heterogeneous systems, complete audit, time stamping and logging processes for government applications. Also the core IT and computing infrastructure which would be available to different departments would be able to meet various interoperability requirements.

Can you discuss about challenges in setting up and running DC? Timely implementation of the SDCs is a big challenge which required a lot of dedicated effort and coordination of all involved stakeholders including the State, State Implementing Agency, State consultant, the System Integrator, NIC and the DIT. Local challenges such as availability of the site, raw power availability etc are some of the prime concerns. Once the SDCs are up and running, different set of challenges exists such as data security and privacy, data retention, application migration etc. Well planned strategy, appropriate security policies and adoption of Data Centre management best practices would be able to address many of such challenges which will again require a dedicated effort from the concerned stakeholders.

The roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders have been formulated which will provide more clarity and reduce operational issues.

How competent is your department to oversee the DC in the long run?

The State Data Centre project in the DIT is being spearheaded by a dedicated team supported by SDC programme office and NIC Data Centre professionals.

This entire set of professionals are fully involved in all related activities of the Data Centre both from technology and long term manageability perspectives. I believe, we shall be able to deliver. It would be out of place to mention that several departments have sought DIT assistance to provide them expert advice. Anyway, this assessment should come from the States/end users and other agencies involved in this initiative. \\ Prachi Shirur prachi@egovonline.net

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COVER INTERVIEW

Opportunities www.adckrone.com

DILEEP KUMAR DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, ADC KRONE

The Indian market is gearing up to VOIP, high bandwidth and speed demands, server virtualisation, Data Centre growth and proliferation of LANs. All these are drivers for growth in structured cabling. Intelligent Cabling (PLM) is also catching up pretty fast amongst large enterprises.

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// INTERVIEW

The move to consolidate services and applications through Data Centres will provide efficient delivery of services. In a large and unique country like India, this will be a distributed type of Data Centre network spanning across the country.

State Data Centres are being set up to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. How is this move opening up the opportunity for the private sector in India?

The government has been very encouraging in the spread of IT and low cost rural network infrastructure. The government is setting up Data Centres in the states and Common services Centres (CSCs) at village level, which means a lot of opportunities for the private sector.

Apparently, it signifies that we need to provide top class network infrastructure solutions for such initiatives. The move to consolidate services and applications through Data Centres will provide efficient delivery of services. In a large and unique country like India, this will be a distributed type of Data Centre network spanning across the country, which is going to open a lot of opportunities for organisations that are operating in the Data Centre space.

What, according to you, is the growth rate for Data Centre solutions in the country? What are some of the emerging trends and latest technologies in Data Centres?

Gartner estimates that the market will grow by 25-30%. Data Centre growth will be driven by increasing domestic requirements from sectors such as financial institutions, telecom operators, manufacturing and services. While large financial institutions and telecom companies are likely to build Data Centres for hosting their growing data storage needs, Data Centre hosting providers will also put significant investments into growing their capacities to fulfil demand arising from small and mid-size users.

Market Trends: Today Indian corporates are spending greatly in Data Centres. There is an increase in awareness for ‘Green Data Centres’ while corporate are increasingly realising the potential of Data Centres as repositories of information. Also a trend noticed in India is implementing physical layer management solutions like PLM. Technology Trends: Some of the key technology trends are: • The number of servers and switches are increasing with the usage of high density blade servers and switches 12

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IP Convergence Adherence to TIA-942 standards with a stress on Tier 4/3 levels of reliability Higher bandwidth cabling like 10 Gig and beyond Higher densities of fibre in the Data Centre Managing Physical layer solutions

ADC Krone ís considered a leader in communications network infrastructure. Tell us about some of your products and services in this domain.

We are a global leader in network infrastructure solutions. We provide global network infrastructure products and services that enable the profitable delivery of high-speed Internet, data, video, and voice services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Our key focus is in Next Generation Fibre Networks and structured cabling – we were the first to launch the 10G UTP cabling solution in India four years ago. Recently we launched our FTTX solutions.

Our product CopperTen has been widely accepted by the industry while our TrueNet portfolio is tailor made for customised applications in a wide variety of environments requiring efficient and future proof connectivity including specific solutions for Government LANS and Data Centres. The TrueNet portfolio also provides some of the industry’s most effective Data Center solutions, which is apt for the government sector. We also have a strong portfolio of Physical Layer Management solutions, which are a response to the requirement for better network management.

Good cabling is imperative for error free transmission of data. How do your cabling solutions have an edge over other market players in the field?

What are your company’s USP in this regard?

This is an important dimension of cabling media, which we have brought to the industry through our TrueNet range of solutions. With superior design and engineering our TrueNet cabling solutions offer 100% throughput and zero-bit error warranty for our TrueNet cabling solutions. Though errors in data packets are typically attributed to active

electronics we found that the physical cabling media also has a role to play in error free transmission of data. Hence, our TrueNet range of solutions has gone through vigorous R&D that has addressed this issue effectively.

Tell us about the current trend in cables and network market in India and globally. What is ADC Krone’s share in structured cabling solution in this market?

Some of the key technology trends are 10 Gig over copper, Intelligent Cabling and Data Centre cabling. On the UTP side, Cat 6A, following its ratification by the ISO and the EIA, is expected to gain momentum. Apart from this, fibre optics is currently seeing a lot of deployment in backbone cabling for both campuses and buildings. The other interesting trend is the proliferation of green solutions in Structured Cabling.

The Indian market is gearing up to VOIP, high bandwidth and speed demands, server virtualisation, Data Centre growth and proliferation of LANs. All these are drivers for growth in structured cabling. Intelligent Cabling (PLM) is also catching up pretty fast amongst large enterprises.

What are the government clients that ADC Krone is currently serving? How are your networks adapted to the government’s priority in providing a single consolidated face to the users across multiple services?

The Vikas Soudha, Bhopal Mantralaya, Vigyaan Bhavan, Delhi Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office, President’s Office, Bureau of Indian Standards, Army Head quarters, Agartala Secretariat, Common Wealth Games, Delhi Metro Bhavan, Admiral Gorshkov Ship and the Central Reserve Police Force are some of our key accounts. Our products deliver committed performance in terms of bandwidth under extreme conditions also.

With our global array of products and services, we can design a migration plan whatever the existing network or the project challenges. We can design, supply, install and commission a network for the IT department to operate – or increasingly, with our channel partners, we can provide every type of solution. \\ Prachi Shrirur, prachi@egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

State Data Centre – Past, Present and Future ASHISH GANGRADE, UMA CHAUHAN, DVL NARAYANA RAO

EMERGENCE OF DATA CENTRES In the early age of computing, huge computers involving complex sets of components were present which required a lot of power and cooling and posed a daunting task for infrastructure management and operations. During the computing industry boom, computers started to be deployed everywhere, in many cases with little or no care about operating requirements. However, as Information Technology (IT) operations started growing in complexity, management of these silos and distributed infrastructure became a very complex task. With the advent of clientserver computing, networking, Internet penetration, inexpensive networking equipment and Internet connectivity it became possible to use servers in a specific location. These specific rooms eventually became Data Centres by housing many such computing servers, connectivity, and network infrastructure with improved security and management to provide seamless application access all the time.

DATA CENTRE CONCEPT IN NEGP The Government of India has recognised the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for rapid and all round development in general and transforming governance in particular. With a vision of making all government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through service delivery outlets and to ensure

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efficiency, transparency & reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man, the Government of India has come up with the National e-Governance Plan. For citizen-centric governance, it is imperative that benefits of ICT should be leveraged to reach the citizens within shortest possible time, in a reliable, secure and cost effective manner. To achieve the citizen centric service delivery goal, the networking, hosting of data and service delivery channels, State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centres (SDCs) & Common Service Centres (CSCs) were identified as the three core infrastructure pillars of NeGP. SALIENT FEATURES OF SDC SCHEME With the approval of the SDC scheme during January 2008, the journey towards seamless, secure, integrated and managed infrastructure for eGovernance applications began. The State Data Centres (SDCs) would help the state government, state line ministries and departments in providing central repository (database consolidation), application consolidation, state Intranet/ Internet portal, centralised storage, remote management, etc. for their Government to Government (G2G), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Citizen (G2C) services. State Data Centre would also help in providing common security infrastructure, storage infrastructure, back-up infrastructure, directory infrastructure, web servers,

application servers, database servers etc. for G2G and G2C services. The SDC thus would ensure better operations and management (O&M) control and minimise overall data management, IT management and deployment costs. The Data Centres would be certified for ISO 27001 and ISO 20000 Standards ensuring the security controls and process adherence and would be periodically audited by third party audit (TPA) agencies to ensure the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) compliance and security. The application hosting would be enabled by providing multiple hosting options such as colocation, managed hosting etc ensuring that computing resources and the support connectivity infrastructure are adequately and optimally used.

STATE DATA CENTRE SERVICES The SDC would be able to provide any or a combination of below mentioned services to the concerned line departments for their application infrastructure hosting requirements: Co-location: SDC: Requirement of physical • infrastructure such as rack space, power, cooling, external connectivity and the basic Data Center infrastructure services would be provided to the concerned departments.

• Department: Other requirements, for example, application development, deployment, provisioning of required infrastructure and day-to-day maintenance and administration of

the application / database servers would be the responsibility of the concerned departments.

Co- location + Shared Services: SDC: Requirement of physical space, • shared infrastructure requirements, for example, storage, directory services, firewall, core network, internet and SWAN connectivity, perimeter security, helpdesk etc and related O&M activities.

Department: Day-to-day • maintenance and administration of theapplication / database servers would be the responsibility of the concerned departments.

Co-location + Shared Service + Managed Services: SDC: End to end application • IT infrastructure hosting and management. In this scenario, various types of services to the departments depending upon their individual requirements would be made available. These services would contain application / database migration, application enhancement, database tuning, database / application administration, etc.

Department would meet: Financial • support Disaster Recovery (DR) / Database Backup Location: Some departments whose application infrastructure is speeded across the state may use SDC to meet their centralised backup and disaster recovery requirements.

JOURNEY SO FAR We have come a long way since the approval of the scheme. As on date, budgetary sanctions have been provided to 31 states/UTs out of which the bid process for selection of the Data Centre Operator has been completed in six States while it is in progress in nine States. It is expected that 8-10 SDCs would be set up and operational by JuneJuly, 2010. Further, action to provide the technical resources has been initiated

by National Informatics Centre (NIC) for the Composite Team at the State.

Department of IT , Government of India is taking all necessary measures for monitoring the progress related to SDC in state for accelerated implementation of the scheme. A lot of efforts at DIT with involvement of states and NIC have been

put to finetune the scheme. While planning, key considerations including scalability, availability, security, interoperability, manageability were taken in to account.

Appropriate measures for data centre physical as well as logical security were addressed while formulation of policy guidelines. The SDC design would be in line with minimum requirements as laid out in TIA 942 specifications for Tier II Data Centre ensuring an uptime of 99.74%. It would have adequate redundancy built in to the power, cooling, storage, network architectures to ensure the availability of applications hosted in the data centre. The DR for the Data Centre shall be provisioned through the NIC Data Centres. Adoption of latest technologies, tiered and scalable architecture for precision cooling, power availability, structured cabling, blade servers, storage infrastructure, storage management, networking and infrastructure management would make it stand in the best class of Data Centres in India.

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS Now, as the SDC scheme has entered in to the implementation phase and carries a very fast paced agenda, it becomes important to address the key implementation issues in proactive manner such as site availability, application hosting, availability of raw power, connectivity etc. Effective project management at the state ensuring above would be required to complete the project on time. Timely implementation of the SDC in a state would also provide a lot of benefits to many e-Governance applications whose infrastructure has been planned to be hosted in SDC. Key parameters of successful implementation of SDC scheme are – 1. Effective Project Management: The state consultants along with the State Implementing Agency (SIA) would be closely monitoring the implementation activities for its completion with all the agreed deliverables. A structured approach to mange time, cost, quality and risks would be required to ensure timely implementation of the SDC. 2. Knowledge Management: There are 35 SDCs to be implemented, not all the SDC’s would be implemented

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at one time. Taking learning’s from preceding implementations and proactively addressing the issues faced by other states would accelerate the implementation up to a great extent.

Capacity building: Composite team consisting of manpower from state, NIC and SIA with suitable institutional framework in place would ensure the strategic control, security and privacy of the Data Centre infrastructure. To ensure this states have been advised to enter in to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the NIC so as to form the composite team at the state.

Adoption of standards and policies: The SDC would undergo the ISO 27001 and ISO 20000 certification which will ensure stringent processes and procedures to be followed at the state during operations and management of the SDC.

STATE DATA CENTRE OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT State Data Centre and associated components of e-Governance infrastructure in the form of a unified and secure e-Governance infrastructure is a complex task. An institutional framework to manage strategic control of such shared infrastructure, within the government framework has been envisaged at the state in the form of composite team consisting of members from state, SIA and NIC. A MoU has been prepared and proposed to address the above mentioned requirements which shall be executed between the State Government and NIC for respective States/UTs. The composite team members would have exclusive expertise in the areas of physical infrastructure, data centre management, data base administration, system administration, network and security management, project management, change management etc. The composite team would also have domain experts to deal with other NeGP infrastructure projects viz. SWAN, CSC, SSDG, Portal etc in integrated manner.

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES SDC being a critical infrastructure, issues related to selection of right

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technology, conformity to security and data privacy aspects, efficient operations and management and optimal utilisation including challenges such as interoperability, business continuity, DR and capacity planning etc. are important.

Availability of the site and its conformance to the data center requirements is another important consideration.

As the Data Centres shall be hosting critical and sensitive government data, any data loss and information security breach shall be of great consequential loss to the government. As such, ownership, strategic control and management/ preservation of the data is required to be with the government both de-jure and de facto. While the Data Centre shall have all the physical and logical security components necessary from information security perspective, the Data Centre shall have to be ISO27001 certificated and the states have been advised, accordingly.

Further, the security audit of the Data Centre has been mandated to be carried out once in six months by the states.

It is also envisaged that Composite Team would advise the states on security related framework to be put in place for SDC and the other core infrastructure of the NeGP and shall be working closely with the states in this regard. DIT has also prepared best practices guidelines related to data security, privacy, confidentiality and data protection and issued to the States along with the policy guidelines.

Continuous availability of infrastructure and hosted services is one of the critical requirements of the Data Centre. Though the SDC has various components carrying the high availability architecture including database cluster, N+1 architecture for power and cooling, redundant security and network infrastructure will ensure the uptime of the Data Centre.

Along with all the resilient and redundant infrastructure the DR and business continuity (BC) of the Data Centre and application will be of utmost concern.

Proper DR and BC Planning strategy for applications has to be devised and adopted so as to have business continuity for e-Government applications. This needs to be planned in synchronisation with the establishment of SDC considering the technical and financial capacity planning in view. An efficient DR and BCP strategy needs prior considerations such as - Business Impact Analysis, Recovery

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Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), Risks involved (data security, social, political, operational etc), cost, data relevancy and ease of process flow. Initially the departments may plan for off-site backup and subsequently move on to fullyfledged DR infrastructure depending upon the criticality of the applications.

THE PATH AHEAD Though the critical infrastructure for hosting of the e-Governance applications is being created, the journey of integrated IT infrastructure management will continue involving adoption of new technologies such as virtualisation, cloud computing and Green IT practices. Also with the wave of technology refreshments and ever increasing requirements, the infrastructure would also go through up gradation, updation, enhancements etc. The application strategies would need to be developed keeping the established SDCs and available services

to reduce the implementation time and void duplication of infrastructure. The key is to remain updated with the best of the breed technologies, develop IT strategies accordingly, emphasise on IT automation, change and project management and focus on continuous improvement of processes, standards, policies so as to bring cost effectiveness, better management and efficiency improvement.

In general the emphasis should be for practices and technologies that are easy to acquire, can be used on an ongoing basis and provide effective value.

Predicting the future requirements and aligning the strategy with the technology refreshments with adequate plans would make sure that the solutions can scale with stability, reduced complexity and management burden.

The arduous journey to realise and achieve the consolidated, well secure and wellmanaged integrated infrastructure to provide seamless electronic delivery of services to the citizens begins‌ \\

ASHISH GANGRADE

Ashish Gangrade is Consultant at the Programme Management Unit of India’s National eGovernance Plan (PMU-NeGP), Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India & working for State Data Centre Project since its inception. He carries extensive experience in the areas of IT Infrastructure, Data Centre, IT Strategy, Program Management & eGovernance.

UMA CHAUHAN

Uma Chauhan is Additional Director in DIT, Govt. of India. She is presently working for State Data Centre project under E-Governance Group. She joined the Department in January 1985 and has since worked in the area of Community Information Centres, Bio-informatics, Medical Electronics, Automation of Water/ Sewage Treatment Plants, Automation of Irrigation Canals, Microprocessor & Micro controller Based System Design and Training.

DVL NARAYANA RAO

DVL Narayana Rao is Additional Director in DIT, Govt. of India. He is presently working for State Data Centre project under E-Governance Group. He carries comprehensive experience of more than 24 years with Government of India and has been involved in various initiatives of Department of Information Technology.

He has worked in the area of State Wide Area Networks, Y2K, Canal Automation & propagation of Microprocessor technologies.

COVER FEATURE

Data Centre Initiative as Management Approach ANURAG JAIN SECRETARY TO CHIEF MINISTER AND SECRETARY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, MADHYA PRADESH

Madhya Pradesh has been one of the earliest States to adopt Information Technology for improvement of internal processes and for delivering citizen services. One of the earliest applications that was developed and rolled out through the State was Integrated Treasury Computerization [http://www. mptreasury.org/]. Under this project, all the treasury transactions and payment of bill was performed on a client server system which had a central facility at Bhopal and all the Districts [treasuries and sub-treasuries] were connected with each other. This project was a land mark in more than one way and resulted into better financial management and control on wasteful expenditure. Similarly, the Commercial Taxes Department [http:// www.mptax.net/] was also computerized at the same time leading to a strict monitoring on the payment of taxes and control on tax evasion. The Transport Department [http://www.mptransport. org] of the State is now in its 6th year of computerization and Driving License and vehicle registration is through Smart Card.

This project is functional in all the Districts [Road Transport Officers and Assistant Road Transport Officers] and the resultant database is useful in checking tax evasion and also vehicle theft. From the citizen’s perspective, the portal MPOnline [http:// www.mponline.gov.in] which is now in the third year of operation has proved to be a boon to citizens and the Common Service Centers of the State. The portal services are available 24X7 and can be accessed either through kiosk, CSC or from the comfort of the home of the

citizen. Currently, 75 services of various Departments are available through the portal and the citizen need not go from one place to another for availing the services.

The Government of India has in principle agreed to fund the State Data Center programme of the State. The Request for Proposal is being finalized and it will soon be sent to the Government of India, Department of Information Technology for their approval. The State Government has decided to locate the Data Center on the green field site. A new building is being constructed in Arera Hills, a prime location in the heart of Bhopal. The building will be supplied by two independent electricity feeders and, therefore, a 24x7x365 supply of electricity will be ensured to this facility.

The building has other features such as perimeter security, Data Center lift, claw armed roads for bursting tyres of vehicles forcing entry into the facility and separate entry and exit for all the floors apart from the standard other Data Center related facilities. The intention is to create a near category 4 Data Center for hosting the servers of different applications. The other interesting aspect of this building will be that it is going to also house

network monitoring center of the State Wide Area Network and a Cyber Security Center which is now becoming a need of the hour. The first floor, which is going to house the Data Center, will have 18,000 sq.ft. of space which would be sufficient to cater to the needs for next 30 years.

The State Government has taken an in principle decision to co-locate servers and applications of all the Departments that have rolled out their applications across the State.

Similarly, future applications will compulsorily be hosted in the Data Center so that we are able to economise on cost. Another interesting opportunity will be the development of Cloud Computing which will allow further reduction in the cost of development of application and optimal utilization of the hardware and software resources. \\

ANURAG JAIN

Anurag Jain, Secretary to Chief Minister and Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government ofMadhya Pradesh, He may be reached at jain.anurag@mp.nic.in

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IT and Facilities Infrastructure: Two Pillars of an IT Data Centre AJAY AHUJA SYSTEMS ENGINEERING MANAGER SUN MICROSYSTEMS INDIA

IT Data Centres are an integral part of any IT Infrastructure. All IT services are served by a backend Infrastructure, which is generally and in most cases hosted in IT Data Centres. This is true for any segment and any industry, be it Government, Telecommunications, Banking, Finance or Education and Research. A typical Data Centre hosts the IT equipment, including Severs, Storage, Networking equipment etc., which is required for hosting and delivering IT Enabled services.

The Government of India, under its National e-Governance plan (NeGP) is implementing Data Centres in each of the States. It is important for the stakeholders at the State as well as the Centre level, to understand the components and key drivers for an IT Data Centre. This article is an attempt to introduce key components of an IT Data Centre, and also to highlight the importance of cross-functional interaction between various stakeholders, which is a must for the successful roll out of these Data Centres.

There are many components in an IT Data Centre. Servers, Storage and Networking equipment forms the core of the IT components, whereas Power, Cooling and Space constitute the facilities infrastructure. These components are managed by different stakeholders, which may include IT managers, facility managers, vendors, employees and the users. It is important to have an organisation structure, which encourages healthy interaction between

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these stakeholders, aiming for a common objective of overall organisational efficiency and effectiveness.

ELEMENTS OF AN IT DATA CENTRE An IT Data Centre can typically be divided into IT Infrastructure and facilities Infrastructure components. The IT Infrastructure components consists of the payload including: Servers • Storage • Networking Equipment • The Facilities Infrastructure includes: Real Estate Space - Rising costs • of real estate space and limited availability, has led to the efficient and most effective space utilisation requirements for the IT Data Centres.

Power Infrastructure - Includes • the Power supply to the facility, including the generator sets. This also includes the Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS) and the ATS (Automatic Transfer Switch to transfer the power from UPS to Generator set and vice versa.

Figure 1 shows a typical UPS, with Power Distribution modules, Power Modules, Batteries and In-row cooling.

Multiple such modules are used to cater to the Data Centre power requirements.

• Cooling Infrastructure - Various kinds and design of cooling infrastructure

Figure 1: Typical UPS

•

•

•

are available. Cooling can be centralised, in-row or overhead cooling. In-row or the overhead cooling gets cold water from a chiller, generally placed at the roof.

There is a cold water pipe coming in and hot water pipe going out.

Network Connectivity Infrastructure - Each rack has a provision to connect to network. Network connectivity equipment is provided within each rack, from where it goes to the distribution frame. Each row of racks typically has a distribution panel, where all the cabling gets consolidated. This is further connected to the core switches in the Data Centre. Figure 2 shows a typical Network connectivity distribution panel.

Environment Control InfrastructureIT Data Centres have humidity equipment and also de-humidifiers to control humidity.

Fire Control Equipment

Figure 2: Elements of an IT Data Center

•

Security Equipment - Secure and restricted access is another important component of an IT Data Centre. The access is enabled using biometric devices. Secure Data Centres with restricted access can also be controlled and managed remotely.

CORE OF DATA CENTRE People and Processes off course, form an integral and core part of an IT Data Centre.

Reliability, High Availability, Serviceability, modularity and flexibility are the key design parameters for an IT Data Centre. Typically customers are asking for 99.999% availability. The 5 nine availability is not easy to achieve and it actually points to about 15 minutes of downtime during the entire year.

To achieve 5 nines availability, both the IT infrastructure and site infrastructure should be 99.999% available. If the facility infrastructure is not 99.999% available, there is no use of high availability of the IT Infrastructure.

The Uptime institute classified IT Data Centres into various Tier levels depending on their Availability criteria. A Tier 1 Data Centre infrastructure is composed of a single path for power and cooling, without redundant components. This typically leads to 99.671% availability, which is about 29 hours of annual downtime.

A Tier 2 Data Centre infrastructure is composed of a single path for Power and cooling equipment, with redundant components, leading to 99.741%

availability, which translates to 22 hours of annual downtime. A Tier 3 Data Centre infrastructure is composed of multiple active power and cooling distribution paths, with one active path at a time, having redundant components, and is concurrently maintainable, providing 99,982% availability or about 1.6 hours of annual downtime. On the other extreme is a Tier 4 Data Centre Infrastructure, which is composed of multiple active power and cooling distribution paths, each having redundant components and is fault tolerant, providing 99.995% availability.

This translates to an annul site caused IT downtime of about 15 minutes.

It may be reiterated that the overall downtime and availability depends both on the availability of IT as well as Facilities infrastructure. A Tier 4 Data Centre Facility with non Redundant IT infrastructure like non-redundant servers etc. may still not provide 99.999% availability. To achieve the desired levels of availability, it is mandatory to have both the IT as well as the Facilities infrastructure availability.

Apart from the infrastructural considerations, It is also important to have continuous interaction and collaboration

between the IT and Facilities department.

Typically, most of the IT Data Centres have separate IT and Facilities units.

There is limited or minimal interaction between the two units. A problem in one unit may not be of importance to the other unit. But, the fact is, a problem in one unit can cause problem or availability issues for the other unit. It is therefore most important to have collaborative engagement between the two units.

The organisation structure of these Data Centres should provision for the same.

This interaction is also important for deeper understanding of cost and energy implications. A collaborative structure between the IT and Facilities units, and a representation from both the units in the senior management or Board, can lead to better understanding of the critical issues, with a better chance of resolving them in an efficient manner.

It is strongly recommended to critically evaluate the options for both the IT and

Figure 3: Collaboration between IT and Facilities Infrastructure

Facilities infrastructure, for the upcoming State Data Centres in the country. The States should look for an Organisation Structure with a collaborative engagement between the IT and Facilities department, to together evaluate and decide on the parameters for availability, cost reduction and energy preservation leading to a highly effective and efficient IT Data Centre. \\

AJAY AHUJA

Ajay Ahuja is working on some research initiatives with the Department of Management Studies at IIT Delhi. He also works as Systems Engineering Manager with Sun Microsystems India Pvt. Ltd. He has been involved in various Technology enablement initiatives along with designing and architecting solutions for various enterprises across the Government, Education and Defence segments. He may be reached at ajay.ahuja@sun.com

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INDIA NEWS

HARYANA TO GET STATE DATA CENTRES BY 2010

KERALA SETTING UP SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE

Haryana State Data Centre (SDC) will be set up by 2010 March at an estimated cost of Rs 50.68 crore. Out of the total cost, Rs 13.50 crore will be contributed by the Department of Information Technology, Government of India and the balance will be met through additional central assistance for National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) provisions of Planning Commission.

Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation (HARTRON) has been identified as the State Designated Agency (SDA) for implementing the common services centre (CSC ) scheme in the state for establishing and operating 1159 rural CSCs and 104 Urban CSCs to be called “E-Disha Ekal Seva Kendras” under Public Private Partnership model.

The Kerala State Government has announced the setting up of a spatial data infrastructure called the Kerala State Spatial Data Infrastructure (KSSDI).

The objective of the SSDI is to provide a basis for spatial data discovery, evaluation and application for users and providers within all levels of Government, the commercial as well as the non-profit sector, academia and the citizens in general. It would also aim at creating a reliable and supporting environment to access geographically related information using a minimum set of standard practices, protocols and specifications.

The process of selection of the turnkey partner has already been initiated and the Request for Proposal is available at Kerala State IT Mission Web site www. itmission.kerala.gov.in.

RTI APPLICATIONS TO BE HANDLED ONLINE BY RAILWAYS The Ahmedabad railway division will handle Right to Information (RTI) cases online from 2010 to cut cost and time wasted in responding to queries of applicants at present. The initiative is aimed at bringing transparency in the process as well. The website, http://rti. railnet.gov.in will be handled by the railways Under the new system, railway authorities will scan RTI applications and forward them to departments concerned online instead of sending them through mail.

Through the new system railways will be able to save money and time for railways, while applicants will be able to check status of their cases online.

HI-TECH CAMERAS BEING PUT UP FOR THE GAMES A wide network of sophisticated cameras being installed across the Capital as part of the security plan for the upcoming Commonwealth Games will be regulated through a video-analytics software for object-oriented surveillance.

Three categories of cameras, fixed, pantilt-zoom and mega-pixel, will be part of

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the intelligent surveillance system that will be monitored on a real-time basis from the Command, Control, Communication, Coordination and Integration Centre being established at Delhi Police Headquarters.

The video-analytics software would enable the police to define conditions for surveillance as per the requirements of any specific location to detect a specific event. The cameras installed to oversee traffic arrangements will also be part of the same network. The “intelligent” surveillance system is expected to become functional by next June.

EYE SCAN AND FINGERPRINTS OF RURAL POPULATION FOR UID

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) might take all 10 finger prints besides an eye scan of all residents in rural India to avoid loss of physical identification due to harsh working conditions.

The issue that UIDAI is trying to counter is the erosion of fingerprints of people who are involved in heavy physical labour or eye sight being affected over a period of time. While in metros and urban areas, the agency could go in for either one mode of biometrics, it could be forced to do two different modes of biometrics for rural India.

CSC ROLL OUT GETTING DELAYED The 6th National Summit on e-Governance by ASSOCHAM held on September 30, 2009 focused on the ‘Role of e-Governance in Bharat Nirman’. Supported by the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology and the Ministry of Personnel, PG & Pensions, Government of India, the Summit highlighted that many of the Bharat Nirman Centers (BNCs), earlier known as Common Service Centers (CSC), the main tool of national e-governance program, are slowly fading out due to the lack of fund and improper connectivity issue. SR Rao, Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India, who was also the chief guest, expressed the need to enhance government-to-citizen services (G2C) at BNCs to make them profitable for their survival. The BNCs are vital for the growth and job creation in the industry, he added.

The Central Government, with integrated support from state governments, had a plan to roll out one lakh CSCs by the mid-2008 but till august 2008 end only 50008 CSCs were rolled out. From these CSCs, the government has admitted that lack of funds and non-profitable business

INDIA NEWS

has led some of these centers to become non-operational.

CMDA LAYOUT PLANS COME ONLINE The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in a major e-Governance initiative has launched the computerisation of layout preparation and launching of the layout plans approved by the organisation on its website on October 28, 2009.

The initiative will help people know the availability of approved plots for purchase.

The website, www.cmdachennai.gov.in will also help in checking the authenticity of the approved details of the plots and also the approved layout roads available for the lands located around it.

UP SET TO LAUNCH e-DISTRICT SCHEME The Uttar Pradesh state government is all set to launch e-District scheme in all over the state to promote e-Governance in every sphere of life and activity of the people. Promoted by the department of IT and Electronics, the scheme is at present operational in the districts of Sitapur, Sultanpur, Rae Bareli, Gorakhpur, Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad. It will soon encompass all the districts of the state.

Out of 885 centres for the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), 830 have been constructed and remaining will be ready by the November end. The government has set a target of establishing 17,909 public utility centres in the state by March, 2010 out of which already 4,500 public utility centres have already been established and are working.

ESI BENEFICIARIES IN PUNJAB TO GET SMART ID CARDS The Punjab State Government has launched magnetic identification smart cards for those registered under the

Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESI) scheme.

Named as “pehchaan”, these smart cards will replace the existing paperbased identity cards. New cards will be equipped with a magnetic chip storing the medical history of the bearer as well as his family members covered under the ESI insurance policy. It will entitle the insured person as well as his family members to step into any ESI dispensary, accredited hospitals or branch office of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) across the country.

EVOLVING A CITIZENCENTRIC RURAL e-GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK A unique and innovative effort, titled ‘Evolving a Citizen-Centric Rural eGovernance Framework’ with its flagship event ‘Citizen Consultation Round (CCR)’ alias ‘Nagarik Paramarsh Dhaur’ was jointly organized by Center of ICT and e-Governance, Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi and Center of Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-D), on 5 October 2009, Monday at IIPA. Director IIPA, B.S. Baswan upheld the underlying philosophy of Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, “The democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below by the people of every village.” He shared that the goal of the CCR is to involve masses and to elicit from them various issues confronting rural governance and ICT implementation at the grassroots. The event was graced by eminent experts such as AIWC President (Ms. Gomathi Nair), Joint Secretary, DIT (Mr. Shankar Aggarwal), Director eGovernance (Mr. Sanjeev Kumar) and experienced e-Government practitioners

like Mr. Puneet Kumar (IAS) and other experts including illustrious names such as Prof. L.K.Das, Dr. V.M. Chariar from IIT-D, Dr. Ravi Gupta (editor, CSDMS), Dr. Geeta Malhotra (Country Director, Rural Education Development (READ), Mrs Aruna Chaba and Sh. D.C. Misra from NIC and several more from from IIPA and IIT-D. The panel members were rural citizens, their representatives, policy makers, gram sabha members, panchayat samiti, and representatives of other grassroots organizations including presidents/ Secretaries of Farmers’ unions, Youth Unions, Self Help Groups of women and representatives of field level NGOs, etc, who have been categorized into 5 groups namely Naari, Yuva, Kaarigar, Kisaan and Adivasi.

This event was an interactive learning experience for all and the e-Governance framework, so it could serve as a valuable input for policy making and project designing. As per Charru Malhotra, Project Coordinator and Asst ProfessorIIPA, the outcome of CCR event was to provide valuable inputs for design of a citizen centric, Government to Citizen to Government (G2C2G) rural e-governance framework to achieve more meaningful and effective rural governance”.

AP STATE POLICE BUILDS ONLINE NETWORK As part of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project being developed under the National e-Governance plan of the Central Government, the Andhra Pradesh State Police are all set to build an online network to outwit criminals ‘APeCOPS’ which stands for Andhra Pradesh Society for Electronic Computerisation of Police Services, the online network and database system will be used for automate police functions at police stations apart from creating facilities/ mechanism to provide improved public services. It will also administer the implementation of programmes and projects involving information communication technology and egovernance in administrative structure and police stations to improve the internal efficiency as well as quality of services to the public.

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COVER FEATURE

State Data Centre: Learning and Way Ahead RAKESH KAUL MANAGING CONSULTANT.PWC

BACKGROUND State Data Centre (SDC) has been identified as one of the important element of the core infrastructure for supporting e-Governance initiatives of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).

Under NeGP, it is proposed to create State Data Centres to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. These services can be rendered by the States through common delivery platform seamlessly supported by core Connectivity Infrastructure such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centre (CSC) connectivity extended up to the village level.

It is envisaged that SDC will act as server consolidation for all the state departments and will provide Central Repository, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/ Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Disaster Recovery (DR), Remote Management and Service Integration, etc. SDCs would also provide better operation and management control and minimise overall cost of Data Management, IT Resource Management, Deployment and other costs (Source: www.mit.gov.in) IMPLEMENTATION PLAN The solution would be implemented by a vendor selected through a competitive bidding process, and the DC site would be prepared by the respective state governments. The key to the successful implementation is conceptualisation and selection of qualified and experienced agency to implement the solution. The

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selected consultant for implementation would effectively interface with all the key stakeholders, such as State Implementing Agency (SIA), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology – Government of India (MCIT) and Data Centre Operator (DCO) and propose an optimal PublicPrivate-Partnership (PPP) operating model for the project. The Request for Proposal (RFP) encapsulates the bidders’ scope of delivery, proposed technology, Service Levels Agreement (SLA), etc. The proposed technology in RFP would also be devoid of vendor locking components thus rendering a fair chance for all eligible players. The RFP shall be flexible enough to accommodate the bidder’s expertise and value additions (if any) in the proposed SDC architecture.

IMPLEMENTATION STATUS SDC operators have been selected in some of the States and deployment of the solution has been initiated. The following diagram depicts the current status as it is in various states.

CHALLENGES AND ISSUES Planning and implementation of such a magnitude and scale is fraught with many difficulties. Some of the challenges faced so far are as follows: Frameworks: 1. Interoperability Departments are on different technology platforms. However, to ensure that the Data Center is effectively implemented, data must

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

be interchangeable. Moreover, due to the presence of different Original Equipments Manufacturers (OEMs) across departments, managing all of them on single Data Center is an issue. Hence, interoperability is the key to successful implementation of the data center.

Creating synergy between different initiatives to leverage full potential: Creating synergy between different initiatives such as SWAN, CSC, applications is key to fully utilise the functionality of SDC. Some of the states are in their early stages of SWAN, CSC implementation.

SDC Governance: A clear and well defined governance framework should exist for the smooth and effective operations of SDC due to multiple stakeholders. The formation of a composite team with a clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities would ensure accountability in the system and would also ensure that issues can be resolved in a timely manner.

Proper evaluation for the Physical Site: The states have two options for identification of the physical location. Either they could choose an existing site or build a new one.

Each one of these option poses its own sets of challenges. Choosing an existing site, calls for a feasibility assessment. Moreover, responsibility of strengthening the site needs to be allocated. Building a new site entails fund allocation, identification of a builder, and has lead to delays.

Finalisation of Application for Final Acceptance Testing: The state must select an application for FAT. Currently there are decentralised stand-alone applications, and the presence of centralised applications is low. Therefore selection of this application has been delayed in several states. Moreover, if an application is not identified, sizing for the data center cannot be done, delaying the RFP release, leading to overall delays in the project.

Streamline the IT operations: To ensure quality of the services, process and procedures needs to be defined and implemented.

Although experience of the vendor was evaluated for the similar project however defining and process stabilisation is very important to provide quality of services to all stakeholders. The bidder must acquire ISO 20000, and ISO 27001

certifications and sustain it for the next 5 years.

GOING FORWARD There are technologies and options to make Data Centers more efficient and effective. Technologies such as green data center, virtualisation, and cloud computing can do so.

CLOUD COMPUTING Cloud computing has been trumpeted as the biggest breakthrough since e-Commerce. Though the assertion is yet to be proved, but clearly this new computing model is transforming the way IT services are provided, consumed, and managed. Unlike many technologies, cloud computing as evolved in response to customer needs for better, faster, and cheaper methods of managing Information Technology.

Indeed, individual customer demand defines the level of services, applications, storage, and availability that the cloud delivers.

Technology rarely evolves based purely on customer needs, but cloud computing appears to be an exception.

However, adopting cloud computing requires a new mindset, as well as new processes, skills, and tools. Implementation of a cloud solution demands an analysis of business needs, expected benefits, and the capabilities of the cloud service provider. With cloud computing, data security is a particularly critical issue that requires highly skilled guidance in planning and implementation.

VIRTUALISATION Virtualisation technology got its start on mainframes decades ago, allowing administrators to avoid wasting expensive processing power. However, it’s has again started picking because of obvious reason. Virtualisation is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources. Operating system virtualisation is the use of software to allow a piece of

hardware to run multiple operating system images at the same time. Virtualisation can be viewed as part of an overall trend in enterprise IT that includes autonomic computing, a scenario in which the IT environment will be able to manage itself based on perceived activity, and utility computing, in which computer processing power is seen as a utility that clients can pay for only as needed. The usual goal of virtualisation is to centralise administrative tasks while improving scalability and work loads.

WAY FORWARD The high availability is one of the critical requirements of the Data Centre. As the systems are going to be centralised, continues and High availability of the Data Centre will be very critical. State would be required to establish appropriate Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan (DR and BCP) along with appropriate data backup and recovery infrastructure.

The DR arrangement has been envisaged to be established and provided

by NIC. NIC is in the process of setting up National Data Centres at Hyderabad and Pune of the order of 8000 sq. ft. each, apart from existing National Data Centre at Delhi. These centers will be connected through high speed networks to support data/application back-up facility and likely to be operational within one year time frame. While these centers will house largely central government data, these would have enough capacity to be used as DRs for the SDCs on a regional basis.

One more Data Centre to take care of the eastern region is planned to be setup by NIC at Bhubaneswar for which a budget provision over 5 years period has been included in the SDC scheme outlay.

Keeping in view the security, availability, reliability requirements of the Data Center, DIT, Government of India in their guidelines have clearly highlighted the need for indentifying a suitable vendor for all the above operations. As the Data Center Operator will be playing a major role in the development of IT, it is essential that the selection process is transparent and objectively driven. \\

RAKESH KAUL

Rakesh Kaul is the Managing Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Limited. He is a Masters in Business Administration from IIFT, Delhi. He has about 15 years of experience.

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COVER FEATURE

Data Centres: The Heart of the Matter!

SUDHIR AGGARWAL SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND HEAD – GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES FOR ENTERPRISE DIVISION, SIFY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED

Today’s highly competitive, dynamic, and demanding business scenario is making every board room across sectors (be it Corporate, Government, Public Sector) think time and again to focus on core business areas and outsource the peripheral and support activities. From ICT (Information and Communication Technology) perspective, one extreme is ‘Total Outsourcing’ and the other extreme is ‘totally in-house developed and managed solution’. ‘No one size fits all’ holds absolutely good here, hence every organisation needs to decide appropriately for itself at different point of times.

DATA CENTRE: NEED OF THE HOUR Data Centre (DC) once not heard so much or something meant for select handful has become need of the hour for most organisations across sectors. Some of the key reasons for this change are (a) ICT usage is extended to all relevant stakeholders beyond internal users for MIS (b) most business functions are dependent on ICT for their day-to-day functioning (BAU–Business As Usual) (c) ICT is becoming the tool to help organisations being agile and flexible to respond to ever-changing business scenarios and requirements, (d) Need for centralised computing to reduce capex as cost is also driving organisation to think of DC, and many more. However Data Centre continues to be a scarce commodity in India, in terms of capacity.

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KEY DRIVER High availability in overall context happens to be the key driver and critical factor in Data Centre business. That is how Uptime Institute has defined standards for Data Centre from availability perspective, i.e., Tier I – Uptime 99.671, Tier II – Uptime 99.749, Tier III – Uptime 99.982, and Tier IV – Uptime 99.995. It is critical to note, all four tier lies between 99.671 to 99.995.

Categories of Data Centre: Data Center can broadly be covered under two categories, in-house and Internet Data Centre (IDC). IDC are primarily commercial Data Centre made available to host client’s ICT infrastructure. IDC deliver stringent SLAs (Service Level Agreement) Investment: Data Centre investment broadly falls under two heads capex (Capital expenditure) and opex (Operational expenses). Further these investments go in three areas: IT, Non-IT, and Operations & Management (O&M).

From a five year perspective, the typical healthy ratio of Capex: Opex is 50:50.

In layman words one can relate Data Centre to commercial business/ shopping mall. Given an option to create an outlet in a commercial mall, one gets certain things by entitlement like Uninterrupted power supply, Air-conditioning, security, parking, food court, emergency services,

DATA CENTRE SERVICES Some of the typical Data Centre services can be briefed as below: Hosting Services, Managed Storage Services Managed Connetivity/VPN Services Infrastructure Management Services Virtualisation Services Managed Security Services

public conveniences, value added services. However an outlet can still be created in line with one’s own patent, design, and other requirements. One

small conclusion here is ‘nothing to loose and everything to gain’. Ofcourse, Data Centre is much more technical matter to deal with.

“It is the level of maturity in bringing together the people, processes, infrastructure, tools and technology that matters in delivery of trusted Data Centre services on continuous and sustainable basis” At macro level, Data Centre services covers Data Centre • Near DR (Disaster Recovery), and • DR/BC (Business continuity).

• Disaster could be natural calamities (Tsunami, floods, earthquake, etc.) and/or human-sponsored (9/11 (11th Sep) in USA, 26/11 (26th Nov) Mumbai blast, …). In the current context of business complexities, it would be interesting to also have a quick look at Business Continuity ‘BC’. Often DR and BC are interchangeably used, while BC is complementary and supplementary to DR. DR is within the domain of IT department and the purpose and scope remains limited to ICT assets.

Disaster Recovery Plan: DR plan is usually limited in scope to a set of defined IT systems and infrastructure, with the ultimate goal being the complete/near complete recovery of those systems and infrastructure within a defined timeframe and with minimal/no data loss. DR plan covers the entire organisation perspective, only to the extent it holds the data pertaining to respective departments, and that too, to the coverage of each department in overall DR plan of IT department.

Business Continuity Plan: BC plan covers the entire enterprise with the ultimate goal being recovery of missioncritical/ core business functions to ensure survival of the enterprise.

An organisation may have one or multiple BC plan depending upon its size and nature of business. BC plan is

mostly part of organisation’s business (other than morale and social) critical requirements. However it is statutory, as well in some cases in line with provisions of Civil Contingencies Act. In a small way, some organisations may even implement BC under staff welfare and safety.

Most progressing and modern times organisation now do not regard BC plan as cost, but as a key value added improvement process firmly integrated with risk management and differentiator while competing in their own market.

Difference between DR and BC: The other key difference between a DR and BC concerns the definition of what to recover and what to exclude. Business continuity requires the definition and determination of response to risk (Risk Analysis and response) the definition of possible failure areas (a Single Point of failure or SPOF analysis) and the determination of the impact of these areas on the business as a whole (Business Impact Analysis or BIA).

This analysis will result in determination of what business functions are “core” or “mission critical” – these are the business functions that are essential for the survival of the enterprise and will by necessity be the focus of the BC effort.

Creating DR/ BC plan is one aspect, while the success lies in successfully executing the plan. In case of DR/ BC in IDC more so, as service provider commits to client organisations to help running their organisation smoothly through its own experience and expertise. Else always there are gaps between plan and execution; but this is something ZERO tolerance zone.

Sify’s DR and BC Plan: Sify, being leader in Data Centre services in the Country, has developed a framework of services to assist organisations to subscribe to the required services as desired and required.

Sify has more than 600 person-years extensive experience and expertise in

“Advance planning and preparation which is necessary to identify the impact of potential losses, to formulate and implement viable continuity strategies, and to develop continuity plan(s) which ensure continuity of organisational services in the event of an incident” NOTE: The deliverable from business continuity planning is a business continuity plan (BCP) which is a documented collection of procedures and information that is developed, compiled and maintained in readiness for use in an incident.

delivering DC/ BC services with more than 100 qualified professionals (CISA, CISSP, CCNA, …) on board. Sify has developed a comprehensive suite of services to assist organisations in managing their BC programme life cycle right from conceptualisation through execution.

Sify is uniquely placed to address the requirement of organisations in need of an effective business continuity plan.

Sify delivers services using its proven global delivery model which leverages its world class network and data center infrastructure, and top notch technology talent. The services are customisable, Service Level Agreement (SLA) driven and offer value proposition to organisations across sectors seeking to improve the return on their investments.

SUCCESS FACTORS FOR DATA CENTRE Operations and Management (O&M) is the real test of any successful Data Centre. It is quite significant to capture O&M perspective right at Data Centre design stage from recurring cost, SLA, and other non-functional aspects like Performance, High availability, Scalability, Power usage and consumption to deliver uptime between 99 to 100 under four tiers. Optimal Power planning, Power availability and Power consumtion are

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“If Datacenter is seen in the context of a human body: entire nervous system is like connectivity, mind and soul is the application, and heart is Datacenter hosting.”

among the critical success factors of a Data Centre. It is pretty significant in Data Centre business to effectively manage forward and backward supply chain in partnering spirit wrt. backend suppliers/ partners and customers and their requirements.

Optimal and effective helpdesk deployment is yet another critical success factors in Data Centre operations.

Helpdesk operations plays an important role in managing and monitoring SLA. Security plan and implementation can give sleepless nights to Data Centre operations, esp. while committing SLA like ‘client’s application will never be hacked’; however it is the experience of managing optical mix of people, tools and technology, and processes can enable Data Centre operator commit such strict SLA. In today’s times, Security is most vunerable subject.

As the business operations are more and more carried out around ICT, some of the non-functional requirements becomes most critical like Performance, Scalability, Application management, continuous updation and upgradation of entire ICT infrastructure, Network management, … Continous and periodic

proactive health check of systems and analysis and implementing ratification measures are among critical success factors in delivering SLA. BEST PRACTICES IN DATA CENTRE In true sense Data Centre operations are built around certain standards (ITIL, ISO 27001, ISO 20000, …) and best practices. The best practices are always evolving in nature as benchmarks and business scenario/requirements keep changing. Optimal manpower planning and deployment plays an important role

in success of a Data Centre in terms of cost and delivering SLA. GREEN DATA CENTRE Continous stock taking of Data Centre assets (IT and Non-IT) from obsolensce perspective is yet another significant requirements, more so in modern days under the ‘Green’ initiatives. At times, the cost of replacement is paid off much faster from the savings achieved under ‘Green’ initiatives. Such initiatives also helps in derisking the overall risk factors within Data Centre. Data Centre management is something like playing Golf, one keep challenging and fighting oneself. \\

SUDHIR AGGARWAL

SUDHIR AGGARWAL is Senior Vice President and Head – Government initiatives for Enterprise Division at Sify Technologies Limited. He is responsible for Strategic business development in Government and Defense segment. Sudhir Aggarwal joined Sify in January 2008, as Senior Vice President and Head – Government initiatives. He is responsible to particularly focusing in creating very large opportunities in the Government and Defense segments Prior to his tenure at Sify, he held General Manager, Government (Business Development) at Oracle.

SIFY TO SET UP TIER III DATACENTRES Sify Technologies will set up two more Tier III or Level III standard datacentres in Noida and Bangalore. The company already has several datacentres spread across Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and the new ones will also follow the same standards across India. Sify intends to double its datacentre space in India to around 4 lakh square feet, from the present 2 lakh square feet. It proposes to invest about INR 300 crore to increase the datacentre capabilities in India. The datacentres will remain in the Tier III category and not Tier IV as preferred by most companies. Nagendran S, national head (Corporate Accounts Enterprise Solutions) of Sify Technologies, said, “The only problem with most datacentres in India is that, since they have only one source of power and don t get power from two independent companies, they are categorized as Tier III datacentres.”

As per the industry standards, Tier IV datacenters with their 99.995% availability provide the highest levels of performance for mission-critical IT systems, but only a couple of datacentres in India seem to have earned that distinction.

However, Nagendran said, all our datacentres meet the standards for the Tier IV datacentres. In fact, we offer customers redundancy of 99.995%, which is mandatory for all banks and financial institutions.

Regarding the new datacentres, he said it will be from ground up and will have it built depending on the market requirement.

Sify claims to have over 400 corporate customers who have hosted their services on their datacentres. Some of the corporate include Vodafone, and AT&T. All our corporate clients sign a multi-year contract with us, he said.

The company provides independent services to its clients and the services range from level 1 support, management security services, management storage services, among others.

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COVER FEATURE

& Management: An Integrated Approach NEETA VERMA SENIOR TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INFORMATICS CENTRE

Penetration of Internet, use of Web technologies, globalisation of operations have moved most of the critical IT Infrastructure of organisations be it Intranet or Internet applications to the Data Centres, resulting in the need for much larger capacities in Data Centres.

Requirements for reliability and availability of services has also risen as it now has a direct impact on the functioning of the organisation. While on the other side, increased energy consumption, booming operations cost, increasing threats of natural disasters are making Data Centre (DC) an expensive asset of the organisation, not just the means to delivery of services. Thus, there is a pressing demand on cost effective operations and management of DCs with high level of quality and reliability of services being delivered.

SETTING UP DATA CENTRE Setting up Data Centre needs a lot of understanding of current and future requirements, planning and provisioning for future technologies and is generally considered to be a capital intensive activity. However, what often one does not realise is that the Operational Cost of Data Centre over the years also becomes very high. While a lot of emphasis is being laid on energy efficiency and green computing to reduce, rather optimise

Six Steps to Greater Data Centre Efficiency 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Rationalise your application portfolio Consolidate & eliminate under utilised servers Increase server Virtualisation ratio Enforce “virtual first� policy for new Apps Increase storage utilisation and reclaim storage capacity Optimise Data Centre temperature Forrester Research

the over all power consumption in Data Centre. There are other aspects of Data Centre operations which are also of high significance. There is in fact a need for a comprehensive view of Data Centre services and operations. Forrester in one of its recent report has highlighted some simple measures one can take to increase the Data Centre efficiency. (refer box) LAYERED INFRASTRUCTURE Data Centre could be seen as a set of seven layers from basic site, power and cooling infrastructure to core ICT infrastructure to Services layer. Different approaches are being taken to manage different layers. Basic Site with raised floor, control centre, fire protection,

staging infrastructure to power and cooling infrastructure i.e., layer 1 to layer 2, comprise of Physical domain/ Infrastructure. These are generally managed either through respective OEMs or through an outsourced agency.

Large Data Centres also have their own civil and electrical engineers for overall control of the physical infrastructure in the Data Centre. Lot of initiatives are being taken to optimise the cost and increase energy efficiency at this layer. These initiatives include proper airflow, hot/cold aisle containment, cable management, alternate cooling technologies, maintaining an optimal temperature in Data Centre etc.

ICT Infrastructure in Data Centre generally comprises of Layers 3, 4 and

Lr7

Services

Lr6

Applications

Lr5

Compute Infrastructure (Servers & Software)

Lr4

Core ICT Infrastructure (Storage, Switches, backup)

Lr3

Networking

Lr2

Power & Cooling Infrastructure

Lr1

Basic Site (raised floor, NOC, Fire protection,..)

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Integrated Infrastructure Management (IIM) shall enable the Data Centre Operations and Management team to get a comprehensive view of Data Centres across all its layers. It shall present the dependencies of resources in one layer over another layer. With the adoption of Integrated approach in management, Data Centre team shall be able to understand the correlation between adjacent layers.

5. Layer 3 and 4 are managed by IT Operations Team of the Data Centre.

Layer 4 has compute infrastructure housed in Data Centre under different service models such as shared, dedicated, collocated and managed.

Accordingly, different management approaches are adopted to manage compute infrastructure setup under different service models. Virtualisation, cloud computing, infrastructure as a service are latest technologies, being deployed in ICT infrastructure layer. Wide range of management softwares are available for this layer. Nowadays most of the hardware manufacturers provide browser enabled software, along with their equipments to facilitate convenient management of the equipment be it provisioning of resources, configuring security or monitoring the performance and trouble shooting.

Generally, large Data Centres are a complex environment with heterogeneous set of equipment from number of different companies.

Product driven management software firstly becomes specific to only that component; secondly they also create silos of management windows and therefore, getting a comprehensive view of Data Centre becomes a challenge.

Customising proprietary software supplied with different products to get an integrated view is generally not feasible.

A number of vendor neutral solutions are also available for ICT infrastructure.

They are generally quite rich in terms of features such as topology creation,

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threshold management, proactive alerts, incident reporting, trend analysis, management reporting, dash boards etc.

These tools are however pretty complex and quite expensive too. Most of such tools are priced on license per node being monitored, whereby one is expected to procure a license for every node/ port being monitored and managed using such software. Alternatively, one can also consider using open source software, customised to their specific requirement.

Data Centre managers are therefore, required to assess the criticality of applications and services being delivered and understand the service levels they are bound with to take an appropriate decision.

Layer 6 & 7 comprise of Service layers, dealing with delivery of services to organisation as well as their clients. This is the layer where service levels with respect to reliability, availability, performance and security are generally measured. A wide range of softwares are also available in this domain to facilitate monitoring and meeting the agreed service levels.

Security Infrastructure cuts across all the layers, be it Physical Infrastructure, ICT Infrastructure or Service Layer and is a combination of hardware appliances, devices and software tools. Thus, each of the seven layers have their own set of management softwares, helping in provisioning and monitoring of resources in respective layers, with respect to the parameters defined.

However, most of these softwares have been generally working independent of each other in past. We have seen some integration efforts in the recent past particularly in the ICT layer. They are also driven by the need for virtualisation, cloud computing, infrastructure as service offerings.

Initiatives are also being taken to provide integrated offerings spanning across major components of ICT infrastructure i.e., servers, storage and network primarily for better monitoring and efficient utilisation of resources.

NEED FOR INTEGRATED INFRASTRUCTURE Quality of services being delivered with respect to availability, reliability,

performance and security, depends on the health of almost all the layers of Data Centre. Any weak link in the chain can have adverse impact on service quality.

Thus, there is a need to get a holistic view of service delivery infrastructure deployed across all layers. Failure of one port on a SAN switch can bring the entire application down. Failure of one power distribution unit can create havocs.

Addition of one more application to data centre can impact the performance of existing applications. Need for redundancy configurations driven on service levels need to be not only provisioned but maintained in an ongoing manner, is pertinent. Data Centres are often challenged by varied requests of a wide range of complexities with a high order of urgency. Time to go live is often much less than need for proper planning, conducting an impact analysis etc. Keeping track of the service level requirements of different services, their impact on adjacent layers is quite a daunting task particularly in large data centres.

One also comes across situations where each layer of the data centre is individually performing very well against all defined parameters, still application is not able to meet desired service levels. Different layers being monitored and managed independently restricts correlation between the layers and troubleshooting such incidents is quite time intensive, needs engagement of highly experienced professionals and also impacts the reputation of the service under scanner.

Lack of coordination between the physical infrastructure and ICT infrastructure, between ICT infrastructure and service layer is of great concern.

Thus, there is a need to adopt integrated Infrastructure management approach which cuts across all the layers of Data Centre.

IIM implementation shall also help in effective monitoring of Data Centre resources, application and services. troubleshooting, fault determination involving a set of resources across layers, such as dip in performance of service with no apparent symptom, can be made far more effective with IIM implementation. the adoption of Integrated approach in management, Data Centre team shall be able to understand the correlation between adjacent layers. It shall help in carrying out impact analysis of addition, removal, of any resource at any layer in data centre to the set of services being delivered from data centre. Upgrading of firmware, software versions, installation of patches can also cause unexpected disruption of services in Data Centre.

Comprehensive view of Data Centre with cross dependencies of components shall help data centre team in avoiding such situations.

IIM approach shall also enable service administrator to view the dependencies of a service on various components of data centre across all its layers not only raising his confidence but shall also help in avoiding, deployment of unnecessary resources.

IIM implementation shall also help in effective monitoring of Data Centre resources, application and services. troubleshooting, fault determination involving a set of resources across layers, such as dip in performance of service with no apparent symptom, can be made far more effective with IIM implementation. Lot of routine activities in terms of reporting, performance tracking, configuration management could be

handled far more efficiently with much less human resource.

Integrated Infrastructure Management shall also help in carrying out a lot of proactive monitoring and avert possible failures. History data of performance, reliability and availability can be used in carrying out trend analysis leading to provision of right resources before the service actually has an adverse impact.

Comprehensive view of Data Centre resources shall also avoid situations of mismatch of resources leading to under utilisation of resources on one layer and overconsumption of resources on the other layer such as a large server with high power consumption running at very very low scale of utilisation; while on the other side there is application waiting for deployment in the want of power/ cooling resource. Worse could be a case, when an application is not able to deliver desired service level despite availability of resources on the other end.

Thus, adoption of Integrated Infrastructure Management approach in Data Centre shall help in achieving High order of efficiency in Data Centre operations, effective monitoring and optimal deployment of resources, leading to a significant reduction in Data Centre operations cost with much higher quality of service delivery. \\

BENEFITS OF INTEGRATED INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT Integrated Infrastructure Management (IIM) shall enable the Data Centre Operations and Management team to get a comprehensive view of Data Centres across all its layers. It shall present the dependencies of resources in one layer over another layer. With

NEETA VERMA

Neeta Verma is Senior Technical Director, National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India. She is looking after Data Centre and Web Services. She may be reached at neeta@nic.in

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COVER INTERVIEW

Cabling the Data Centres www.digilink.in

DEBRAJ DAM SALES HEAD – STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS, DIGILINK

“We are among the first to take “Green Initiative” in Structured Cabling System (SCS) industry in India which provides superior quality products with RoHS compliant which can improve our customers network life cycle. We always keep doing research for new technology and now time has come to opt for the newest adaptation in SCS technology.”

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// INTERVIEW

DIGILINK is a globally recognised brand providing end-to-end range of structured cabling solutions. Tell us about some of your products in this regard.

DIGILINK is front runner in providing Compact Product line, which can save space and keep adequate empty floor and overheads for future expansion and thus reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Our initiative and product reliability save down-time, increase redundancy and feature like Intelligent Manageability serve for better monitoring and eliminate human error.

We also provide flexible Structured Cabling System (SCS) solution like MPO, ODF, Factory crimp customised length fan-out copper and fiber solutions and 10G copper and fiber solution apart from Intelligent BMS and Infrastructure solutions. We are among the first to offer, the world’s first laseroptimised multimode fibers, Clear Curve OM3/OM4 fibers. Some of the features include: Industry leading macro bending • performance below 10 mm radius High performance minEMBc • certified bandwidth to support 850 nm transmission at data rates of 10 Gb/s and beyond Higher data aggregation in the • backbone, riser and high-speed parallel interconnects (HSPIs) Fully backwards compatible and • ideally suited to current and future broad range of laser-based Protocols and applications Industry-leading CPC coatings • for superior micro bend and environmental performance DIGILINK recently rolled out its latest DIGILINK P800 cabling solution designed for augmented Category 6 performance, for termination of horizontal and backbone cabling. The DIGILINK P800 Product Range exceeds the latest Cat6A 10G standards by a comfortable margin. These RoHS Compliance patch panels with a robust construction are designed to provide excellent cable management.

And in fiber ODF, the ODFs are fiber management units, which organise fiber and fiber cable connections. The RoHS Compliance OptiPlus ODF, Optical Fiber Distribution Frame. A part of the Data Centre Solutions, the ODF comes

in different compact versions such as 12-Port, 24-Port, 36-Port, 48-Port and 72-Port. Our patented design RoHS compatible RJ-45 Keystone has contact terminals and a built in Booster Spacer mechanism that has designed profiled path and specifically fine tuned path lengths to reflex back while plugging and unplugging for connection giving a very good and reliable electrical contact. Thus minimises the cross talk to a great extent.

Initiative” in SCS industry in India to which provides superior quality products with RoHS compliant which can improve our customers network life cycle. We always keep doing research for new technology and now time has come to opt for the newest adaptation in SCS technology like In-Mold Decoration and Customised graphics multimedia I/O for Residential Cabling systems, GxPON technology for Campus connectivity and 5th generation IPLMS for our Data center solution.

What are the various government projects you are working on?

The government projects include: Orissa State Data Centre, ESIC, National e-Court, Common Service Centres (CSC), HPSWAN, Assam SWAN, OSWAN, FCS, Jharkhand Prison, Bihar Prison, e-Municipality, e-District, e-Office, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), and Rajiv Gandhi Sarva Shiksha Mission projects. Some standalone government clients include: PMO, Defense, ONGC, Durgapur Steel Plant, Bokaro Steel Plant BSNL, MTNL, UBI, DoP and GBBN.

Where does DIGILINK stand in structured cabling solution in the Indian as well as the global market?

DIGILINK is Declared as No 1 brand •

by CRN and PC Quest. In terms of User and Channel Preference.

DIGILINK stood steady in no 2 • position in SCS for Entire Calendar Year 2008 based on Revenue (As per IDC Q4’08 report) as well as current release of IDC Q1’09 report.

DIGILINK is the 1st Indian SCS • Manufacturer to introduce “Green Initiative” and “RoHS” Compliant product line.

Globally we are present in 22 • Countries and are gaining Brand popularity in other European country and American states.

How do you see Data Centres deployment in terms of good governance?

It will open up better transparency in government operation and will be providing the citizens a perfect view and awareness of government policies. It will also create right governance, High citizen awareness like e-Governance related services in rural area through Voice/ Video/Data capable service in faster and better manner, assessment of different government services in the area of health, education, utility, agriculture, employment exchanges, land record, income tax, etc and different institutional mechanism. It will improve the delivery of public service for private sector and private sector can utilise all these services in much more efficient manner.

How is DIGILINK meeting the evolving Digital Information needs of today and tomorrow?

SCS acts as a Blood vessel in the IT Infrastructure. In a Human body if Blood vessels are not circulating the blood properly to the Brain then we face medical problems. Similarly SCS holds the same equation in IT the infrastructure.

We are among the first to take “Green

What are your future plans in cabling solutions domain?

We have taken a number of measures of new product performance, rather than just the single measure continuum; this resulted in a performance map with multiple major and quite independent underlying dimensions of performance. A typology of performance was then developed - a classification of new product projects by how well they performed, evidence supports the notion that the new-product process - events, actions, and directions that take place in a new-product project from idea to launch through this we are reiterate our commitment to all our stake holders, partners and esteemed customer. We are currently working on FTTH and GxPON technology apart from that we are working indigenously various other new product development projects for Data Centre solution,10G solutions and beyond and Residential Cabling Solutions. \\ Gayatri Maheshwary gayatri@egovonline.net

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COVER FEATURE

Karnataka State Data Centre: Sharing Common Infrastructure M N VIDYASHANKAR PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, e-GOVERNANCE DEPARTMENT, GOVERNMENT OF KARNATAKA

INTRODUCTION • The State Data Centre of Government of Karnataka was set up during 200405 as a core common technology infrastructure. The State Data Centre (SDC) provides the infrastructure required for consolidating state level applications at a central facility.

The State Data Centre is hosted in a physically secure Data Centre located centrally at Reliance IDC, Khanija Bhavan, Bangalore. It is continuously monitored by surveillance mechanisms and administered by 24x7 operations and management staff.

SDC connects to the remote Taluka servers through a VSAT network. SDC also has dedicated fibre connectivity to the Treasury network and to the State Secretariat. Connectivity to the web is through a shared 100 Mbps line.

Karnataka State Wide Area Network (KSWAN) would be shortly commissioned to connect SDC to all the Taluks, which would phase out the existing VSAT connectivity.

OBJECTIVES • • • •

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Centralising and consolidating various government databases Providing shared infrastructure for various e-Governance projects Facilitating provisioning of government services online Facilitating provisioning of better and

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efficient services to citizens Facilitating services for backend departments

BENEFITS • • • • •

• • • • •

Physical Security 24x7 monitoring of servers Support from SDC support team Data Security – Firewall, IPS, Antivirus No procurement and maintenance cost of hardware and software, for the departments Vendor support, which ensures faster resolution of issues High Availability - Servers, Storage, Network Data convergence Centralisation of departmental data Can be used as Disaster Recovery (DR) site

DEPARTMENTS USING SDC The following departments are currently using SDC for hosting their servers and applications: INFRASTRUCTURE AT SDC Space: SDC was initially started with 110 Sq ft of server farm area and has now been expanded to 510 sq ft of server farm area. This space is sufficient to host 15 server racks.

At present 7 racks are populated

with servers, storage and networking components and 8 more rack space is available for future expansion.

Reliance also provides perimeter security for all servers hosted in SDC. Hardware & Software: SDC hardware comprises of: 1. 57 physical servers including rack servers and blade servers.

2. 32 Virtual servers 3. 24 TB of SAN storage 4. Hardware load balancer with Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) 5. Tape Library with 84 backup tapes (200/400 GB capacity) 6. 2 Layer, 2 & 4 Layer 3 switches SDC SOFTWARE COMPRISES OF: Operating System - Microsoft Server 2003/2008 & Red hat Linux 4.0 2. Database - Microsoft SQL 2000 & 2005, Oracle 10g, MySQL 3. Virtualisation – Vmware ESX server 4. Firewall – Microsoft ISA 2004/2006 5. Portal - Microsoft Sharepoint server 2007 6. Mail – Microsoft Exchange 2003 7. Content Management – Microsoft Content Management server 2002 8. Antivirus – Symantec Endpoint protection & Sophos Endpoint Control 9. Backup - CA Bright store R12 10. Monitoring – HP Openview 1.

SDC SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM

3. Departments using SDC The following departments are currently using SDC for hosting their servers and applications: Department

Application

Users

Department of e-Governance

HRMS

Human Resource Management System for Government of Karnataka – 19,000 users

e-Procurement

20 departments and growing

Nemmadi

800 rural telecenters

BangaloreOne Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Back up to BangaloreOne data center

Aasare

Calamity Relief Website

Karunadu

State Web Portal

Inspector General of Stamps & Registration

IGR Disaster Recovery

Backup of IGR data

Transport Department

Transport Disaster Recovery

Backup of Transport department’s data

Revenue Department

Bhoomi

DR for 203 distributed Bhoomi databases in talukas

Crop Update

Crop update for the entire state updated through 800 telecenters

Online Monitoring for DC’s and Tahshildars

MIS reports of Revenue department

Dept of Treasuries

Treasury Website

Front end access to treasury applications

Dept of IT & BT

Paperless Office

5 field departments of IT & BT

Dept of Survey Settlement & Land Records

Mojini

203 talukas

Bangalore Traffic Police

BTP

250 blackberry equipped traffic police and growing

Karnataka Soaps & Detergents Limited

a. Mail server b. Supply Chain Management application

Employees of KS&DL

National Rural Health Mission

Vyavastha

Feedback monitoring system

•

FUTURE PLANS •

•

•

•

• •

Departments that are hosting their servers and applications in SDC, have an advantage of sharing a common infrastructure.

•

•

for issuing certificates pertaining to various government schemes.

RTO database is used by BTP for updating the address of the traffic offenders and in turn B1 uses BTP database for collection of traffic violation fines.

IGR department uses Kaveri application for updating IGR department’s data in Bhoomi database.

DSSP uses Nemmadi infrastructure

• •

New SDC: 4500 sq. ft. of space has been identified at Vikasa Soudha for setting up new SDC New SDC would have 43 rack space of server farm area & 80 TB of SAN storage New SDC would be setup and operated by a BOOT model by the Datacenter operator, for a duration of 5 years 55 crores of fund has been approved by DIT for setting up of new SDC RFP of new SDC has been submitted to DIT for approval Implementation of SDC Disaster Recovery (DR) site at NIC Data Centre in Hyderabad Expansion of SDC to accommodate all departments To provide Servers and Storage on demand to the departments

M N VIDYASHANKAR

Data Convergence: Departments that are hosting their servers and applications in SDC, have an advantage of sharing a common infrastructure.

Bhoomi database is used by • Nemmadi application for issuing RTC’s through web.

SSLR department uses Mojini • application for updating SSLR department’s data in Bhoomi database.

M N Vidyashankar, an Indian Administrative Services Officer of 1983 batch, is currently working as the Principal Secretary, e-Governance Department, Government of Karnataka from 1st July 2009. He has served in different Departments in the State Government, in Government of India and was Chairman, BWSSB from the year 2000 – 2004, was Commissioner, BDA from July 2004 to May 2006, was Principal Secretary to Government, Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology from October 2006 to March 2008. He may be reached at prsegv@gmail.com

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

NEW ELECTRONIC NOTIFICATION SYSTEM IN SPAIN At the end of 2010, the Government of Cantabria will implement a system of electronic notification of court judgements. The Department of Justice and the Bar Association, which will both collaborate in the implementation of this electronic system, have agreed on the action framework and its mode of operation. This new information system will allow the filing of pleadings and legal documents, the transfer of copies, as well as the performance of procedural acts of communication by electronic means. This computerised system, which allows for bilateral communication between courts and public prosecutors, will be operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

ONE STOP-SHOP e-GOVERNMENT SERVICES The Latvian Minister for Regional Development and Local Government stated that in the next few years the government services will act as a onestop shop for citizens’ needs.

On 3 November 2009, the Ministry of Regional Development and Local Government of the Republic of Latvia, the State Regional Development Agency (SRDA) in collaboration with the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA), presented a jointly developed electronic service, the ability to online declare a residence. This service can now be used not only from e-Signature holders but also from all other internet users, who have a bank account in one of the three main Latvian banks. The opportunity to declare a new residence online will also assist the work of both the state and the local authorities.

PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT TO BE MORE TRANSPARENT IN IT PROCUREMENT PROCESS The Philippine Government is expected to spend US$580 million on IT by 2011, but lack of transparency and corruption have contributed to an unnecessary increase

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in public spending. Lack of transparency enables corruption as the spending is not fully leveraged. Clearer procurement process will help in reducing the cost for administration. For 2008, the government is estimated to have spent US$390 million on IT, 52 percent for hardware, with IT services accounting for 27 percent and the remaining 21 percent on software.

NATIONAL PORTAL PROMOTING GREEN PURCHASING IN UK ‘Green procurement’, the online national website of the European project ‘Buy Smart’, funded by the European programme ‘Intelligent Energy Europe’, provides free consultation and information material on green procurement. This is a new national portal (www.buy-smart.info/ italian) on green procurement for smart purchasing, maintained by the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA). Guidelines for administrative managers and commercial operators in the energy sector and environment may be found.

Green purchasing, i.e. buying goods and services complying with certain characteristics of environmental sustainability (Green Public Procurement (GPP)), is establishing itself in the public administrations of all European countries and in Italy, which is in the front row of this action.

control of their social security number and protect their identity.

NEW FORMAT CITIZENSHIP CARDS SOON IN NEPAL To make Nepali citizenship cards readable globally, the government is going to introduce a new format throughout the nation from November 16, 2009. The new format will include in its 8 cm by 11cm space basic information about the card-holder, in English-card number, full name, date of birth (in AD), place of birth, permanent address and gender.

Only the three districts of the capital Valley and Kavre will follow the computerized system to begin with although the plan is to cover 45 districts initially. After being connected to the central database through a computerised network, the cards will facilitate groundwork for introducing the National Identity (NID) card.

OFFICIAL e-GOVERNMENT PORTAL LAUNCHED IN OMAN The official e-Government Services Portal (www.oman.om) and the national awareness campaign, under the umbrella of e.oman, Oman’s national IT strategy, was launched on November 9, 2009.

DIGITAL SOCIAL SECURITY CARD IN USA The Social Security number is very vulnerable to theft and misuse, even though it is the foundation of almost every U.S. citizen’s identity. A paper card certainly does nothing to help protect the Social Security number printed on it.

With a technology makeover the social security card has the potential to become a digital identity credential that would play an active role in protecting people’s identities and fighting fraud.

The key to this evolution is to make the Social Security card an electronically enabled, secure credential based on biometrics and smart card technology.

This would allow the citizen to be in

The launch of the Official e-Government Services Portal, the nation’s flagship achievement, marks a major milestone in the Sultanate’s ambitious journey in transforming Oman by empowering its people, through the e.oman initiative, within the digital society. The goal includes a significant improvement in the quality of services the government provides to its citizens. It aims to create an effective government-communitycitizen infrastructure that provides better public services to people.

COVER INTERVIEW

Gujarat: Among First to Setup SDC in India www.gujaratindia.com

NEETA SHAH DIRECTOR (e-GOVERNANCE), GUJARAT INFORMATICS CENTRE, GOVERNMENT OF GUJARAT

Challenges in setting up of Data Centres starts as soon as you start looking out for the right place. It is important that the Data Centre is setup at a location which is not disaster prone, can be physically secured, robust surveillance and capability of post activity data analysis and has room for growth. Other challenges to be kept in mind while setting up of DC are sizing of storage.

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// INTERVIEW

Please give your views on the importance of Data Centres in State. How do you correlate this technological intervention with good governance?

Data Centre is one of the most important elements of the core infrastructure for supporting any large IT Implementation. Almost all large enterprises which have IT enabled their Internal Processes / CRM / Supply Chain Management have setup their own Data Centres or outsourced such a facility from IDCs. Since e-Governance is also moving into the phase of maturity, a state-of-art, stable, secure Data Centre has become a necessity today.

Under NeGP, it is proposed to create State Data Centres (SDCs) for the States to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. These services can be rendered by the States through common delivery platform seamlessly supported by core Connectivity Infrastructure such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centre (CSC) connectivity extended up to the village level. State Data Centre would provide much functionality and some of the key functionalities are Central Repository of the State, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/ Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Disaster Recovery, Remote Management and Service Integration etc. SDCs would also provide better operation and management control and minimise overall cost of Data Management, IT Resource Management, Deployment and other costs.

What is the status of the Data Centre implementation, under National eGovernance Plan, in the state? When do you expect it to complete?

Gujarat has been one of the first states in the country to setup a state-ofart Data Centre to support e-Governance initiatives. This Gujarat State Data Centre, set up in Gandhinagar, includes 2600 sq.ft of server and storage area, 600 sq.ft of connectivity zone and 1300 sq.ft of control room and utility area.

GSDC has been connected to all the Government offices through GSWAN infrastructure.

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Gujarat SDC Under NeGP, Government of Gujarat is currently in the process of augmentation of this State Data Centre by State-of-art Servers, Storage System and Security Systems. For this purpose, Government of Gujarat has selected Wipro Ltd. and expects completion of this project by the end of March 2010.

To provide decentralised delivery of services to the citizens in the state, Government of Gujarat has also set up three Mini Data Centres at Mehsana, Rajkot and Vadodara. Fourth Mini Data Centre is being planned at Surat.

Features of Gujarat State Data Centre 1. Civil Infrastructure 2. Building Management System 3. Fire detection/suppression 4. Access control System 5. Close Circuit Surveillance system 6. Rodent Repellent System 7. Intruder Alarm System 8. Public Address System 9. Electrical System Power Supply 10. Un-interruptible System 11. Air Conditioning System Gujarat State Data Centre has following different Zones Secure Storage Zone • Application Zone • GSWAN equipment room •

• •

Utility Room Security Control Room

Your state already has data centres, for quite some time. What are your plans for migrating to this new infrastructure?

The migration of the old Servers to the New Data Centre building has already been completed, so all available centralised SWAN resources are fully operational from the new Data Centre only. Once the new IT Infrastructure is implemented by March 2010, Gujarat State Data Centre would be able to cater to most of the State Department requirements in terms of much higher performance / response / Secure Data Storage / Huge mail storage and and it’s 24/7 availability.

Please name some of the mission critical applications running on DC. How do you ensure maximum uptime for these operations, in particular and resilience in IT systems in general?

Some of the Mission Critical Applications running at State Data Centre currently are IWDMS, IFMS (partially operational), Agriculture soil and health application, SWAN e-Mail service and other departmental dynamic websites hosted on web server etc. Some of the other applications which would be hosted

// INTERVIEW

at SDC in near future are: Land Record Information System • Registration of Documents (Revenue • Department) State Wide Attention on Grievances •

by Application of Technology (SWAGAT) Gujarat Ration Card Computerisation • (GRCC) System Property Card Information System • (PCIS) Integrated Financial Management • System Value Added Tax (VAT) System • Health Management and Information • System (HMIS) HDIITS (Application for Home • Department) Gujarat Portal and Service Delivery • Gateway

defended with Gateway level Anti-virus system, along with workstation level Antivirus mechanism. To securely cover up the entire and increasing SWAN users, the anti-virus licensing count also would be raised for workstation level security.

SDC / Mini Data Centres would also make use of the SSL / VPN technologies to have secured communication between Applications and its end users.

The new Data Centre Operator being appointed has a mandate to comply with ISO27001 standards and is expected to get the ISO 27001 certificate for the SDC within three quarters from the date of completion of current augmentation of the Data Centre. The Data Centre operator’s payment is also linked to the SLAs defined for Security and Incidence Management.

Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN), which connects over 3600 District and Taluka level offices, also operates out of State Data Centre.

The State Data Centre has been designed to meet Tier II standards and has high availability built into all the components like Power Availability, Servers, Networking Equipments, Security Equipments, Cabling, etc.

This would ensure 99.74% uptime for all the applications hosted at the Data Centre. The Data Centre Operator’s payment is being completely linked to the maintenance this uptime.

How do you perceive virtualisation in Data Centres? Has the state taken some initiatives in this reference?

Also, how do you tackle with interoperability issues with the IT systems?

Virtualisation brings the potential to deliver dramatic savings in terms of server count, footprint, power consumption and cooling requirements for Data Centres.

Although currently our State has not considered virtualisation in the current plan of Data Centre Implementation. The State would definitely consider it as one of the options during future upgration.

In order to tackle with interoperability issues, Government of Gujarat has already issued notifications to the various departments to follow Government of India published standards for Portal for publishing and collaboration on standards developed and the portal address.

We are also in process of finalising the Meta Data and Data Standards for Application Domains and Communication Protocols, which are fundamental for Interoperability.

Public data is invaluable. What is your roadmap to ensure maximum data security?

The SDC and the Mini Data Centres are designed to provide an end-to-end security blanket to protect applications, services, data and the IT infrastructure from malicious attacks or theft from external (through internet) and internal (through intranet) hackers. Already there are multiple levels of security which has been deployed to stay away from external threats with well planned security infrastructure. Using high-end, high capacity and scalable Firewalls and Intrusion detection and prevention systems such attacks and theft would be controlled and well supported (and implemented) with the security policy and also well governed by expertise. The virus and worms attacks would be well

Please throw some light on the need of redundancy in Data Centres. How do you mitigate risks that come along redundancy channels?

With more and more dependence on the IT Systems for the Internal Working of Government Departments and for Delivering Citizen Services, Data Centre downtime would mean disruption

in departmental functioning, loss of credibility in citizens and even loss of revenue. It is thus necessary that there is no single point of failure in the Data Centre to bring down the System Availability.

This can be ensured through redundancy in the various critical components like Power Availability, Servers, Networking Equipments, Security Equipments, Cabling, etc. and off course by developing disaster recover site for mission critical applications and data.

Can you discuss about challenges in setting up and running DC? Challenges in setting up of Data Centres starts as soon as you start looking out for the right place. It is important that the Data Centre is setup at a location which is not Disaster Prone, can be physically secured, robust surveillance and capability of post activity data analysis and has room for growth.

Other challenges to be kept in mind while setting up of DC are Sizing of Storage, Designing right specs for various Active / Passive Components, Minimising the Carbon Footprint and Ensuring Scalability with least manipulation in all the critical components. Operational Data Centre also requires to get supervised in terms of each possible activity logs and maintenance of the same. Ensuring the right type of equipment placed at right place with calculated capacity / capability to avoid any abnormal occurrences within the DC. It is also a challenge to identify the right Systems Integrator to design, implement the Data Centre and maintain it for the Government.

Once the Data Centre is up and running, to make it available for 24/7 and ensure the 100% security of data and IT equipments is still a bigger challenge.

How competent is your department to oversee the DC in the long run?

We would be forming a “Government Operation Team” (GOT) to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Data Centre. GOT would constitute members from Gujarat Informatics Ltd. State NIC. We also intend to appoint a Third Party Auditor to supervise the operations of the Data Centre Operator to ensure the compliance of the SLA for operations and Management of the Data Centre. \\ egov

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COVER INTERVIEW

Powering the Government Projects www.emersonnetworkpower.co.in

What is the USP of your company’s power and cooling solutions? How do they have an edge over other market players in this domain?

Emerson is an industry pioneer and technology leader in all the product categories. We are driven by deep understanding of customer needs and provide solutions accordingly. Our solutions are based on adaptive architecture that provides scalability, efficiency and lowest TCO in all our products Our products globally, ensure maximum uptime for all business critical applications.

PRATIK CHUBE COUNTRY GENERAL MANAGER - PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING EMERSON NETWORK POWER (INDIA) PVT. LTD.

How is your company catering to the needs of the government in its mission of State Data Centre creation across the country?

Penetrating into government infrastructure for building State Data Centre, SWAN and other e-Governance processes are more or less similar to working with SMEs. Both are mission critical infrastructures and are based on clustering effects and corelated systems.

Today, Emerson is backing various government projects of SWAN and State Data Centres through its unique: 1. Adaptive architecture 2. Energy efficient product technologies 3. Best Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in Industry leadership

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There is a trend towards centralised UPS systems for mission critical applications. What is your take on this? How is Emerson meeting up towards this requirement?

The centralised UPS system for applications is gaining popularity. But we need to provide redundancy and ensure adaptive architecture is in place before designing any business solution. The redundancy will ensure uptime at system level and thus, uptime of business critical applications.

Tell us about your Data Centre Infrastructure solution.

How critical it is to have a redundancy for an enterprise.

Emerson is pioneer in Data Centre infrastructure solution. Our services include: • Design and consultation • Products and technologies • Monitoring and control Emerson has built country’s most admired data centers and follows all principles of energy efficiency.

Please elaborate on Emersions Convergent Communications.

Convergent’s expertise lies in conceptualising, designing, implementing, and maintaining mission-critical networks (both in the wired and wireless domain) requiring voice, data, and video convergence and also in providing complete IT infrastructure maintenance services. It has more than 500 man-years’ experience in wired networks and 300 man-years’ experience in the wireless domain.

Emerson constantly provides Convergent with support, access to highly technical personnel and various other benefits. All this helps Convergent improve upon client experience. Having Emerson as a key brand in its portfolio, has given Convergent’s business a definite boost. \\ Prachi Shirur, prachi@egovonline.net

COVER INTERVIEW

Competent to Handle SDC! www.sikkim.gov.in

What is the status of the Data Centre implementation, under National eGovernance Plan, in the state? When did you expect it to complete?

With regard to the State Data Centre implementation is concerned, the technical bids are in the process of being evaluated and we expect to open the commercial bids by the end of November 2009. We expect the Data Centre to be established by August 2010.

RAJESH VERMA PRINCIPAL DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT OF SIKKIM

Please give your views on the importance of Data Centres in the States. How do you correlate this technological intervention with good governance?

It is important to have a Data Centre in the states, as it would enable having a central repository of all databases and is very important in the present scenario.

Island computerisation is happening with various other departments maintaining their own servers. There is a lack of integration. Having SDC would go a long way in stimulating back end computerisation, which is the present need of the hour. Our state wide area network (SWAN) is also completed and running through where we have provided Internet connectivity up to the Block levels. Steadily Internet connectivity in the state would be ubiquitous and would be available everywhere either through GPRS, broadband or the SWAN. Unless we focus on developing backend database in the SDC, our SWAN becomes a highway without cars.

Please name some of the mission critical applications that will run on DC. What is your strategy to ensure maximum uptime for these operations, in particular and resilience in IT systems in general?

Mission critical applications that would run on the Data Centre are land records, e-District, VAT, treasury etc. We also plan to use the Data Centre with a facility in which databases can be queried and updated through mobiles. Sikkim is rich in natural and man-made resources and it is in this context that we would be hosting a powerful GIS server in the Data Centre along with high resolution satellite maps. The ultimate aim would be to use GIS as a tool for planning and decisionmaking.

Public data is invaluable. What is your roadmap to ensure maximum data security?

Along with various security hardening controls to be deployed at the operating system, applications, database and other network and server components – the web servers will be distributed in various Demilitarised Zone (DMZs) with the help of layered firewall architecture.

The Perimeter Firewall will have the entire network including servers and Storage Area Network (SAN) in DMZ zone and all the Network Operations Centre (NOC) etc in Trusted ZONE. Our NOC will be in trusted Zone and highly secured. To protect our entire core network including

server we will use an internal firewall.

The Internal firewall will be in the DMZ Zone of the perimeter firewall, and the Internal Firewall will further segregate the network in DMZ and trusted Zone. So the Trusted Zone of the Internal Firewall will include the DB servers and Application servers. The DMZ Zone will include Web Servers.

Security through the network will be achieved with the application of granular ACLs between routers, switches, and VLANs, which will give administrators control to permit traffic that is relevant to the needs. Additionally, any traffic that is destined to the switches directly will be denied with the exception of encrypted SSH traffic from authorised administrative workstations. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets will also be prevented from being transmitted through the switch to prevent host discovery and denial of service attacks.

Can you discuss about challenges in setting up and running DC? We won’t face any challenges as such as the running and maintenance of the SDC would be outsourced for a period of 5 years, which does not mean that the Department would abdicate from its responsibilities. We would be constantly monitoring the SDC. How competent is your department to oversee the Data Centre in the long run?

The Department is competent enough to handle the running of the SDC, As such we would be posting some of our programmers/staff after the SDC becomes operational to keep an eye on the ongoing and also to learn the finer aspects of operation of SDC. The Department would also have a proper exit plan in place to take over after five years. \\ Pratap Vikram Singh, pratap@egovonline.net egov

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COVER INTERVIEW

Going Green ! www.wipro.in

like to explore setting up their Disaster Recovery (DR) at a third party Data Centre.

Wipro’s expertise and experiences in Data Centre lifecycle management covering design, build, deployment and operations of Data Centres would be an excellent proposition to the State Data Centre initiative.

What is the vision of Wipro’s Data Centres?

Our vision is to offer complete Data Centre Lifecyle Management services to our Enterprise customers and enhance our leadership position in Managed IT Infrastructure and Data Centre services.

MOIZ VASWADAWALA H

What are some of the IT infrastructure and applications that are deployed at the Wipro Enterprise Data Centres?

Wipro Enterprise Data Centre services addresses multiple industry segments in running their core business applications and DR services, some of which are listed below: Industry Applications • Banking, Financial Services and Insurance • Core Banking, Micro Finance and Insurance applications Telecom Core Telecom equipment and • Applications for Telecom operations Manufacturing ERP •

GENERAL MANAGER, WIPRO INFOTECH

Wipro Infotech forayed in Data Centre space in May 2009. How is this move aligned with the Government of India’s goal of create State Data Centre for seamless service delivery for the citizens?

We are addressing the State Data Centre needs in two ways a. We have expertise in building and managing Data Centres to the respective state governments who wish to own their Data Centres b. Wipro Enterprise Data Centre Services are positioned to serve those states that are open to considering outsourced DC services. This could also include states that own their Data Centres and would

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What are the key highlights of the Wipro Managed Hosting Services.

Our Data Centres are specially designed to meet the needs of our enterprise customers. Some of our key differentiators are: a. Single point ownership for complete Data Centre lifecycle (design, implementation and management) b. Green Data Centres resulting in energy efficiencies c. High density cooling (Maximum power rating per rack = 6KW to 12 KW) which helps Customers

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What are the Best Practices for IT infrastructure management in Data Centres?

Some of the best practices that have been adopted in the Wipro Data Centres are: Enabling audit logs • Patch management process • • Structured repeat call analysis • Extensive Performance reporting Capacity Planning • Self Help for Password reset / • Account lockout Reviewing access privilege • Backing up & validating configuration • changes Preventive Maintenance calendar • Automating mundane activities •

Infrastructure Energy efficiency in running Data Centres Wipro is working in partnership with a number of government agencies and projects such as APSCAN, Indian Customs and Excise Gateway and Computer-aided Administration of Registration Department. What are your suggestions for the Government in implementing quality Data Centres?

Some of suggestions are: a. Design Data Centres keeping future in mind with maximum power per rack ranging between 6 KW to 12 KW b. Data Centres should be of Tier 3 standards at a minimum c. 65% of the Data Centre running expenses are towards energy costs and hence Data Centre design should focus on energy efficiencies. PUE is a very important factor, which should be monitored and Data Centres should be designed to operate within a PUE range of 1.6 to 1.8 d. Focus on operations and maintenance to achieve higher uptimes and operating costs efficiencies e. For smaller capacity requirements and DR services government can also look at outsourcing their Data Centres needs to organisations such as Wipro

Tell us about the optimisation techniques, like virtualisation and interoperability and their importance for the Data Centres.

With enterprises focused on getting more out of the existing investments, virtualization techniques have been very useful. The key aspects that highlight their importance are: Controls IT investment • Optimised utilisation of available • resources Enhanced administration efficiency • through logical grouping of IT

Wipro Infotech is ranked among the top five green companies in the world. How important is Green IT for Data Centres in reducing cost and increasing efficiency?

Green Data Centres are important to us from multiple aspects. First and foremost, it helps us to reduce our carbon footprint and helps towards building a better environment. Secondly, it helps us to reduce our operational expenses between 10-20%. Implementing Green IT infrastructure helps in reducing energy consumption required for running the

take maximum benefits of server consolidation and helps to reduce their CAPEX and OPEX costs. d. Fully automated Monitoring and Management of each of our Data Centres to ensure proactive alerting and reporting. This helps us achieve the highest levels of service to our Customers in line with Tier 3 recommendations e. Our IT infrastructure management services are delivered using best in class tools along with a strong Service delivery process framework.

•

Industry

Applications

Banking, Financial Services and Insurance

Core Banking, Micro Finance and Insurance applications

Telecom

Manufacturing

Core Telecom equipment and Applications for Telecom operations ERP

IT equipments and also brings down associated cooling requirements.

Tell us some of your eco-friendly technologies. ‘Going green is extravagant, what is your take on this?

We have implemented various green initiatives while building our DC facilities, particularly in the following areas: • Usage of appropriate building material • Reduction of water consumption through Waste water recycling and rain water harvesting Using Water cooled chillers rather • than Air cooled chillers to reduce energy consumption Taking advantage of the ambient • temperature during winter and reduce energy consumption Segregate cold aisle and hot aisle • through customized design Use energy efficient lighting • systems The benefits of ‘going green’ outweigh the investments and contributes to a better environment as well. Hence, Wipro considers Green a strategic imperative that is adopted by us in our Data Centres as well.

How do you see the growth of Indian IT sector market, in general, and Indian Data Centre market, in specific? How is Wipro set to optimise this opportunity?

Based on the trends observed in the economy, we believe that Indian IT sector market has the potential to grow by 2025% in the next two years and the Data Centre market upwards of 30%.

Wipro’s presence in Data Centres covers the entire lifecycle including: 1. Enterprise Class DC Facilities build 2. DC IT infrastructure architecting and Systems Integration 3. Management Services for Data Centre 4. Outsourced Managed DC services This range of expertise gives us a strong position in this space. We would leverage on our technical and service management competencies and experience to deliver high quality services to our customers. This is backed up by our strong process orientation on ITIL V3 standards and best in class tool adoption. \\

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COVER FEATURE

Future of Information Storage is ‘Virtual’ MANOJ CHUGH PRESIDENT, EMC CORPORATION INDIA AND SAARC

Growth in information is forcing a transformation in the IT sector. The acceleration in the pace of growth in information will only gather momentum, with the next four years expected to see a five-fold increase in information from 486 extabytes to 2502 extabytes, according to the Digital Universe Study done by IDC. Interestingly, 70% of this information explosion is going to be created by the private domain with more photos, videos, social networking and many other applications coming into play and mobile Internet becoming more popular.

However, according to the same study 85% of this data will need to be managed be the responsibility of organisations.

These will not only be the enterprise but the social media sites, video sites and even the government.

Therefore, the huge challenge of managing this information, which to add complexity is also going to be unstructured, requiring new thinking by the people who are going to be responsible for creating the information infrastructure for the future. This is especially relevant as we have seen only a 2% growth in IT spending during the last year (Source: IDC Digital Universe Study) and all industry predictions in growth of this spend for the next few years do not come close to the expected growth in information.

Therefore, thinking of linear growth in disks and storage is not going to solve the problem. The traditional approach cannot be sustained from a capital expenditure point of view nor the efficiency and scale that are required from users and finally

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the new factor which is energy and environment sustainability.

The current ‘accidental architecture’ of IT today increases procurement, management costs, and complexity while making it difficult to meet customer service level agreements. This makes IT less responsive to the business and creates the perception of IT being a cost center. IT will now need to move towards a ‘private cloud’ model, which is a new model for delivering IT as a service, whether that service is provided internally, externally (service provider), or in combination. This new model is compelling in its dramatic impact on efficiency and agility. It requires a new way of thinking about both the underlying technology and the way IT is delivered for customer success.

While the need for a new IT model has never been clearer, navigating the path to that model has never been more complicated. The benefits of private clouds are capturing the collective imagination of IT architects and IT consumers in organizations of all sizes around the world. The realities of outdated technologies, rampant incremental approaches, the inherent limitations of today’s vendor landscape, and the absence of a compelling endstate architecture are impeding adoption by customers.

By harnessing the power of virtualization, private clouds place considerable business benefits within reach. These include: • Dramatic IT budget savings:

efficient use of resources through consolidation and simplification Business enablement: increased • business agility and responsiveness to changing priorities; speed of deployment and the ability to address the scale of global operations with business innovation Service-based business models: • ability to operate IT as a service Facilities optimization: lower energy • usage; better (less) use of Data Centre real estate Reduction in complexity: moving • away from fragmented, ‘accidental architectures’ to integrated, optimized technology that lowers risk, increases speed and produces predictable outcomes Flexibility: ability of IT to gain • responsiveness and scalability through federation to cloud service providers while maintaining enterprise-required policy and control Imagine a future when the pain of virtualizing your Data Centre isn’t almost as painful as the complexities, management hassles, power and space issues, and unacceptable, unsustainable total cost of ownership that make virtualization necessary to begin with.

Imagine a time when virtualizing your Data Centre doesn’t mean a choice of only two roads: the ‘go it alone’ route with countless hours of IT resources being spent to design, plan, roadmap, integrate, test and finally deploy; or the single-vendor gamble with your enterprise

future. Imagine a different model, a hybrid model, where best-of-breed companies in disciplines critical to IT – in networking, servers, storage, management, security, and the virtualization layer – all come together to deliver IT to business in a new, accelerated, deceptively simple and startlingly cost effective way.

Imagine pre-tested, fully integrated, ready to go, ready to grow infrastructure packages – complete virtual computing environments that are smartly priced and sized, secure, de-risked and warranted to make building tomorrow’s Data Centre ‘building block’ simple.

Technology leaders in the area of information transmission and management are already thinking about this. The recent alliance by Cisco. EMC and VMware is a big bold step in this direction. The aim is to bring to the client a single window solution which will provide the client ease, reliability and integration across platforms without touching the application layer.

India is embarking on a number of large information infrastructure, roll outs both in the private and the public sector.

Almost every Central and State Ministry and Government Department is looking to connect, automate and create a citizen oriented digital interface. Ambitious projects like the UID to give every citizen a single identity will create huge amount of information for the project and many new applications that this initiative will drive. For instance, if every citizen’s ten fingerprints need to be taken for the UID, it will create 9 petabytes of information.

Therefore, while the government needs to create this entire infrastructure, it needs to utilise its resource smartly.

Virtualised data centers are known to cost about 40%* cheaper than traditional data centers. Therefore, the choice is a no brainer and the move to this environment is a matter of time and not alternatives. The strengthening of the communication infrastructure goes hand in hand with moving towards the virtualized environment and the billions being invested by all the communication service providers in capacity will come into use through this shift in technology.

Moore’s law talked about the improvement in efficiency of computing power to keep reducing the cost of ownership for the user and better performance. Cloud Computing and in

the enterprise environment the Private Cloud which will be run basis the Virtual Computing Environment will be a parallel force to keep pace with the increasing requirements of the customer.

This transformation though will start from the enterprise will also spread to the client and the desktop fairly quickly.

The consumer or citizen oriented content that is being generated is mostly being offered free and ancillary revenues such as advertising are sustaining operations rather than selling of GB space. Therefore, applications for the client will also be sold as a service rather than capital expenditure.

Almost, all major consumer software companies have already started to move in this direction and the pace of the followers will only accelerate as adoption picks up. Eventually, people will buy IT just like consumer communication services and will get a monthly bill based on the usage.

This trend will also be driven with the need for information access everywhere and anywhere in an equally efficient manner. People would not like to be stuck at desks and get access to the information that they require or certain software’s being available only on certain devices. All this will be pervasive and on demand.

Another trend in storage technologies that will play out in the next year along with cloud computing and virtualization to improve efficiency is data de duplication. In almost every enterprise and organisation huge amount of data duplication is taking place which is putting pressure on the IT infrastructure and increasing costs and management complexity for the CIO. With larger teams working on projects and well connected enterprises the

movement of information across the organization is rapid. When one adds up all this information that resides with various people in the organization and in multiple versions the total amount of information adds up. Today, we mention under our emails, a green message saying ‘ print this email only if necessary, save the environment’. However, the email does not pop up a box when you click send – to say send this email only if necessary to save the environment.

The huge amount of information does increase the amount of storage and communication infrastructure required along with all the power and cooling that goes into this equipment. Therefore, in order to remove this inefficiency automated and intelligent de duplication solutions will be deployed by information heavy organisations.

As I conclude this article, it is interesting to analyse that the information management or data storage industry as it is called is not looking to sell more of the same. Even though largely a business to business play till now, the sector is looking to resolve the challenges of its customers, so that they can better succeed both by enabling them access to information anywhere and everywhere as well as reducing the burden of costs for them.

The information management and storage technology area is the most exciting space in the technology sector because a lot of what is being envisaged in the connected world of the future will only become a sustainable reality based on the new way of thinking that this sector has been able to come up with.

The world is moving from being a digital migrant to a digital native and the virtual computing environment will be the norm in this future. \\

MANOJ CHUGH

Manoj Chugh is President for EMC Corporation India and SAARC. An industry veteran with over 27 years experience in the ICT industry, Manoj joined EMC in 2003 and was till most recently responsible for driving EMC’s revenue growth, partnership model and investments in India. As the President EMC, India and SAARC Manoj spearheaded the company’s growth in the information storage and management space and positioned EMC as the Market Leader in the Indian Subcontinent.

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COVER INTERVIEW

Marching Ahead in SDC Implementation http://chips.gov.in/

ANAND MOHAN PARIAL ADDITIONAL CEO, CHHATTISGARH INFOTECH PROMOTION SOCIETY, CHHATTISGARH

Please give your views on the importance of Data Centres in State. How do you co-relate this technological intervention with good governance?

One of our key IT initiatives is to create State Data Center infrastructure for delivery of online citizen services, provide shared infrastructure and consolidation of data at the State level for all departments, business and citizen within the state.

The primary purpose to build this information infrastructure includes sound management and effective dissemination of data and information, create an information-rich climate which fosters informed decision-making for overall benefit of the state citizen. This critical infrastructure is envisioned to become a state data archiving, management and access centre for all development, business and citizen requirement. It is going to be the new focal point for data and application requirement among state departments, organisations, development agencies and state citizen.

What is the status of the Data Centre implementation, under National e-Governance Plan, in the state?

When did you expect it to complete?

State Data Centre of Chhattisgarh based on its requirements has been considered and sanctioned funds along with large state category. The RFP document for selection of centre operator submitted by state consultant is already being scrutinised and shall be submitted, after approval from the State Project Committee, to DIT in short time.

Our SDC (State Data Centre) consultant is helping in selection of technology

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infrastructure, which is sufficiently future proof, support state responsibility towards citizen, can embrace change faster and at less expense with lower ongoing operating cost. We as part of strategy cautiously spend more time on planning then in execution. According to our plan we are hopeful to bring this infrastructure at the same time along with other core infrastructure and utilise the fund in right timeframe and expect the project to complete by mid of next year.

Please name some of the mission critical applications that will run on DC. What is your strategy to ensure maximum uptime for these operations, in particular and resilience in IT systems in general?

Our efforts are focused on ensuring technology to reach all section of society in the state and ensuring citizen gain access to meaningful technology so to develop capabilities that lead to better quality of life. The community participative CHOiCE (Chhattisgarh Online information for Citizen Empowerment) project has been rolled-out in five districts including two major tribal districts. GIS based land record, paddy procurement system for farmers, automation of treasury are some of the state wide endeavour in which we envisage to utilise this technology infrastructure for common masses.

For the efficient government process, e-Procurement was our flagship project successfully rolled out in five major departments. The Government of Chhattisgarh has also planned a number of e-Governance applications to be deployed in future which include digital secretariat, citizen call centre, State

Agriculture Information System Network (CG-AGRISNET), Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS), Double Entry system for ULBs and e-Municipality. The state data centre primarily will be used for these housing these critical data and computing infra requirements.

How do you perceive virtualisation in Data Centres?

In order to apply these industry best practices, different state departments in Chhattisgarh have invested in Best of Breed IT solutions, which, demand to be implemented on separate physical servers and disk arrays, because they either run on different operating platforms, or they demand exclusive processor or disk usage. The result, is a disparate array of servers, disks and operating systems across single or multiple locations which give rise to increasing IT and IT infrastructure management issues and ever spiralling operating costs.

These now to be consolidated centrally at SDC and therefore state is looking for the OS along with virtualisation software to allocate resources to be bundled with the offer. For the state requirements software should be capable of creating virtual H/W & S/W environment for providing independent instances of supported / supplied operating system environment along with required applications. Once in operation the environment can be created, deleted without affecting applications running under other virtual environment.

Chhattisgarh is also implementing SSDG / e-Forms to tackle data interoperability issues. \\

COVER INTERVIEW

Reliable Infrastructure for IT www.itiltd-india.com

P MANICKAVELU GENERAL MANAGER – ITI DATA CENTER

What are the various Data Centres services and solutions you offer? How these offerings have an edge over other existing market offerings?

ITI Data Centrer is a joint attempt of ITI and Trimax to provide a reliable infrastructure for IT operations. It emphasises on maintaining business continuity, rapid information availability, storage, backup and thereby minimising the chances of disruption.

ITI Data Center offers a comprehensive service portfolio covering the entire value chain right from Infrastructure to applications. The service offerings include: High Density Hosting Services - Managed co-location, Managed Dedicated Hosting, Internet access, Managed Utility Hosting.

On-Demand Services – Utility Backup and Vaulting, Utility Storage, Load Balancer, Utility Messaging.

Managed Security Services – Firewall Intrusion and Detection, OS Hardening and Patch Management, Vulnerability Assessment, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam.

System Support Services – OS Management, DB Management, Application (web, mail) Management, Network Management.

Professional Services – Data Cen-

ter building, Data Center Consolidation/ Migration, DR/BCP Design and Implementation.

The key differentiators of ITI Data Centre is that it is India’s first and only Datacentre provider offering High Density Hosting Services by supporting power requirements ranging from 4 KVA to 14 KVA per rack, thereby dramatically reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). At the same time, It is India’s first and only Data Center backed by a public sector company leveraging on the stability of a PSU and the efficiency of private sector through a Public Private Partnership Model. ITI Data Centre have an edge over other Data Centres not only through its complete range of data center services but also in terms of its infrastructure, effective and eco-friendly fire suppression facilities, high level of security, carrier neutrality, availability of power, precision controlled environment and 24x7 support services.

Who are the government clients whom ITI Data Centre caters to?

ITI Datacenter has commissioned its Datacenter on June 30th 2009 and are in advanced stages of discussion with government organisations in verticals such as Banking, Financial Services and Businesses (BFSI), Telecom and Oil/ Gas Industry organisation’s wanting to leverage on ITI Data Center’s capability.

What is your strategy to ensure maximum uptime and a secured environment to your clients?

ITI Data Centre has deployed a redundant architecture of 2N + 1 for DG Set, UPS, PAC and power from two different grids for ensuring maximum uptime for its customers.

ITI Data Centre’s are providing a secured environment through the following process and policies: • ISO 27001 certified Datacenter operations • Perimeter Security with CCTV and Guards

•

• • • •

Three Levels of Security – Access Card, Numeric Code and Biometric Scanning CCTV Monitoring of Entire Facility with 30 Day Archival of records Firewall from two different vendors running in High Availability Mode Customised Security Policy for Customers on request Different VLAN for different Customers/ Processes

What is your share in the overall Indian market for data centre services and solutions?

ITI Data Centre has commissioned its Datacenter on June 30th 2009 and hence it’s share in the datacenter services market should increase in the next 34 quarters. We see ourselves evolving into a Preferred IT Infrastructure Platform Service Provider, providing Scalability, Availability, Security and Innovativeness (SASI) to government and private sector enterprises.

What are the challenges you face while providing these services and solutions in government sector?

The challenges are around sales cycle for these services rather than the actual delivery of these services. We have received very positive response to the gamut of services including our Datacenter Infrastructure from all customers across verticals.

Are you planning to increase your gamut of offerings in Data Centres?

Elaborate.

ITI Datacenter intends to setup multiple datacenters networked to offer a platform for offering cloud based services for communications, security, storage and compute which has a direct bearing on the non-discretionary IT spends of organisations, thereby ensuring revenue predictability and sustainability. \\ Pratap Vikram Singh, pratap@egovonline.net egov

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BUSINESS NEWS

WIPRO URGES FOR EFFECTIVE e-GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

also rollout Unified Information System that automates for greater efficiency, transparency and accountability

RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS AND ATOM TECHNOLOGIES SIGN MCOMMERCE AGREEMENT

Wipro urged upon the government to make education, innovation and information technology communication part of their economic policy agenda.

This will help in increasing the reach and efficiency of government agencies in delivering citizen services.

Such deliveries are too fragmented and the best practices don’t come to the surface, while there is a lot of duplication between different organisations in the government resulting in higher costs.

States should share their expertise in ICT as the states lagging behind can learn from the leading ICT states.

NCOMPUTING BAGS DEAL FROM ESIC AND WIPRO FOR ‘PROJECT PANCHDEEP’ NComputing, a desktop virtualization company has won a contract from Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and Wipro for ‘Project Panchdeep’, one of the largest e-Governance projects in India. The project will aim to streamline insurance and health-care services that ESIC provides to employers, employees and state and central government workers.

NComputing, will help in improving the healthcare system and services for the 12 million beneficiaries in the nation, by speeding insurance and medical devices. This strategic initiative includes the computerization of 144 hospitals, 620 medical insurance branches, 1388 dispensaries or clinics, and 51 regional offices across the nation. It will also issue 20 million medical ID cards that can be used at any ESIC facility and will

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Reliance Communications (RCOM) has entered into a strategic tie-up with atom technologies, the leading m-commerce solutions provider from the Financial Technologies India Limited group.

With this partnership RCOM will now be able to offer a fast, secure, inter-operable and the most convenient platform to conclude payment transactions using Reliance Mobile. Atom will offer through RCOM, multiple banks (Indian and Foreign) as well as merchants on a common platform, thereby allowing its subscribers to make payments across the entire merchant base. Reliance subscribers will now be able to purchase insurance services, DTH recharges, movie tickets, books & periodicals, consumer goods, holiday packages as well as bus & train tickets using their Reliance Mobile connection, these services will also be available on R-world for all GSM customers.

Currently atom technologies have over 100 merchants registered for mobile commerce transactions.

SAGEM SECURITE’S “FINGER ON THE FLY” Sagem Securite (Safran group) made headlines at Biometrics 2009, the leading European trade show and exhibition dedicated to biometrics, by unveiling its new “Finger on the Fly” technology that reads fingerprints on a moving hand.

For the first time, a contactless biometric recognition technology can capture and process the fingerprints from four fingers on a hand in movement, in just a few seconds.

Well suited to current requirements, this technology enhances security and speeds up flows in crowded areas, such as airports. It can also be used as the basis for a more user-friendly identification system, involving fewer restrictions for users.

L&T INFOTECH TEAMS WITH SEEBURGER L&T Infotech, one of the world’s top-ranked global IT services providers, has teamed with SEEBURGER Inc. for a strategic partnership, in order to increase U.S. implementation resources for the latter’s electronic data interchange (EDI) and business-tobusiness integration (B2B) software.

With this, L&T Infotech would provide both sales and deployment services for the SEEBURGER Business Integration Server and associated solutions.

L&T Infotech has nine U.S. offices with dedicated teams in key industry sectors with EDI/B2B needs, including technology, manufacturing, finance, healthcare and energy/petrochemicals.

The firm has extensive SAP and Oracle expertise as well as B2B systems integration experience, making it possible to support customers who are deploying the SEEBURGER platform in conjunction with an update, migration or implementation of a new ERP system.

Cisco Teams with EMC for Virtualised Services Venture Cisco and EMC are planning to stamp their names on data centre technology with the launch of their latest cloud co-venture.

They are consolidating their strategic alliance with the launch of a new line of products called vBlock, which will provide virtualised infrastructure for cloud computing. Cisco will provide networking equipment and server computers to the vBlock line while EMC, which owns server virtualisation giant VMware, will contribute storage equipment and virtualisation technology.

COVER INTERVIEW

Opportunities in Data Centre for Competitive Advantage www.hp.com

Internet and 100 W of electricity consumption per person for Internet usage. This is clearly not a sustainable option as it would require 2 million nuclear power plants to be setup to support this kind of IT usage.

HP’s Data Centre Transformation portfolio is designed to turn organisations’ top Data Centre issues – energy efficiency, automation, virtualisation, consolidation and business continuity – into opportunities for competitive advantage.

To address this, HP recently announced a breakthrough strategy to transform the Data Centre with the Converged Infrastructure architecture. The HP Converged Infrastructure integrates existing silos of compute, storage, network and facility resources with unified management to deliver a virtualised, highly automated technology environment. With pools of shared services that can be leveraged on the fly, organisations can increase the flexibility of their environments and create elastic technology environments that will allow them to scale up and down as needed.

We believe the Converged Infrastructure is the architecture of the future that will allow organisations to unleash the full potential of virtualisation, private and public clouds.

JAIJIT BHATTACHARYA DIRECTOR GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, HP INDIA

Today’s Data Centre and IT infrastructures face unprecedented challenges. What are your views on this?

How well equipped are your Data Centre to face the challenges?

Data Centres have today evolved to become very complex in nature. The growth of server and storage virtualisation have contributed to significant sprawls within the Data Centre. In India, we’re hearing customers running of Data Centres space, power and cooling, which poses a huge challenge in managing growth.

We are also seeing a large number of customers evaluate strategic business continuity planning of their Data Centres.

More critically, if India has to move to a digital society, supported by traditional Data Centres, it would imply a power consumption of about 1 million GW with an assumption of 10% penetration of

How can HP help in the optimisation and the consolidation of the regional/local Data Centre?

HP Data Centres Transformation initiative permeates everything we do. We take a comprehensive view of the Data Centre to help agencies transform their infrastructure environments to next-generation Data Centre they need to be successful.

HP is the ideal partner to help government agencies with IT Transformation. HP provides government agencies a uniquely “full story” on IT transformation; an integrated portfolio of software, hardware and services, backed by experienced, professional staff and a wide-reaching partner network (including SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and among others). Only with this comprehensive approach, can the potential of Data Centre Transformation be fully achieved, and the sought-after efficiencies, “business outcomes”, security and environmental benefits attained.

We are also using our own massive Data Centre consolidation experience as a success story, where we have consolidation 85 internal IT Data Centre into just six Data Centres worldwide. We also have first-hand experience with

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// INTERVIEW

creating an optimised, cost-effective, secure network for our employees worldwide.

What are the government clients that HP is currently serving?

HP India has a portfolio of solutions, people, processes and technologies that can help government agencies serve their citizens better. These are based on best practices learned from around the world. Some of our key customers in India include Government of Karnataka, where • HP has built the first of kind e-Procurement solution that is based on a pay per use model.

Life Insurance Corporation, where • HP has built an Enterprise Document Management system (DMS) solution.

The solution includes digitisation of all policy holder documents enabling LIC to extend 24/7 online services.

• Himachal Pradesh, the first State Wide Area Network (SWAN) deployed in the country • Maharashtra, HP (India) in collaboration with Amrita Technologies has enabled the Medical Education and Drugs Department (MEDD), Government of Maharashtra, to build a comprehensive healthcare and educational informatics network connecting all the important functionaries of MEDD, Maharashtra.

The project involved connecting 14 government medical colleges and 19 affiliated colleges through Information Technology.

The project would be implemented on a ‘build, own, operate and refresh’ (BOOR) basis.

Tell us in detail about HP’s virtualisation solutions.

Virtualisation has moved from being a technique used to solve technical problems to a core element of Data Centre strategy. It’s about making virtualisation technology a seamless part of the way IT delivers services, helping drive out costs and complexities throughout the computing environment.

It’s about reducing energy and operating costs while simultaneously increasing availability, security, and compliance.

At HP, we believe that convergence is the catalyst to unleash the full potential

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of virtualisation, private and public clouds. HP Converged Infrastructure calls for an end-to-end virtualisation of resources in the Data Centre and unification under common management.

The new HP Converged Infrastructure Architecture delivers a number of technology innovations. With HP Virtual Resource Pools, modular standardsbased technology assets can be quickly assigned or repurposed to support any workload or application needed from enterprise, to cloud and high performance computing applications.

HP’s FlexFabric integrates thousands of servers and storage resources into a single virtualised, high-performance and low-latency network fabric. Built on industry standards, FlexFabric is highly scalable and can consolidate multiple protocols. For the first time, network connections and capacity can be fully virtualised from the edge to the core.

HP Insight Dynamics VSE is the world’s first software integrated by design to let technology professionals analyse and optimise virtual and physical environments in the same way to consolidate servers and reduce energy use.

HP Data Centre Smart Grid creates an intelligent, energy-aware environment across IT to reduce energy use.

What are some of the other emerging trends and latest technologies in Data Centre?* We are increasingly seeing customers and governments in India look at ways in which they can reduce power and cooling within the Data Centres.

With constraints on the availability of both these resources, customers are looking at ways in which they reduce their footprint and be eco-friendly too.

HP has been simplifying environmental efficiency for its customers by unifying energy monitoring systems, management tools and facilities services into a seamless architecture that tracks facilities’ capacity and activity to report back to IT. With real time monitoring and usage reports, the HP Data Centre Smart Grid is “the brains” behind helping customers reduce energy consumption.

The HP Data Centre Smart Grid represents the next evolution of HP’s energy efficiency portfolio, building on innovations that include HP Data Centre

Environmental Edge as well as HP Thermal Logic and the HP Performance Optimised Data Centre (POD).

HP also recently launched its Carbon Emissions Management Service (CEMS) in the Indian market. The service will help government organisations and enterprises accurately calculate energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions emanating from information technology assets, at the same time improving energy efficiency.

State Data Centres are being set up in India to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services.

How is this move opening up of the opportunity for the private sector?

For government agencies, technology innovations provide opportunities to improve services, increase operational efficiency and accomplish agency missions more effectively than ever.

The State Data Centres will play a crucial part in transforming a patchwork of interconnected technology systems to create a technology infrastructure that is streamlined, flexible and secure.

In transforming this, agencies also seek to show environmental leadership and choose solutions that reduce waste, save energy and conserve natural resources.

At HP, we do not just want to provide Government with technology; we want to partner with agencies to make a positive difference in their world so that they might then make a positive difference in ours.

HP can help the government lower the overall cost to build, maintain or expand the Data Centre – resulting in reduced carbon footprint – by providing energy efficient server and storage solutions, power and cooling software, and critical facilities services.

A recent study by Springboard Research suggests that overall IT spending by India’s Public Sector is estimated to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of nearly 19% between 2007-2011. The private sector can play a key role here by providing the technology, services, support, innovation and skills that local, state and national governments are looking forward to. \\ Gayatri Maheshwary gayatri@egovonline.net

INTERNATIONAL GOV

e-Government Programme Implementation in Sri Lanka W. G. CRISHANTHA D. NANAYAKKARA, AND SHAHANI MARKUS WEERAWARANA

For a successful e-Government implementation, any country should adopt its own implementation approach, which is moulded according to the unique characteristics of the country. As a developing country, Sri Lanka, too, has been adopting to a unique e-Government programme, which is quite different to many other countries in the region.

This article discusses an extension of a research study in Sri Lanka carried out by the same authors almost two years ago.

In that study, the authors evaluated the e-Government model, adopted by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) with its e-Sri Lanka Re-engineering Government programme. It evaluated its strengths and weaknesses by analysing factors that influence e-Government projects currently being implemented. The factor analysis was based on a proposed model (Wackwella Gamage Analysis Model) that was formulated with special consideration placed on incorporating the e-Government implementation characteristics unique to Sri Lanka. Based on this factor analysis, appropriate recommendations were then proposed to enhance and strengthen the Sri Lankan e-Government model by considering all social/cultural/economical/ technical aspects pertaining to Sri Lanka.

Subsequent to the original research study, both authors were able to further study the actual implementation of the e-Sri Lanka Re-engineering Government programme in detail, as members of the technology team at the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka.

Based on these observations, this article further enhances the Wackwella Gamage Analysis Model discussion into several important aspects particularly from a technical implementation

perspective. This discussion is particularly important considering the current stage of e-Government implementation in Sri Lanka since the original study was completed during the early stages of the e-Sri Lanka Re-engineering Government programme implementation. This article significantly emphasises aspects such as interoperability, architectural integration, procurement aspects, policy and legal infrastructure as well as a discussion of the impact of innovations introduced

by ICTA in these aspects. With its discussion of the technical perspective extensions based on the application of the Wackwella Gamage Analysis Model on the e-Government implementation programme in Sri Lanka, this article provides the reader with an up-to-date understanding of an interesting case study – the e-Sri Lanka Re-engineering Government programme implemented by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA).

INTRODUCTION According to the World Bank (2005) definition, e-Government refers to the use of information technologies by government organisations, which have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of the government. Since the advent of the World Wide Web, the global business environment itself has gone through a lot of changes, notably in the Businessto-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) sectors. To follow the same trend, national governments, too, slowly started to adapt Internet and related technologies in their organisations. These sectors are mainly centered on critical dynamics between different bodies within society, such as government, citizens and businesses.

Though it gives numerous benefits to the public, most national government entities face numerous challenges while

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implementing e-Government applications (Davidson, Wagner, and Ma 2005).

Sri Lanka e-Government readiness index figures have been lying even below the world average for last few years (See Appendix 1, Figure 1). In order to reverse this unimpressive trend, the Sri Lankan Government in 2002 initiated the Reengineering Government programme under the e-Sri Lanka Road map (Hanna, 2007). The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) was appointed as the main regulatory body to implement this programme under the guidance of the Presidential Secretariat. This road map consists of two phases. Currently, the first phase is being implemented and the second phase will be finalised after evaluating the phase one deliverables (World Bank, 2004). Generally, any country that implements e-Government projects should follow a well established localised e-Government model to achieve better results. Sri Lanka, too, has been following an e-Government model under the ICTA Reengineering Government programme for the last five years (ICTA, 2004). Thus, it was important to see whether this e-Government model is fully adapted to the local context.

ANALYSIS In 2007, authors were able to critically analyse the e-Sri Lanka Re-engineering Government programme based on the factor model (WGFAM) proposed. This model discusses 30 different factors categorised into five main areas.

1. Organisational Factors 2. Environmental Factors 3. Technology Factors 4. Support Factors 5. Financial Factors Among these, authors have given more emphasis to the technological and procurement related factors, since they showed a substantial amount of progress during last two years. Other factors are discussed briefly in order to make this a complete analysis.

TECHNOLOGY FACTOR ANALYSIS IT infrastructure Since 2002, Re-engineering Government programme gave a significant emphasis to improve the government IT infrastructure by implementing various projects. The Lanka Government Network (LGN) and the Lanka Gate are the main projects among them.

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LANKA GOVERNMENT NETWORK According to the initial plan consisting of 3 phases, it was able to cover the target of 325 locations in Phase 1 and planning to cover another 150 in Phase 2. LGN is a highly secured, reliable infrastructure backbone that connects all government organisations to provide Internet, email and Internet Protocol (IP) based voice services.

In addition, this also provides, 1. Secure communication network among government organisations in Sri Lanka 2. Centralised control and management of the network 3. Centrally managed internet access 4. Centrally managed secure email system 5. Broadband connectivity to create an IP backbone 6. Open interoperability standards; This will enable to ensure interoperability between systems regardless of their platform, technology or vendor 7. Multilingual support by adopting ICTA approved Unicode fonts for local languages and should be supported by the trilingual keyboard (to support Sinhala and Tamil) 8. Virtual Private Network (VPN) activity to trusted users to access the government network 9. Centralised help desk facility to LGN users LANKA GATE After stabilising the physical network infrastructure to all government departments through LGN, during last two years ICTA was able to reach great heights by launching its flagship software infrastructure called Lanka Gate. This ever flexible infrastructure is based on the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework, which basically is built on to plug any e-Service to it. By having this feature, it can extend this infrastructure not only to government organisations, but to any of its stakeholders such as citizens, businesses. (See Figure 2) All these e-Services can be accessed via a common web portal named as the “Country Portal”. Any Sri Lankan citizen can log into this portal and access any of the government e-Services hosted. In addition to that, any of these e-Services can be extended to represent more than one government department as well. All these transactions are secured with Message level (i.e. WSSecurity) and Transport Level security. All the government e-Services

can be authenticated using the LGN CA (Certification Authority), which is owned and managed by ICTA. By having its own Certification Authority ensures a secure governance in future without having to depend on a third party CA. Subsequently, in order to provide Internet and Mobile payment facilities, Lanka Gate infrastructure is envisioned to have two more main components called CCPGP (Credit Card Payment Proxy) and the MPG (Mobile Payment Gateway).

The CCPGP is designed to function as a proxy for existing Internet Payment Gateways available in Sri Lanka. The MPG is designed to provide an open architecture to support mobile payments with SMS, WAP and IVR facilities.

VIRTUAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION (VBT) Having the luxury of a stable network and a software infrastructure has enabled ICTA to move ahead with many more e-Government projects. These projects mostly will be launched as “Quick Wins” with ICTA owned “Virtual Business Transformation” (VBT) concept. Here ICTA has decided not to transform all eGovernment projects as a complete BPR (Business Process Re-engineering).

VBT enables to carry out a high-level business process study upfront and connect them to Lanka Gate architecture as a “Quick Win”. That would enable citizens to use many services at a record quick time rather than doing a complete BPR for each and every government system around.

This is more of an “agile” method allowing more citizen interactions to government services. e-Services will be targeted, initially for government organizations with reasonable software and hardware readiness. The identified organisations will work with ICTA to virtualise their business processes and optimise the information and service flow between citizen and organisation.

Essentially a Business Process Mapping Language (BPML) should be used to detail out the current business process changes and to map and align the new business process with proposed e-Services.

SOA GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK SOA is the backbone of the Lanka Gate providing loosely coupled decentralised services with a centralised control structure. Ideally it should be loosely coupled but tightly managed. Therefore,

FIGURE 2: LANKA GATE ARCHITECTURE (SOURCE: ICT AGENCY, SRI LANKA)

it is essential to have a framework to govern its operations in order to maintain its sustainability in the long run.

Therefore, ICTA is in the process of formulating this important framework mainly to fulfill the following needs, 1. To formulate procedures in order to maintain new e-Services 2. Performance monitoring 3. Monitoring and management of deployed eServices 4. To manage security issues 5. To manage Service Level Agreements (SLAs) etc.

INTEROPERABILITY Lack of compatibility among e-Government systems can be a failure when it comes to sharing data among them. Hence, it is essential to implement an e-Government framework, which will support the compatibility among e-Government systems. This is called the interoperability framework.

Therefore, Lanka Interoperability Framework (LIFe) is getting formulated to provide guidelines for different government organisations to standardise the data architecture and data exchange.

However, still this has been limited only to Personal Data domain.

The rest of the identified domains are now being formulated and still in the review process. Though, this was not a major concern for the moment, once the Lanka Gate and other related e-Services are in action, this will be a critical aspect in data communication between different domains.

Therefore, it is the ICTAs primary responsibility to get this finalised before it is too late.

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ORGANISATIONAL FACTOR ANALYSIS Vision and Strategy It is paramount to have a clear vision in order to be successful in e-Government projects. As authors suggested in their initial paper, during last two-three years, Re-engineering Government project speare headed by its flagship Lanka Gate project, gave the direction to have more “Quick Wins” along with other major projects in the road map. Along with major projects such as e-Revenue Licence project, there are quite a number of “Quick Win” projects under its VBT concept. For example, under Lanka Gate – Country Portal project, ICTA envisioned to launch quick win projects like Railway Schedule Inquiry, Examination Results Inquiry, EPF/ ETF balance inquiry, Motor Traffic Registration inquiry, etc.

PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT Most of the e-Government projects undertaken by ICTA were comparatively large projects and needed a substantial amount time to complete. Therefore, ICTA opted to develop those systems closer to the traditional “Water Fall” approach. Most of the time a complete BPR was done prior to the development.

When it comes to the project software development, ICTA didn’t have much control over the project mainly because it did not have the technical strength to support initially. Therefore, most of the projects took substantial amount of time to make a real progress.

In order to overcome these project delays, ICTA devised a new software

development approach called “Software Development Services Approach (SDSA)” with following key aspects in mind. (See Figure 5) 1. An initial high level system study is needed to define the overall architecture of the project.

2. Depending on this initial study and the devised high level architecture, the ICTA technical staff breaks the total architecture into several “key components” mainly depending on their complexities and interdependencies.

3. If possible “A thin slice prototype” is implemented to validate related technologies. This would eliminate any technical challenge or any architectural gap up front.

4. After identifying and testing the high level architectural components, it is quite easy to procure them separately as several individual contracts. This enables to complete any identified component/ module parallel to other components identified in the architecture.

5. Once all these components are completed, a separate contract can be offered depending on the complexity of the integration or it can be integrated utilising the ICTA technical staff.

6. Finally, all the technical deliverables from the vendor need to be reviewed and signed off by the ICTA architecture team.

This approach effectively harnesses agile and iterative software development industry best practices within standard procurement guidelines whilst leveraging upon the cost--effective, highly successful and specialized outsourced software development services industry.

For example, the Lanka Gate project followed this SDSA methodology and procured all its components simultaneously for several vendors. By applying this, the project was able to complete its key components within a very short time (four months). In addition to that, the continuous review process paved the way for a successful completion without any last minute surprises.

THE LEADERSHIP There are several steps have been taken to improve the organisational leadership among government CIOs (Chief Innovation Officers). During last few years, ICTA organised several programmes such as e-Champion knowledge sharing sessions via video

conferencing with the collaboration of World Bank, Study tours to countries like Estonia, which has a much sophisticated eGovernment structure and most importantly the initiation of the MBA in e-Governance programme. Each year ICTA selects most eligible CIOs with the collaboration of University Of Moratuwa to conduct this very important course, which directs them to know almost all the aspects of e-Government.

Subsequently, ICTA has also taken steps to form the “National Administrative Reforms Committee (NARC)” to resolve any delaying issues related to its respective organizations. Now CIOs slowly leverage this concept to inform their grievances to this committee. However, as suggested by authors in their initial paper, still the “Inter ministerial committee” though it was again accepted by the cabinet early this year, has not off taken totally.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR ANALYSIS

THE LEGAL INFRASTRUCTURE REFERENCES While other technical developments are going on, the importance of ensuring parallel developments in the legal framework is essential. Fortunately ICTA strengthened its efforts by commencing the building of a legal framework for ICT development in Sri Lanka, by extending a generic global standard like United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). With this, during last few years ICTA was able to enact a few ICT laws such as Electronic Transaction Act, Computer Crime Act (ICTA, 2007). In addition to that, now ICTA is in the process of legalizing the Credit Card payment transactions within government organistions. This will be instrumental to use credit card within the Lank Gate infrastructure and will further helpful to regulate mobile payment transactions as well.

FINANCIAL/ SUPPORT FACTOR ANALYSIS

National e-Government Policy The government ICT Policy should be implemented without any further delays. The government was not able to approve the drafted ICT policy by the cabinet for years due to various reasons. Adhering to the ICT Policy will allow government organizations to follow some strict guidelines from the beginning itself. Otherwise complications will arise after a few years time. For example, the use of pirated software within government departments can take place if there is no enforcement/ policy directive from the government. The policy may not be able to control issues 100% but will certainly improve the standards and the management of ICT within organistions.

W.G. CRISHANTHA D. NANAYAKKARA

Crishantha Nanayakkara holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Computing and Information Systems from University Of London and a MBA in Information Technology from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Crishantha has nearly 14 years of professional experience mainly in design and implementation of enterprise software applications. He is currently working at ICTA of Sri Lanka as a Senior Technologist, providing technical consultation to key eGovernment projects.

At the moment ICTA reengineering government programmes mostly relying on the World Bank funds until end of 2011 with its two year extension. For some reason, if World Bank does not fund for the next phase, the government should have an alternative plan to take up the challenge to the next phase.

Creating Public Private Partnerships (PPP) can also be proposed as one more financially feasible source that Sri Lanka should look at. The private company can invest in an e-Government project and can own, manage and maintain for an agreed period. Further it can gain from the investment through fees. After the agreed time, the private company should transfer ownership and operations to the government. \\

SHAHANI MARKUS WEERAWARANA

Dr. Shahani Markus Weerawarana is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Sciences & Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Previously, she was the Chief Technology Officer at the ICT Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka. Prior to that, she was the Head of Engineering at Virtusa (Sri Lanka), which is a global software services provider with centers in USA, UK, India and Sri Lanka.

// Davidson, R.M. Wagner, C. and Ma, L.C.K. (2005) ‘From government to e-government: a transition model’, Information Technology & People, vol.

18, no. 3, pp. 280¬299. // Hanna, N.K. (2007) From Envisioning to Designing e-Development: The Experience of Sri Lanka, The World Bank. // Heeks, R. B. (2001) Reinventing Government in the Information Age, London, Routledge. // Heeks, R.B. and Bhatnagar, S.C. (2001) ‘Understanding Success and Failure in Information Age Reform’, Reinventing Government in the Information Age, pp 49-74, London, Routledge. // Heeks, R. B. (2002) ‘Information Systems and Developing Countries: Failures, Success, and Local Improvisations’, The Information Society, vol. 18, no. 2, pp 101-112. // Heeks, R.B. (2003) ‘Most e-governmentfor-Development projects fail: How can risks be reduced?’, iGovernment Working Paper Series, Paper No 14. // ICTA (2004) ‘E-Sri Lanka Development Project e-Government Consultancy, Proposed eServices Report’, Information and Communication Technology Agency, ICTA. // ICTA (2007), “ICT Policy for Government V.3.62”, Information and Communication Technology Agency, ICTA. // United Nations, (2003) UN Global e-governance Survey 2003, New York. // United Nations, (2004) Global egovernance Readiness Report 2004: Towards Access for Opportunity. New York. // United Nations, (2005) Global e-governance Readiness Report 2005: From e-Governance to e-inclusion. New York. // United Nations, (2008) UN e-Government Survey 2008: From e-government to Connected Governance. New York. // Wackwella Gamage C.D.N., Shahani Weerawarana, (2008) A Critical Evaluation of the e-Government Model Implementation in Sri Lanka, 4th International Conference on eGovernment (ICEG), RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, 2008. // World Bank (2004) ‘Project Appraisal Document’, The World Bank. // World Bank (2005) Definition of e-Government, [Online], Available: http:// www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/ egov/definition.htm [Mar. 11, 2007]

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INTERNATIONAL GOV

e-Governance: The Egyptian Experience PROF. ASHRAF ABDELWAHAB

E-GOVERNMENT IN EGYPT The Egyptian e-Government programme was launched in 2001 focusing on three tracks; namely: introduction of new service delivery channels, optimisation of resource utilisation, and establishing and linking national databases. The programme was a success. At the end of its first phase (2001-2007), the UN-PAN report on e-Readiness 2008 has ranked Egypt 28 out of 192 (UN Survey, 2008).

SERVICE DELIVERY CHANNELS The figure below demonstrates the multi-channel model for service delivery, and the government infrastructure supporting its citizens, businesses, and suppliers who can access government services directly or through service providers. The government gateway (branded as ‘Bawaba’ in Arabic), implemented using a citizen centric approach, integrates multiple back ends (ministries, other government bodies and government databases). The whole process is supported by robust technical infrastructure. The national web portal also provides national e-Government standards for networking, information security, document management, requirements for people with special needs, Enterprise Architecture Framework and interoperability as well as a PKI system and an e-Payment framework.

This is twined by the adequate legal infrastructure that allows for remote authentication.

Egypt issued the e-Signature law in 2004 and by mid2009, 4 private companies were licensed for providing digital certificates to the citizens.

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The government portal ‘Bawaba’ (onestop-shop portal) was launched in June 2002 (beta) and went into full operation in January 2004. The portal is a bilingual Arabic-English interface accessible to citizens, foreigners, businesses, and investors. It is a one point of entry to all government services in Egypt. This makes it easier to manage transactions and reach key government agencies anytime-anywhere through a user-friendly interface without wasting time, as there are more than 300 government web sites.

The Bawaba is designed and built to be seamlessly integrated with public key infrastructure. Through a variety of encryption techniques and algorithms, the gateway secures sensitive data while communicating with users and ministries over the Internet to provide 24/7 access to government services. The portal offers a variety of services to citizens, businesses and foreigners ranging from simple queries and submitting forms to full transaction services that require integration among service providers.

GOVERNMENT TO BUSINESS (G2B) SERVICES The G2B services aim to simplify business processes for all companies, investors, suppliers and exporters and make them more efficient. This is achieved through some heavy-use services that are available online, such as: e-Procurement: where all • government tenders will be availed online with complete automation of the work cycle (1st phase launched, complete system planned by early 2010)

•

• • • • • • • • •

Customs services: online publishing of customs tariffs, as well as online submission of EDI manifests and import/export documents e-Billing Business permits/licenses Applying to join special status industrial tax/customs free zones Online purchase of Egyptian quality standards Tax services (filing tax declarations, status inquiry, etc…)

Applying for corporate mergers Query of the shipping charges and the exchange rates Browsing the Egyptian industrial catalogue Industrial regulatory authority services

GOVERNMENT TO CITIZEN (G2C) SERVICES Currently, there are over 600 inquiry services that provide citizens with service forms, as well as information on service average times, requirements and procedures for public services. In addition, over 90 services are availed that can be reached by citizens wherever they are located. The most prominent services are: Request submission to university • placement office (450,000+ users annually – only available online since 2007) Vehicle license (registration) renewal • Traffic fines e-Payment • Opera tickets e-Booking • Judicial services (enquiry about case • status, request of case document copies, etc…)

Issuance of birth certificate copies •

to achieve 100% coverage by 2012.

OPTIMISATION OF RESOURCE UTILISATION The G2G services are illustrated by the automation of the governmental offices program.

The program’s vision is to develop and automate the various functions carried out by the government administrative body and enhance the collaboration between the different ministries/ Figure 1: Implementation framework for the e-Government programme government bodies.

This is in order to Phone and water bills e-Payment • eventually reduce expenditure and better Bus, train, and national airline e- allocation of government resources. The • booking main objective is to improve the level of Replacement of national ID card • accuracy and efficiency while ensuring Tax services (enquiry and submission security and confidentiality in exchanging • of tax declaration forms) information between different ministries Municipal services (permits, licenses, and other relevant government bodies.

• etc.)

It is worth mentioning that the above Initiatives include: services are not only availed; they have • Automation of 1600 financial units undergone a whole cycle of administrative • e-Procurement, www.etenders. simplification to become less bureaucratic gov.eg , the Egyptian Government and decentralised and to decrease procurement portal execution time of paper transactions. e-Archiving, document circulation • The services track does not focus only and paperless government on central government services but has • e-Inventory adopted a parallel track to modernise local government as well. Today more ESTABLISHING & LINKING than 47 (out of 289 municipalities) have NATIONAL DATABASE been re-modeled, infrastructure installed, a computerized application for monitoring To harvest the fruits of the several citizen’s requests is in place, and staff national databases that have been trained on using the system. On average, established in the late eighties and early a municipality delivers around 67 services nineties, it was time to link them to aid to citizens. The project has documented in making better decisions and to provide these services, re-engineered some of better efficient-directed social safety net them, and modeled them in a computer services. Samples of this project include system. A major advantage of this project the creation of the family database, is its adoption of the single window stop linking of the National ID to the education model that completely separates between database to track basic education dropthe service provider and the service outs, real-estate registration and the receiver to fight corruption by eliminating unified commercial registry. direct contact between citizens and civil servants. Today, every head of municipality FAMILY CARD is able to track all requests and find out which of them is not accomplished on As a direct outcome of the creation of time and why. The project is expected the ‘Family Database’, the ‘Family Card’

project was launched to link families to the database. Hence, each family has its very own unique card/identifier.

HISTORY As part of Egypt’s social insurance programme, the government offers food subsidies to families that are in need of such aid. Before the initiative, delivering food commodities was completely paper based, which led to lack of follow up, high leakage ratios, and inaccurate delivery of the commodities to the deserved families.

In short, the government was spending aid money that was not reaching to those who deserve it. Similarly, the delivery of social pensions suffered the same shortcomings before the initiative (same process, same disadvantages). However, the social pension is allowed to families according to certain social criteria which, manually, can be forged, and instead, non-eligible citizens can receive such pension.

INCEPTION The Egyptian Government took a decision to adopt smart cards as a tool to provide various social and support services (food commodities, social pension, health insurance, educational support, etc.) to underprivileged citizens.

The government relied on the use of information and communications technology as a means to manage and control the delivery of social services to citizens. Meanwhile, a database for the Egyptian family was being customised to support the decision making related to subsidized services.

The ‘Family Card’ project belongs to the Ministry of Social Solidarity (owner of the public services, as well as the family database). However, the Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD), as the main coordinator of e-Government activities within the government of Egypt, managed this project. Its production and operation was fully outsourced to three local private sector companies.

The project started up as a pilot project in 2005 in one of Egypt’s 29 governorates, Suez, with only one service: food subsidies. The project proved to be a huge success. The project started rolling out from there to other governorates. It currently covers 6.2 million families out egov

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The resulted savings were around 22% of the total food subsidy for Suez in Phase 1, reducing the cost of food subsidies for government. In Phase 2, 10 governorates were covered by the system, in addition to the social pension service to the smart card. Phase 3, (current, covering all Egyptian 29 governorates) should be completely covered by mid 2010.

Hence, it can be deduced that applying ICT and e-Government solutions in this case, have lead to many benefits on a governance level; saving millions of pounds for the government, and providing better services to citizens, as well as being transparent along the way.

Figure 2: Health Insurance Services by using Family Card

of Egypt’s 11.5 million families (enrolled in the subsidy system), and continues to reach new governorates everyday. More services have been added to the Family Card since then, such as the social pension, and medical insurance (available currently in Suez only – see figure 2).

Further services are being considered to be added to this platform such as monetary subsidies.

CHALLENGES The initiative has encountered a set of obstacles. One obstacle lies in the culture of the grocer who used to work manually and was quite reluctant to use the automated system. Similarly, the supply office employee who used paper work and having no technical background represented a challenge to the new system implementation. To overcome such obstacle, two types of training were applied, theoretical and onthe-job training.

Another obstacle lies in the culture of the citizen who used to deal with paper card and may have never dealt with electronic equipments, making it difficult for him/her to get acquainted with the new system.

An extra challenge was how to receive the citizen’s feedback, complaints, and notices. For this specific issue, a dedicated call center has been designed and installed as an integral part of the solution.

The final challenge which was faced was related to the citizens, in making him/her keep his/her smart card and PIN number away from the grocer to avoid illegal transactions. This has been solved through setting a media campaign and various awareness sessions .

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FROM E-GOVERNMENT TO e-GOVERNANCE

ASSESSMENT The initiative guarantees delivery of the services to the underprivileged citizens through a computerised application, upto-date database, and efficient incurring system. It establishes monitoring, control over the infiltration and loss in supports, and allows creation of a civilised environment through which underprivileged citizens can acquire their services. It achieves transparency through the establishment of clear and neutral processes for acquiring and managing subsidies. The initiative includes building of an integrated family database to support the system together with relevant statistics, which leads to various benefits;which includes availing data, information, and statistics needed to analyze the behavior of the Egyptian families; availing accurate, up-to-date, and timely data and information for future support planning and supporting decision making which targets a better quality of living. Hence, the government can use such database to identify social problems and consequently exert efforts to urge Egyptian families to change their living style. Such efforts include eradicating illiteracy, and working against unhealthy habits.

To conclude, it is clear that e-Government has availed several tools on the right track for e-Governance; of which are: Separation between the service • provider (civil servant) and the service receiver (citizen) and recording of all transactions on computers closed down several doors that might open possibilities for irregular payments or illegal transactions Availing information easily at the • finger tips of businesses and citizens made them more aware of their rights The new model for government • procurement increased transparency in request for proposals and quotations (RFP and RFQ, respectively) • Availability of a government call center and e-mail reply center to inquire and complain is building a new culture within citizens to fight for their rights; an issue expected to be encouraged by civil society • Availability of citizen polling on all local government portals will start a new era of citizen participation in the decision making process. \\

ASHRAF ABDELWAHAB

Prof. Ashraf Abdelwahab is a professor of computer engineering, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt. In 1992 he received his Ph.D. degree in Machine Learning and Evolutionary Algorithms, published over 50 technical papers. Since 2006, Dr. Abdelwahab has been appointed as the Deputy to the Minister of State for Administrative Development. He is responsible of supervising, monitoring and coordinating e-Government and organisational development initiatives. He is also responsible of the coordination with other ministries and international organisations.

He can be reached at awahab@ad.gov.eg

PSU WATCH

Needs of the Capital http://ipgcl-ppcl.gov.in

R K GUAR MANAGING DIRECTOR, INDRAPRASTHA POWER GENERATION CORPORATION (IPGCL) - PRAGATI POWER CORPORATION (PPCL)

The power demand in Delhi is around 4400MW in peak hours. Our contribution is around 700-750 MWs. Rest of the demand is met through purchasing power from other states and corporations. In order to reduce this dependence, we have planned to have in-house generating capacity, that too, without polluting the environment.

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// INTERVIEW

What is the Indraprastha Power Generation Corporation (IPGCL) - Pragati Power Corporation (PPCL) road map for meeting the power needs of the Capital of India?

Currently IPGCL has four power generating stations, out of which two are coal-based and other two are gasbased. Collectively, we generate about 994.2 MW. Under the leadership of our Chairman and Managing Director, Rajendra Prashad, we developed a vision of making Delhi a power surplus state. Recently, we have started working on a very ambitious power project in Bawana with capacity of 1500 MW that is supposed to look after additional demand during the commonwealth games. We have also started working on another project at Bamnauli with a capacity of 750MW. So by 2012-13, we are targeting to have a total capacity of 3000 MW. The power demand in Delhi is around 4400MW in peak hours. Our contribution is around 700-750 MWs. Rest of the demand is met through purchasing power from other states and corporations. In order to reduce this dependence, we have planned to have in-house generating capacity, that too, without polluting the environment.

Tell us why did IPGCL – PPCL go for deploying an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution?

We have four power plants spread geographically at distant locations. In an effort to synchronise, economise and standardise the operations, we implemented SAP Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP, as acknowledged, is a mechanism for standardising processes, which results in creating synergies and for optimal utilisation of resources- of man, machine, money etc. Moreover, all of the plants will be integrated and all of the operations will be on-line. Importantly, ERP brings transparency. Finally, when you have every thing centrally controlled, you can monitor the processes and operations in a better manner. You can better utilise your inventory, and achieve operational efficiency.

The cost of generation must be aligned, according to the current trend in the market. In the days to come when power will be plenty, then those power stations where the cost of generation is

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lower, will have an edge over other power corporations. To be in line with the current trend, we have to utilise our resources in the most optimal manner..

reduced greatly and we are expecting it to come down to under 100 level. In the long run we are expecting it around 50 –60 days.

What were the implementation challenges?

We have an aging population, that is not so IT friendly. Thereby, change management was a problem. Record keeping was not up to the mark and even Base Line data was not in a good shape.

Frankly, we were hesitant initially. However, we created a core group, which worked very hard and took up the challenge.

Now we have set a global precedence in completing ERP implementation in just seven months.

Why did you go for SAP ERP? Most of the power generation companies have deployed SAP ERP. We have a good number of success stories.

We asked NIXI and SAP to conduct a survey in the organisation for readiness and acceptability for the application.

They came out with a conclusion that a dedicated core team would be instrumental in implementing ERP.

What are the modules covered under ERP? ERP helps in taking use of resources in the most optimal manner. Resources are expensive, what ever it may be – manpower, machines and O & M. ERP precisely targets these issues. Under ERP, you have a system, which will tell the status of the equipments, about the number of breakdowns. So you know when to change the particular equipment.

Earlier, the case was after every three years we had to change the equipments, independent of the conditions they were in.

Inventory management is a key module covered under ERP. We have a pool of hardware resources. All the equipments and machines can be seen by any of the four plant managers, which was not an easy task earlier.

Central Data Management is another vital module, wherein if an individual has fed some data, and updated some records, it will be accessible by other people as well, inside the organisation.

Yet another relevant module is the Employee Grievance Redressal System, which addresses various organisational and operational issues, under a particular time frame. Other modules include: HR Affairs, Management, O&M and Project Monitoring. It also generates MIS reports that help the top management in making faster decisions. It can be called as a move towards enabling e-Office or a paperless office.

Moreover, the procurement time earlier was 180 days. But with the ERP deployment, the time is going to be

Have you also taken green initiatives in power generation?

The Government of Delhi has taken a decision that it will not have any coalbased power generating centres, without polluting the city. One of the power stations – Indraprastha Power Generation Corporation will be closed this year by October 31. Because machines are old, maintenance cost is high, due to pollution, and breakdown losses. Then we have another coal based station at Rajghat (in the Capital). We hope to run it for another 5 to 6 years and by the time it completes 25 years, it will also be closed.

Eventually, we would not have any coal-based stations in Delhi, because of the environmental concerns. After this happens, we will only have gasbased stations in the Capital, which comparatively does lesser carbon emissions. We already have two of them and we are planning to add two more in the years to come.

Are you planning to be a mega power plant in the days to come?

NDMC, Army, NES are our local customers. In order to get status of mega power station, we are in the process of finalising deal [power purchasing agreement (PPA)] with Haryana and Punjab for selling power. For being mega power plant, the Central Government has laid some parameters, which includes having a generation capacity of more than 1000 Megawatt, having one or more states as customers etc. In return, Centre is giving some facilities/subsidies in custom duties, and it would save around INR 300 Crore. \\ Prachi Shirur and Pratap Vikram Singh

URBAN WATCH

Enabling Smart Gover nance with GIS Computer Aided Digital Mapping (CADM) is a Government of India initiative under the umbrella of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, for providing large-scale digital maps with an aim to help in urban planning, disaster preparedness and infrastructure management. Under CADM, six metro cities across India have to be provided with digital maps on which the utility agencies shall over lay their utility network for better citizen service delivery.

Pan India, the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) is doing the aerial photography in coordination with the Defence Ministry and state governments and National Informatics centre (NIC) is the agency looking after the technical support, the spatial calculations based on photogrammetry and its over all application in utility agencies.

In Andhra Pradesh (AP), the frst step of CADM began with the capturing of aerial photographs by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) in February 2006.

The measurements through 3D aerial photographs are so close to accuracy, that the maximum variation between the actual and NRSC calculated area cannot be more than 10 cm. However, the same accuracy is almost impossible through the manual systems. It becomes quite diffcult to measure the exact area that too in highly populated and concretised metros.

Labeling of the brick structures with information in the high-resolution 3D maps makes a complete ‘base map’, which can be used by the utility agencies while laying down the infrastructure. The base map is with Greater Hyderabad

Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in the centrally hosted server at its HQs. To integrate and access this valuable resource, all other utility agencies need to put a leased line to the municipal HQs to connect with the main server.

GIS APPLICATIONS IN UTILITY

In revenue, the GHMC earned out of its calculations Rs.3,04,131. Though, the earnings through calculations based on the base map, the GHMC could have earned almost twice, that is, Rs. 5,87,161.55, resulting in a difference of Rs.2,83,030.55. Apparently, there has been an increase of at least 30 % - with the use of GIS technique.

Property tax collections This is one of the unique applications of GIS, which results in the increase of the revenue and revenue base of the municipal corporation. Using geo-spatial information or the base map, each property details such as owner name, door number, plinth area, property tax value etc., can be viewed at a glance on the map. Traditionally, the department had to depend on the feld workers for the measurements, who are often bribed by the individual property owners, resulting in the manipulation of the original fgures, causing huge losses to the municipal authority in the revenue.

N S Sathya Sai Baba, Project Coordinator, NIC, said “The variation between the plinth-area calculated by NRSA and municipal corporation data for many brick structures can be identifed easily with the use of this application. In a pilot that was done in the Nallakunta locality of the Hyderabad city, taking into consideration 31 properties, the GHMC fgure for the total plinth area came around 94,581sft, whereas the NRSC measured the taxable area for the exact properties to about 1,84,337.58sft, resulting in a stark difference of 89,756.58sft between the two estimates.”

INTEGRATED GRIEVANCE MONITORING SYSTEM (IGMS) Developed with the objective of keeping citizen centricity to the core of service delivery, the NIC team in AP has designed IGMS application GHMC, with which citizens can register their complains online on roads, street lights, dumper bins, etc, check its status and get it resolved within a time frame. Each user can have a unique ID and password and can monitor their complain through the complaint number.

Over the digital map, the user can mark the exact location of the fault, while logging his/her complain. If the complain is related to a road, the road will be highlighted with red colour. Subsequently, the colour changes from red to yellow as the work is in progress and it further changes from yellow to green when the work is completed.

METRO TECH DETECTORS AND FMS To sort out frequent problems occurring with the Utility services, the NIC has designed an application called fault-monitoring system (FMS) where

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workfow, the facts and fgures related to the government resources have been fltered and refned. In the GHMC case, it has reduced the dependence of department on the feld workers and feld collectors in collection of data and revenue. It has translated in to reduced corruption and increase in revenue, by almost 30%.

Providing accurate measurements, the application adds authenticity to the government service delivery and restores public trust, besides helping the top management in decision making.

CHALLENGES AND SUCCESS

2D Image of Hyderabad City

the citizens will log in to the web site and register complains. In response, the concerned utility personnel will visit the fault site and will fx the problem without taking much time. It is all done so smoothly with the help of a tool called Metro Tech Detectors.

Metro Tech Detectors has the ability to scan and detect the underground pipe and wire lines and is being distributed to utility departments. This tool helps feld workers and the department to dig precisely the portion of the road or any such area beneath which the faulty pipeline lies, avoiding unnecessary wastage of time and energy and mitigate risk of damage of critical pipelines, passing nearby to the faulted one. Back to offce, the personnel notify the technical team, which marks the point of correction on the digital map, which is used for future reference.

GIS IN HMWSSB AND POLICE DEPARTMENT Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) is also no less enthusiastic in using NRSA Base map. HMWSSB personnel detect old water pipe lines by using Metrodetectors provided by NIC under CADM Project. These lines are then detected and mapped on NRSA Data.

With the availability of the base map,

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NRSC 3D Image of Hyderabad City

the police department takes regular print out for their daily planning - the security arrangements for V-VIP and VIP movement, called as ‘bandobast’.

Currently, the department is preparing clear jurisdictions boundaries with the help of NIC technical team.

BENEFITS GIS, when integrated with web application, can be an important tool in the hands of the authorities to monitor the government assets, safeguarding it from encroachment. Moreover, it saves time, resources and energy of the utility agencies in their feld operations and trouble shooting, eventually enhancing the citizen service delivery.

With the integration of GIS in the

The potential of GIS is enormous and is being aggressively used in many of developed nation states, in providing a clear picture of resource usage, state of education and health facilities across country. In Andhra Pradesh, though NIC team through pilots has proved the strengths of using GIS in government utilities, it is up to the departments now to adopt this innovative technique for increasing revenue, enhancing citizen service delivery, smoother laying of infrastructure and ensuring better control and monitoring over public property.

Speaking on the training of staff in utility departments, N S Sathya Sai Baba, Project Coordinator, NIC, said, “While transferring the base map to the various agencies, we trained at least fve people in each of these departments.

Because ultimately it’s the champions in the each of the departments who will take forward the use of technology in routine business.

For the adoption of GIS and its success at the organisational level, Sai Baba said, “ There has to be a group of motivated nodal offcers or say champions in each of the utility and other government departments so that they may take the ownership and provide the consistent push required till its public acknowledgement and success.”

Though many of the offcials in the upper hierarchy of the state utilities have shown keen interest in GIS, a regular review of the developments, like in any government programme, by the top management will be key to the success of CADM. \\ Pratap Vikram Singh pratap@egovonline.net

RNI NO. - UPENG/2008/25234

UP/GBD - 71/2009-2011