Sustaining Investment in ICT Growth

Sustaining

Investment in ICT Growth

MITTS Ltd over the past years embarked on a cohesive strategic programme to strengthen the operations of the Public Service through its continuous improvements in the ICT infrastructure, services and the actualisation of ICT projects. In this regard, MITTS Ltd invested substantially to strengthen the infrastructural ICT framework. This has been done on two fronts.

On the first front MITTS Ltd has invested in upgrading the framework underpinning the ICT core services. Investment in this regard related to the setting up of GovNet, the web framework, e-mail, disaster recovery and extension of the Computer Centre. Moreover, late in 2003, negotiations have been concluded for the provision of a high speed fibre optic connectivity network that will replace the existing Malta Government Network (MAGNET) in the Valletta, Floriana and Guardamangia region.

On the second front, MITTS Ltd has invested to consolidate and strengthen its internal ICT applications. An integrated Management Information System will consolidate the already implemented cost and accounting management, human resources management and time recording with the service management environment and project reporting mechanism.

Investment was also directed towards introducing technology management tools. Of particular mention are the HP OpenView for the management of MAGNET and Microsoft SMS.

It is to be borne in mind, however, that implementing technology successfully is never just about technology. Only the effective integration of people, processes and technology will result in a measurable and sustainable, and thus successful implementation.

Effective Cost Management for Better Decision Making

The plans of having the Cost Management Accounting Framework (CMAF) fully

functional (with the exception of the Project Management Module) by the second quarter of 2003 were successfully attained, whereby two out of three major CMAF components - the cost accounting engine and the new Human Resources and Payroll System were fully functional. Moreover, in the last quarter of 2003, a sales reporting tool was implemented, whereby such a reporting tool was added to the scope of the CMAF half way through the year.

The third component, that is the project management engine, is in its evaluation stage as the CMAF team is awaiting for the new release of MS Project to be issued by Microsoft.

A Service Management Culture with the aid of appropriate Tools

An extremely important aspect of the operation of MITTS Ltd is ensuring continuity in the provision of its services to the levels expected by its clients. MITTS Ltd is committed to various Service Level Agreements and the honouring of these agreements is fundamental to MITTS Ltd successful operation.

To this effect, MITTS Ltd has embarked on a project to replace the existing Support System with a new Service Management System based on ITIL philosophy. Following the evaluation of the submissions to a Request for Proposals issued by the Company, in the last half of 2003 MITTS Ltd carried out on-site and technical hands-on evaluations of the selected system that placed best in the short-listing process.

Contract negotiations will commence in the beginning of 2004 and the implementation of the new package is expected to be carried out in a phased manner commencing with those functional areas that are currently already in operation, that is, incident, problem and change management together with the first phase of the configuration management database. This would then be followed with the full implementation of configuration, release and service level management. Each phase will comprise: (i) a process improvement exercise; (ii) the migration of data from various data sources; (iii) configuration of the new system to suit our requirements; (iv) training; and (v) switch over from old to new system (where applicable).

MAGNET II

With the increased availability of new technologies within the ICT environment and further to Government’s determination to improve its services to meet the ever growing demands and expectations, it was established that the current network needed to be enhanced.

Late in December 2003, after a year and a half of lengthy and at times difficult and complex negotiations, MITTS Ltd entered into a twelve-year agreement with the Maltacom plc and Melita Cable plc Consortium to replace the current MAGNET and thus provide Government with a state of the art and long term flexible network infrastructure to meet the increasing needs and dependency of Government on Information Systems (IS) business applications. The MAGNET II network will connect fifty-nine (59) Government Ministries and Departments located in the Valletta / Floriana / Guardamangia area over a high speed, secure and resilient Fibre Optic Network. Furthermore Gattard House and the Disaster Recovery Site will also be connected via Point-to-Point Fibre Optic links so as to facilitate a mirrored real-time operation between these two Data Centres. The service contract also incorporates Service Level and Performance Level Agreements thus ensuring the best network performance on a twenty-four hour basis.

"Managing Malta's largest network and the Government of Malta's complex Network Infrastructure is a critical task for MITTS Ltd. Hewlett Packard commends MITTS Ltd proactive approach towards network management through HP's OpenView Network Node Manager and associated processes and policies implementations. HP was pleasantly surprised with MITTS Ltd technical commitment and forward thinking culture." Alberto Caprara - Sales Manager HP European Emerging Markets

It is anticipated that work on the implementation phase will start in the first quarter of 2004, with acceptance testing planned for August 2004 and commissioning for September 2004. The last quarter of 2004 will see the migration of the fifty-nine sites from the current network on to MAGNET II. This process will be planned and phased over a number of weekends so as to ensure minimal impact to clients.

This agreement visibly demonstrates that MITTS Ltd commitment to work with the private sector is not mere lip service but rather an integral part of its business behaviour and value system. This ensures that the best of breed ideas, technologies and intellectual capital are brought to fruition to ensure cost effective and efficient services to Government and the general public.

It is with this spirit of collaboration that this network will be brought to life at the end of 2004, and operated over the coming twelve years.

Web Framework, e-Government and m-Government

Given that the Web Framework has to act as the backbone for the entire e-Government Programme, MITTS Ltd invested heavily during 2002 and 2003 to scale up the current platform to ensure it meets the throughput generated from the demand, thus ensuring resiliency, scalability and security with an availability service level of 98.5%.

MITTS Ltd also assisted the Ministry for Information Technology and Investments responsible for e-Government with the design and management of the core e-Government ICT framework and participated in the establishment of the m-Government gateway. The architecture of the latter was

also recognised at European levels, where during an EU Conference on e-Government held in Como, Italy, the m-Government solution obtained an EU recognition for its design, scalability and functionality, receiving a ‘Finalist’ certificate after being chosen by an independent panel of experts as one of the 65 applications representing "the best practices of public administrations in Europe" from 357 proposals.

Centralised Testing and Development Environments

As part of MITTS Ltd efforts to improve its operations, streamline recurrent operational costs and have a standardised environment, a consolidation exercise aimed at having a centralised development and testing environment was embarked upon. This initiative was the culmination of a number of proposals that MITTS Ltd grouped under one project mid way through 2002. The project scope included Linux, UNIX, Windows and web based platforms with the Windows platforms utilising virtual machine software for the first time in MITTS Ltd.

Work was practically concluded on all initiatives by the end of 2003. MITTS Ltd can now boast of not only having a comprehensive underlying infrastructure and expertise in quality assurance and in leading technologies but also of having a fully deployed Web Test Environment being used for the testing of web applications prior to release on the Web Framework. This has already shown a great deal of benefits with the vast majority of issues now being trapped at testing stages.

Now that the environments are stable, a process of decommissioning of stand alone development servers will be initiated to gain from the benefits of consolidation.

Alternative Connectivity Project

Early in 2003, MITTS Ltd proposed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs an alternative communications platform with the scope of connecting embassies and missions using internet along with the networking equipment to provide the required security. This project also provided for a sufficient increase in bandwidth and would also allow for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) transmissions thus further exploiting and maximising these alternative links.

The implementation of the Alternative Connectivity project kicked off in the last quarter of 2003 and is expected to be concluded in the first quarter of 2004. This will provide a number of benefits, namely, a drastic overall reduction in maintenance and support costs as well as an increase in bandwidth that allows for the possibility of VoIP between these embassies and MAGNET together with access to other ICT services and systems provided by MAGNET. Given its success, during 2004, this initiative will also be extended to cover other Maltese embassies and missions abroad including Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, China and Russia.

MITTS Ltd has also piloted successfully the introduction of VoIP within the Ministry for Social Policy to leverage these value added services arising from data and voice convergence. A formulation of a strategy framework is also underway to extend these benefits to the whole of Government.

Introduction of Automated Tools

During 2003, MITTS Ltd aggressively piloted the introduction of network and system management tools to provide the Company with the capacity to be proactive, undertake preventive maintenance, and automate tasks and thereby reduce the cost of ownership of operations.

The pilot project produced quick-wins and important mechanisms so as to shift away from the reactive mode with respect to network problems. Through the Network Management System (NMS), the technical resources are now alerted within a few seconds if a network problem exists on the MAGNET and corrective action is immediately carried out centrally, thus drastically reducing the cost of maintenance and the service turnaround time to solve any problems on the network and network devices.

Moreover, MITTS Ltd will finally be in a position to actually have a Technical Capacity Monitoring and Planning tool that will allow for better decision making with respect to planning for increases in capacity of bandwidth, server disk space and power, routers and connections, just to mention a few. This will result in improved customer satisfaction and increased service availability.

In 2004, it is planned that additional solutions from the OpenView family suite of toolsets will be gradually introduced and added to this building block architecture. This will allow MITTS Ltd to be adaptable so that both operations and the infrastructure can respond easily to business change through the combination of people, processes and technology thus automating the dynamic link between business and IT.

Electronic Government Mail (EGM) Improvements

EGM services have fast become an essential service that clients cannot do without. The introduction of additional services such as Web Mail and Secure Mail have induced senior public officials to make more intensive use of EGM services and have become extremely dependent on its use. A further 4,000 Web Mail accounts were activated in the Ministry of Education for the provision of e-mail accounts to teaching staff. Overall the e-mail penetration within the Public Service, Schools and Local Councils has reached approximately 14,000 accounts in 2003.

During the past three years, MITTS Ltd placed considerable investment in the EGM infrastructure to ensure that service levels are maintained and improved. Due to the increase in Web Mail take up and due to service level assurance of 99.88% availability, an EGM enhancement project was initiated in December 2002 focusing on the partial replacement of the current infrastructure. This investment which was completed by mid 2003 has improved such an infrastructure through the replacement of hardware including four e-mail servers, that increased internet e-mail resiliency, capacity and also allowed for the implementation of antispamming measures.

In 2004, MITTS Ltd will undertake a study to look at other different systems that could possibly add more benefits to the users through integration of various Groupware products and features, thus providing a seamless collaborative environment.

Server Consolidation

Given the increasing maintenance and support costs for Government, thereby squeezing out financing for new investment and work in progress, MITTS Ltd will be championing a process of consolidation in order to reduce running costs for both MITTS Ltd and its clients. The e-mail infrastructure has already been rationalised, resulting in lower cost and improved performance. Other consolidation initiatives are also underway (such as a consolidated new Document Registry System). It is also estimated that over 200 servers in place across Government will be the target for further consolidation. It is strongly believed and argued that consolidation of the data centres and the myriad of servers in place, coupled with the ever increasing costs to maintain the current decentralised environment, is essential in order to reduce the total cost of ownership and reap higher return on investment. However, another important by-product is the centralisation of IT / IS systems and thus increased management and administration.

In this regard, MITTS Ltd vision is that the time is now ripe to move more aggressively towards this goal given the soon availability of a high-speed, secure and resilient network, through MAGNET II. The real challenge is that of ensuring that these IT / IS systems are available to clients in a seamless manner, as though still available within the same building.

This is in line with the National ICT strategy and vision whereby costs can only be rationalised through consolidation of the external ICT environment and interoperability of systems. It is MITTS Ltd firm belief that consolidation should orbit around MITTS Ltd ICT capacity.