"This is a total cost of ownership story as much as it is about interoperability," says Chris Roberts, a Sacramento, Calif.-based e-government solutions specialist for Microsoft. "When you look at the value .NET brings to the enterprise, agencies are learning that this is the most comprehensive platform available. Microsoft.NET addresses the current and future state of digital communication -- from hand-held devices to back-end legacy systems -- while providing a foundation for enterprise e-Government."
As for interoperability, Microsoft.NET offers a flexible set of tools that leverage the investment government has already made on the desktop and in legacy systems. Microsoft.NET servers integrate not only with Microsoft products, but also with IBM's, Oracle's, Sun's or existing homegrown applications, Roberts notes.
Microsoft.NET is not proprietary; it is an open, distributed computing platform that leverages the power of the Internet. The result enables government to communicate with the full spectrum of its audiences -- internal employees, other agencies and vendors, regardless of device. So whether it's an inspector logging in from a building site via wireless PDA or Tablet PC, an agency employee working at a networked PC, or a citizen accessing a government information kiosk, Microsoft.NET securely links them all to scalable enterprise systems.
And this is happening today: Government is using .NET servers to increase efficiency while cost-effectively achieving higher levels of service. The following are some examples of how government is using the .NET server family.
BETTER COORDINATION
In 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly established the Rural Internet Access Authority under the state's Rural Economic Development Director. At that time, the state ranked 46th in the percentage of citizens with Internet access, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. To rectify this, the authority faces the task of bringing affordable high-speed access, at least 128Kbps, to all residential customers by next year.
The authority uses Microsoft's SharePoint Team Services to coordinate a team of people that is spread throughout the state and which meets in person just once a month. This software lets small teams share and collaborate on documents, manage their calendars and engage in threaded discussions. For larger workgroups or organizations, SharePoint Portal Server establishes an Intranet portal and provides advanced collaboration technologies, including document approval processes and the ability to search for and aggregate content between different file formats. SharePoint enables the authority's widely distributed staff and committee members to coordinate their activities without the expense of travel or phone calls.
"SharePoint has given us the ability to stay in constant touch with what's going on and not have to communicate with people in a serial manner -- you can do it in parallel," said Elaine Matthews, vice president for communication and development for the authority. "Not only does it allow you to work across the (organization), but it also allows you to work within channels."
EASIER CONTENT CREATION
The California Department of General Services (DGS), meanwhile, uses Microsoft Content Management Server to keep its Web site up to date while freeing its IT staff for other functions.
The 4,000-employee department provides the state government with printing, procurement and telecommunications, as well as acquiring and maintaining the state's vehicles and buildings. DGS' Office of Technology Resources administers the agency's Web site which provides both Internet and intranet services. The site consists of over 25,000 pages residing on more than 30 Web and database servers running Microsoft software.
Content Management Server simplifies the task of administrating this complex information infrastructure. For example, when the governor mandated a common look for all state sites, and required them to comply with the American's with Disabilities Act, Content Management Server reduced the number of skilled DGS employees needed to create these pages from 100 to 10.
"To port the 25,000 existing pages into a new template with the look and feel stipulated by the governor would have taken between six and eight months, at a cost of $1.5 million," said Jamie Mangrum, Web, application and database services manager for the department.
Using Microsoft Content Management Server 2001, DGS created a set of templates for the site. Now, rather than tying up IT staff time, each DGS business unit can migrate its own content to the new format. Each unit then is responsible for maintaining its own Web site content.
"It takes the Office of Technology Resources less than an hour to train each group to be self-sufficient at migrating its own content and maintaining it in the future," said Mangrum. "This has reduced our workload by about 25 percent, leaving us free to focus more on technology and infrastructure issues -- the things we should be doing."
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Pennsylvania is using Microsoft BizTalk Server to simplify business registration. Previously, businesses needed to contact each agency involved in the registration process -- State, Revenue and Labor and Industry -- and fill out redundant and overlapping paper forms. Now, they visit a new portal called Pennsylvania Open for Business and fill out a single set of forms. BizTalk Server reformats the data to meet the needs of each department's backend servers and applications, enforces requirements for electronic signatures, and forwards the reformatted data to the appropriate departments. Once the registration is complete, it sends a confirmation to the registrant. Getting a tax license number now takes days instead of weeks.
"We knew that Pennsylvania's e-government vision would aid commerce within the commonwealth and in turn provide businesses with a competitive advantage over neighboring states," said Marty Rupert, Pennsylvania Open for Business project manager for the Office for Information Technology.
ALTOGETHER BETTER
Although legislative halls will probably always be filled with rancorous debate, the actual business of government doesn't need to be that way. Every single piece of .NET is built to work not only with each other but to bring new levels of interoperability to existing systems. With the tools now available to share data and make it broadly available, operations can be smoother than ever before.
"Microsoft.NET provides the complete range of products needed to build a rich infrastructure where communication can occur between any of the audiences that government deals with, using any type of device," said Roberts. "These are battle-tested and scalable tools ready for use today."
Quelle: Government Technology, 13.09.2005
