In a major technology investment, the Dubai Municipality is to roll out 27 next generation on-line services over the coming six months following its $4.6m contract with IBM to develop an SOA (Service Oriented Architecture).
The department has chalked out total technology investment plans to the tune of $13.5m over the next two years as Phase 1 in its establishment of an SOA.
“This is an important move for Dubai Municipality. We’re committed to taking a customer focused approach in our work, building smarter, faster, easier access to information and services from government. We believe that taking our infrastructure to an SOA model is critical for us moving forwards. We need that flexibility to stay competitive,” says Abdullah Al Shaibani, Assistant Director General for Technical Services.
Building it right
Over the coming year, IBM will implement its new On Demand computing architecture and develop the first 27 services on the new infrastructure.
“The Service Oriented Architecture is a critical way of re-evaluating business and technology processes, especially as an approach to adaptive, flexible technology,” says Takreem El Tohamy, GM of IBM Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan.
An emerging concept in the technology powered industry, the SOA is an open-standards based framework that breaks applications and business focused IT solutions into easily manageable, modular and Web-based components. The functions and processes driven by these solutions can then be offered as Web-based services.
“An SOA lets organisations build, deploy and integrate these services independent of applications and the computing platforms on which they run,” El Tohamy says.
“We believe that for a government to provide service to the private sector, it needs to think and act like the private sector. Our IT strategies and IT-based services have to meet or exceed private sector standards and, in fact, expectations,” says Al Shaibani.
Pakistan delegation
Playing a key role in ensuring those standards are met is the municipality’s systems monitoring solution that forms part of its Network Operation Centre (NOC).
A delegation from Pakistan’s United Bank visited the NOC recently to study the advanced monitoring system used to monitor all critical applications relating to Dubai’s civil infrastructure.
The system allows the municipality to pro-actively monitor all its critical systems from the NOC, either by application/service performance, hardware or by network. A core benefit also includes the rapid identification of the root causes of any problems so that more time can be spent addressing and correcting problem areas.
“Dubai Municipality is among the first government departments in the region to successfully implement such an advanced monitoring system,” says Abdulla Al Shaibani, Assistant Director General for Technical Services, Dubai Municipality.
“The automatic generation of alerts to System Administrators relating to any degradation or non performance of the network, operating systems, databases or applications will make their jobs easier and ensure timely corrective measures. Equipping them with the ability to monitor all systems centrally, correlate various events, and assess their implication by efficiently using existing resources will further reduce operational and management costs,” he adds.
In the scenario of a network failure, which could have an impact on key business systems, the NOC can identify the key systems affected, and provide System Administrators with advance warning. They would then notify the relevant people and appropriate action can be taken. This demonstrates how the NOC will be able to enhance productivity, improve availability and provide better service.
"We wanted an innovative solution which can be up and running in a very short time frame - the future for us in the roll out of e-services is certainly mobility"
“The significant surge in network usage and the increase in the number of eServices offered by Dubai Municipality has amplified the need for us to ensure high levels of monitoring across our network. With the use of this technologically advanced system we have been able to efficiently monitor the applications that are most used by our internal users, as well as eServices offered to our customers through the Dubai Central Laboratory,” says Al Shaibani.
Free MS software
Dubai has also entered into a strategic long term agreement with Microsoft and Seven Seas Computers, by which the Municipality and its employees will receive Microsoft products and free software licenses.
Microsoft will provide 3,000 free software licenses for MS Office and the Windows application, to municipality employees for their home use. Seven Seas, a Microsoft technology partner, will be in charge of installation and consultancy services.
Microsoft will also conduct monthly training programmes for employees on the latest versions of Microsoft software applications, to enhance the IT skills of the staff and improve the municipality’s overall productivity.
“We appreciate the support extended by Microsoft to train our staff in various software applications, which will help them fine tune their IT skills and in the process develop our range of eServices,” says AbdulHakim Abdul Kareem Malik, Director of IT Department, Dubai Municipality.
“Further, providing free software licenses to our staff will encourage them to use computers at home, extending its use to other family members as well.”
Mobility – the next stage
Mobility focused initiatives are clearly the next stage on most e-government roadmaps. The Dubai eGovernment (DeG) has certainly taken a lead with the launch of its mobile portal.
In a project completed in ten days from concept to implementation, DeG has mobile-enabled its portal, www.dubai.ae, to facilitate its citizens, residents and businesses to have access to e-services from their mobile devices.
This move is expected to extend the reach of the services to over 2,000 participants. Close to 35 services are planned, including viewing and payment of traffic fines, parking fees etc once it reaches full operation. The entire project was enabled using the mobility technology products and implementation services from Sybase Products Middle East.
“We wanted an innovative solution which can be up and running in a very short time frame. The idea was to roll this service out with minimal development or customisation,” says Salem Al Shair, eServices Director Dubai eGovernment.
Users can now connect to the Internet using their regular mobile phones and PDAs to transact with various government departments.
According to Al Shair, the department currently supports four million subscribers and sees a mobile enabled channel as an effective and integral way to reach out to a larger community. “The future for us in the roll out of e-services is certainly mobility,” he adds.
Libyan delegation
A recent delegation to DeG comprised representatives of Libya’s General Committee for Documentation and Telecommunications. They visited Dubai to study various elements of the e-Government initiative in the emirate. The Libyan delegation also met several companies working closely with Dubai eGovernment, including its customers and suppliers, in order to derive a complete picture of the eGovernment initiative.
“Most government departments in Dubai have been using information technology since the 1980’s, which made the task of adopting electronic services much easier,” says Salem Al Shair, eServices Director, Dubai eGovernment.
“We are focused on implementing IT solutions that are not too sophisticated, but address all our requirements in the most efficient way. Further, Dubai eGovernment is committed to offer customised solutions to cater to diverse requirements of its users.”
During their visit, the Libyan delegation explored the hurdles, challenges and achievements of Dubai eGovernment to fully comprehend the various factors that go behind the success of an initiative such as this in the Arab world.
“We will continue our strong focus to include newer, more innovative electronic services to further simplify processes that come within the purview of the government departments, and in the process benefit the users,” says Al Shair.
An upgraded election
In line with its plans to move extensively to e-government, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA), KSA invested in the power of IT to take it through its maiden Municipal Council Elections.
ARCOM, MOMRA’s Saudi-based IT solution provider, combined the implementation of a full-scale IT infrastructure solution for the Municipal Council Elections along with an e-government project. This IT project gained extra significance considering that this was the first election to be carried out in the recent history of KSA.
The project included the building of a data centre with all the associated hardware, software and service components necessary for the scale of this election process required.
“ARCOM besides integrating the project also delivered, operated and maintained servers and storage systems for the elections, and supported the applications used by MOMRA. This project saw us support their full migration to eGovernance,” says Taha A Alkhiary, President, ARCOM.
Specifically for the election, ARCOM provided a United Nations-approved Voter and Candidate Registration System for lists and statistics. The processes involved were also managed with a kingdom-wide system using a central operating theatre with over 800 people working 24X7 to take the election through the three phases.
“ARCOM developed and hosted an information portal on the net, for providing information on the election process along with timely updates and news for each of the phases. We also developed and managed an archiving system for the election process and provided all the IT resources to ensure protection of the projects, its assets and functions,” says Alkhiary.
The supporting infrastructure to pull the project through was impressive as well. “A LAN was put up to connect all the 178 MOMRA sites through the kingdom and a WAN was implemented for all the sites using MPLS (IP/VPN) technology. ARCOM also built an IVR system and a help desk system,” he adds.
The company also delivered and installed 1,200 PCs, 600 printers and 300 scanners for MOMRA, provided a team of seven to manage the data centre around the clock and a team of 18 people to study, develop and maintain the gradual transformation of MOMRA to migrate to e-government processes with direct supervision from their IT department.
UAE electronic census
The UAE’s first electronic National Census will see the deployment of 3,600 HP iPAQ PDAs for inputting census data as well as 200 PCs, 90 printers, six server software packages and a number of Oracle database and application licenses to over 60 locations in the UAE where the data will be processed until the completion of the census early next year.
ITQAN Al Bawardi Computers has won the $2m contract to provide the entire IT infrastructure. Its mobile IT infrastructure is seen as playing a vital part in gathering data from homes and communities across the UAE.
The PDA’s ITQAN has chosen have the exact specifications to ensure all of the data is collected, input and processed easily and securely throughout every stage of the census.
The PCs and PDAs all have Oracle Lite software which is fully integrated into the regional database; all census data is stored and managed from within a database providing superior scalability, a robust management environment, and industrial-strength security.
The National Census demands the highest standards in IT infrastructure in order for data to be processed efficiently. ITQAN’s close relationship with the UAE and state governments will ensure the constant smooth running of operations.
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Quelle: CPIlive, 26.01.2006
