Section 2 - Information Systems Architecture

This section provides the policies and standards for shared infrastructure, application and network components which are required for the reliable and secure exchange of information between Government entities.

Information Systems Architecture

Information systems components which enable the E-Government vision must conform to these Policies and Standards. Wherever possible such components must also be available from contestable vendors and comply with relevant currently supported IETF standards.

Infrastructure components must support transactions across multiple Government agencies in a secure, reliable and cost effective manner. Ensuring those components are available from and supported by competing vendors will provide a high probability that such systems are able to continue to deliver E-Government in the long term for a reasonable cost.

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards are currently available across a wide range of vendor products and have proven their ability to deliver efficient service across diverse platforms.

Current IETF standards which are relevant to E-Government are:

• TCP/IP as the network protocol

• SMTP and IMAP for mail transport

• LDAP for Directory services

• HTTP for delivery of client transactions and information

Specific standards to be used for delivering components of E-Government will be agreed between participating agencies and clearly documented in the project Terms of Reference.

Future Direction

Agencies participating in E-Government should continually monitor the development and implementation of emerging standards. However until such standards receive widespread support in the community and are supported by multiple vendors they should not replace any existing standards.

International & NZ IT Standards

Where IT standards or IT industry trends are clear, well established, contestable, and comply with the previous Information Architecture Policy, Government will move to adopt these in a controlled and cost-effective manner.

The evolutionary adoption of established standards will be encouraged with the promulgation of Government policies on those standards.

Where IT standards and trends are uncertain, the Government, through the central agency responsible for these standards, will monitor their development and will not take a position on these until a dominant standard or trend emerges.

The rate of adoption will be determined by specific business needs, strategic Government IS policies, and what is most cost effective on each occasion that systems development is considered. If technology, including software, satisfactorily meets current and foreseeable business needs, it should not be replaced or upgraded as long as it remains economically serviceable.

However, when technological advance provides more cost effective alternatives the old technology should be replaced, even if it remains functionally adequate.

Contributing to the economic obsolescence of technology will be the increasing maintenance cost of ageing or superseded technology, which is vulnerable to diminishing supplier support as new product ranges are favoured.

Supplier Independence & System Flexibility

Government entities will move to achieve a high degree of vendor independence and flexibility in IS solution delivery. This will be achieved by choosing hardware and software designed for portability, inter-operability, and inter-connectivity.

There are three main elements which contribute towards the achievement of supplier independence and system flexibility. These are:

• Portability;

• Inter-operability; and

• Inter-connectivity.

Industry standards are rapidly emerging to support each of these aspects.

Government entities will encourage the progressive adoption of software development and package selection standards which support the ability to transport applications from one computer hardware environment to another.

The computer systems architecture will be structured to allow ease of inter-operation between systems thereby ensuring reliable transaction sharing. This may be necessary across quite different hardware and application software (including databases) environments.

The rate of adoption of standards and acquisition of compliant information systems will be determined by the economic life and operational viability of Government entities various IS components.

Future purchases need to ensure systems between Government entities can be easily interconnected. This is an important issue when considering networking connections to other Government agencies and commercial organisations outside of the Department.

The Government is operating in a computing environment subject to rapid technological advances with some uncertainty over the long-term financial viability of even the largest vendors. This makes it essential that the Government 'insures' itself for both change and uncertainty and maintains a vendor neutral position to ensure long term continuity and cost-effectiveness of supply and support.

The amount of available information continues to increase rapidly. Only a portion is available electronically and this problem is compounded by the lack of a common method for accessing this portion. Government entities must increase system inter-operability and inter-connectivity to free up data, within legal limits, and achieve greater benefit from it.

These requirements can be best achieved by the progressive application of policies that ensure both a move to 'open systems' not based on proprietary vendor technologies and a competitive market place for the various suppliers.