6. Payroll job server
All servers run Windows 2000 operating system and client machines range from Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Current Business Issues
- The frame relay links are slow and users are complaining.
- The system is down too often due to minor database issues.
- The WAN is limited to a few ministries; many fragments of government departments are still not online.
- Plans are in place to use frame relay for at least eight new departments that will be coming online throughout the year.
Statement and discussion of the problems under study
- The partial WAN was design and develop in a haphazard manner. Figure 1 shows the current WAN.
- The frame relay connection is very slow and is frustrating for the users in those departments.
- There is no redundancy for the system. No spares are available for any resources the system uses.
Goals and objectives of the study
The goals of this study are
- Document current WAN and identify problems and issues.
- Design a reliable, robust infrastructure over which government departments can process transactions. A WAN that will support high bandwidth and low delay network application.
- Reduce reliance on the sole telecommunications provider.
- Build redundancy into the IT system at the treasury.
METHODOLOGY
The steps used to analyze the problem
- Review the current WAN and the server room at the Treasury. The current WAN is shown in figure 1 below.
- Look at the application and services that the system provides.
- Look for the single points of failure on the network and the services and applications these single points of failure will affect.
- The risk involve when these failures occur.
- The expected loss from these failures.
Figure 1
The partial WAN above was developed by the Treasury department. A change of government brought about the creation of a new ministry called Ministry of Telecommunication. As its mandate the new ministry is responsible for the construction of a government wide area network (GWAN) that will connect most of the Government agencies in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and eventually the country as a whole. The fiber optic link between the treasury, ministerial building and ITSD was laid down by the ministry of Telecommunication and is current used by the Treasury.
One assumption made was that money is a huge constraint with the Treasury and the Government on a whole.
FINDINGS
The single points of failure identified in the system are as follows
When the database server is down no one can perform any processing of activities since there is no redundant server to failover to. If the authentication server is down the users cannot log on to the system therefore they cannot process transactions. The frame relay only affects the ministries that use it likewise the fiber optic link, if any of these are down then only certain users will be without access. The ISP provider supplies the frame relay thus if the service provider is down then the users on frame relay will not have access to the system. There are no spare for the resources therefore if any equipment goes bad there is no replacement, an order has to placed for one, if none is available locally then you might have to wait at least a day or two to get one from a neighboring Island or the USA.
The system is mainly used for the Smartstream application. Users do not have access to the internet therefore that eliminates some external risks. There is a nightly backup of all Smartstream databases and a monthly full backup of SVGDL580 server and the treasury server. The monthly backup is to tape which is stored offsite. The nightly backup is to the development server and the next day it is back up to tapes which are kept at the office in an ordinary filing cabinet. If the office is destroyed there will not be an up to date back up since the nightly backups are stored onsite, in this case you might have to go back to a backup that is a month old.
The applications and services provided by the system are
- Smartstream application which includes processing payment, receipts, and purchase orders; funds checking of transactions; printing of checks; and running of reports.
- Network authentication
Some of the potential risks faced by the treasury are listed in the table below.
The estimated annual cost of downtime is $ 150,000.00 which is $17.12 an hour.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- The treasury department work along with the ministry of telecommunication on completing a fiber optic backbone structure for the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The diagram below is my recommendation for the fiber optic backbone of the government. This will eliminate the expense of the ISP provider and the slow frame relay links that are currently being used by most of the departments. Where fiber optic is too complex or costly alternate solutions can be considered, two possibilities are wireless communication links and VPN over public network via modem cable. For the District office and the sub-treasuries throughout the grenadines I would recommend the utilization of a Virtual private network over the public internet.
- The ITSD department which was previously the data processing department where the government payroll is currently run on an old mainframe machine acquired a Trimetra server and it has been dormant since it was bought and I think that system can be utilized as a backup server for the treasury department thus saving government the expense of having to buy a new server. This backup server should also be configured to perform authentication services in case the authentication server fails.
- The department must acquire spares for all its equipment. Due to financial constraint of the Government I would recommend an N + K redundancy where there is one spare for each set of resource.
- Batteries for the UPS should be bought or an arrangement be made with the supplier of the UPS to keep supplies of batteries so that there will be a ready supply when needed. The UPS comes with software to monitor it but this is not being done currently, I think that this should be put in place so that you will get warnings when the batteries are going and take the necessary action.
- The job servers should be configured for running any job whether is a financial job or a payroll job and thus serve as a backup for each other.
The WAN backbone has already been started by the treasury out of its annual budget, now that the telecommunications department has as its mandate to develop a GWAN for the country this GWAN can be utilized by the treasury thus eliminating the cost to the treasury of further continuing it’s WAN.
These recommendations were made taking into consideration the situation at hand and the huge financial constraint of the government. The only cost that will be incurred will be the cost of spares for the resources.
The cost of replacing the frame relay will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Telecommunications.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY DISCLOSURE
The Treasury Department recognizes that business disruptions are inevitable in the IT environment today, as technology improves and becomes more readily available so does our risk to disasters whether man made or natural. In view of this we will like to assure you that plans are in place and have been designed to protect the government’s assets and financial information in the even of a business disruption. A Business Continuity Plan is in place to address business contingencies and disaster recovery. The disaster recovery plan includes the following:
- Identification of mission critical systems
- Backup facilities and arrangements, data recovery.
- Alternate communication between Treasury and the various accounts units of the Ministries of Government and sub treasuries and customers.
- Alternate physical site location
- Customers access to receiving their wages, other allowances or any monies due to them by the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
This plan is reviewed on a regular basis to modify it for any changes our operations or changes in laws and government regulations. The plan is also periodically tested to ensure that it will operate and operates successfully in the event of a disaster.
It is virtually impossible to plan for every possible disaster however we are confident that the major threats faced by the department have been addressed in the plan. However there is a possibility that due to our dependence on other third parties that we could be adversely affected after a disaster.
The plan is subject to change and changes will be reflected in an updated notice to all our customers. This notice will be posted on the governments’ website . You may obtain a written copy of this disclosure by sending a written request to the Accountant General, Treasury Department, Kingstown, St. Vincent.
