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eTransparency SWAGAT Case Study
Technical Details
Gujarat State Wide Area Network
SWAGAT uses the GSWAN (Gujarat State Wide Area Network) backbone cascaded with Sachivalya Campus Area Network (SCAN) for interconnecting various offices in the Secretariat, and throughout the state for voice, video and data services. SCAN was commissioned in the year 2000 and the GSWAN/Server Farm in 2001. No special backbone infrastructure had to be created for SWAGAT.
The Web-based grievance monitoring and management application was developed in house with ASP at front end and SQL at back end. The application is hosted on a Cyrus server (RAD-1) connected to the SCAN/GSWAN.
GSWAN integrates the whole administration for all purposes and also provides common IT services (internet, Web hosting, DBM, system security, email) from a single point through state's Server Farm facility centre. Network systems are designed for 99.9 % service availability and availability is measured, and monitored under a very stringent service level agreement.
The GSWAN structure: Cisco 7513, Cisco 3662, and 1751 router. State Centre (Cisco 7513) is connected with all 25 District Centres (Cisco 3662) with E1 links from telecom provider BSNL. The GSWAN network is based on Internet Protocol and the media used for video-conferencing is also IP. The protocol used for video-conferencing is H.323 and Polycom.512 is also used. The network has a Multi-Conference Unit (Cisco 3540), able to allow 40 simultaneous parties to video-conference.
The video-conferencing system uses the Campus Area Network to connect through to other locations at the Secretariat in the state capital. District offices are connected through GSWAN. Locations close to district offices can be connected to the video-conferencing system using a radio communication system: staff can take a radio transmitter up to 10km from the district office and transmit into the office (and thus into GSWAN) from the remote location. For more distant locations, video-conferencing set-up requires 12 hours notice, using a transportable VSAT terminal.
State Secretariat Hardware
Hardware available at the State Secretariat in the state capital:
- Five computers (PC clients) connected to GSWAN (and hence connected to the application server and other offices throughout the state) with data entry operators feeding grievance information into the on-line web page.
- Three GSWAN telephones for telephonic consultation with any Government office in the state.
- One networked computer with operator at entry point of the Chief Minister's room.
- One networked computer terminal for the SWAGAT manager with administrative rights giving access to all inputs and out puts.
- One video terminal in the reception/waiting area for public viewing of the proceedings inside the room.
Chief Minister's Room
Within the Chief Minister's room on SWAGAT day are:
- One small flat video display unit on the table; this is used to show the status of the grievance that has been lodged.
- One 29" colour display that is used for video-conferencing. It is connected with Polycom 512 (for IP-based video-conferencing) connected to the GSWAN Multi Conference Unit (MCU), which enables more then one party to video-conference simultaneously.
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