Direction des Systèmes d'Information (DSI)
SUCCESS STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Direction des Systèmes d'Information (DSI) is responsible for the entire telecommunications and information systems of Vaud's Justice Department. Vaud is a canton (state) of Switzerland. DSI manages and administers the Justice Department's network system, including telecommunications to facilitate the state's business activities and operation. DSI's mission statement is to make sure that the department's network platform and telecommunications is efficient, highly available and that data is accessible by the citizens and businesses in the state.
To ensure that these missions are carried out, DSI makes sure that:
- Service to Justice Department is consistent,
making them aware of any new, state-of-the art technologies - Exploit how Vaud can take advantage of any free or
open source software and their licensing models - Achieve cost effective solutions
At the center of the Justice Department's system environment is the Ingres database and a 15-plus year business relationship that has acquired yet more momentum in 2006 with Ingres becoming an independent company. Software solutions provider Bedag Informatique installed the network system at DSI and is currently their service provider.
DSI has been using the Ingres RDBMS for almost fifteen years and is the platform for the applications used for the Justice Department of Vaud. There are three applications developed on Ingres database. The Gestion des Dossiers (GDD) application was developed to manage the cases which are severe in nature, with about 40,000 cases per year. Another application developed was the Gestion des Dossiers (GDD) which manages civil another 40,000 cases per year. The third application is Gestion des données de reference (DREF) which catalogs all the data needed by GDD and GDC to process the information needed by the courts. These three applications are interconnected by the Replicator to assure that data coming from DREF are consistent and reliable. All three applications were written in OpenROAD to speed up the application development and to quickly deliver legal services to the citizens of Vaud.
"These applications need to be replaced by better software applications, but the Ingres database has been so solid and efficient that we are reluctant to do that", said Philippe Torche, Chief Project Manager, State of Vaud, Department of Infrastructures at DSI.
He added, "The home grown applications only work with Ingres and migrating to another environment will require a lot of effort and money. Ingres has been a reliable platform for us to design applications that do not require dedicated system administrators." All three business applications were written in OpenROAD and enables the legal system in Vaud to speed delivery of services to the citizens of Vaud.
At the core of DSI's mission is the delivery of outstanding customer service to the entire Department of Justice which includes the Public Ministry, Administrative Court, Neutral Court and Legal Order of Vaud. The Legal Order of Vaud is comprised of 13 different small courts responsible for a wide array of services including issues on education, bankruptcy, traffic, state exams, etc. For these reasons, DSI demands the utmost reliability and performance for a database, and they depend on Ingres technology to provide these all important attributes.
Vaud citizens are able to access a single, familiar interface that makes sense for them. Through this application, Vaud citizens are able to check information regarding their court cases such as request court dates online, see their court case status, etc. This provides real time data to their queries since they are able to find answers, extract critical information, and stay connected to what is happening in their court cases. Citizens are spared of spending too much time getting in the queue to request court dates and getting the tasks completed in order to complete court requirements. They don't have to spend the time and money checking multiple references, going to different places for information and verification.
The State of Vaud has long been getting the benefits of the application developed by DSI on the Ingres database platform. DSI made IT operations at the Justice Department more efficient, creating a single infrastructure and data set that is easy to manage and administer. This has given the Justice Department more time to spend on other legal issues that require more focus. Employees are more empowered to make better informed and intelligent decision about their work operations because of real time and accurate data.
DSI developed their applications on top of the open source Ingres database to help manage cost. "We not only needed a cost-effective platform that we can easily develop our applications but it has to be stable and always reliable, and the Ingres database provided us with those requirements. The open source technology also lowered the cost of developing our own applications as we did not have to pay up front licensing fees for using the database." Mr. Torche articulated.
Because some laws may change in Vaud in the coming three years, Mr. Torche hopes that new applications will work with their current infrastructure. Mr. Torche also conveyed his thoughts on Ingres Services, "We are very happy with Ingres Services. They have been very helpful and always have a ready answer for any network application problems we have. If the new applications work with Ingres 2006, maybe migrating to it is the next best thing to do."
DSI has reaped substantial benefits with their use of the Ingres database and continues to garner significant rewards as they leverage the Ingres database's enterprise class functionality, reliability and scalability, and ease of management.