Hosting contract for Local Directgov awarded to System Associates
March 15, 2006
System Associates, an integrator of enterprise-wide internet solutions, has been awarded the contract to provide a mirrored hosting solution for Local Directgov, an extension to Directgov, which deep-links the citizen from www.direct.gov.uk to a relevant local authority service page or form.
The hosting solution has been designed to offer the highest level of continuity, availability and performance and comprises more than 15 servers in total. Six high end web servers are split across two geographical locations, supported by three application servers, three database servers, three firewalls and three load balancers.
Local Directgov is a joined-up e-Government programme involving 388 English local authorities. The programme aims to simplify citizen access to Government services regardless of location or knowledge of how each authority operates. Jim Fitzpatrick, Minister for Local e-Government comments "The Local Directgov Programme is making a significant contribution to local e-Government. It will prove an invaluable aid to local authorities, helping them to meet efficiency targets, increase traffic to local authority websites and encourages citizen take up of those online services. When fully developed, it has the potential to revolutionise how citizens interact with Government and offers a more customer focused, joined up approach."
Directgov is one of the top four Government websites attracting more than two million visitors per month, a figure that is continually rising. Local Directgov is expected to attract a significant number of these visitors over the coming year and it is important that the infrastructure behind the application is robust and scaleable. "Having a solution with a high-degree of capacity and performance is very important for the success of the programme", comments David Macken, managing director of System Associates. "We need to provide a hosting solution that offers enough capacity for the Local Directgov's expansion plans over the coming year and one that can cope with the peaks of demand that often characterise Government information sites such as this."
System Associates provides hosting solutions to a number of high profile Government organisations including London Connects, the British Library and HM Treasury.