Cto magazine volume1 issue2

600 + Corporate Clients, 200 DSE & CSE Members,

48 Banks with link3

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“Bulu ocean tower” 8th Floor40, Kemal Ataturk Avenue, Banani, Dhaka-1213, BangladeshTel: +88-02-9822288 (Hunt), Fax: +88-02-9821332e-mail: [email protected], web: www.link3.net

600 + Corporate Clients, 200 DSE & CSE Members,

48 Banks with link3

*Online Consumer Study, March 2011

Copyright © 2012 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec Logo, and the Checkmark Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its a�liates in the U.S. and other countries.

JANUARY - MARCH 2013www.ctoforumbd.org 5

SECURITY11 Security For Virtualization: Finding The

Right Balance

15 5 Essential Tips To Secure Your Online Transactions

LEADERSHIP28 Business Process Re-engineering in

accommodating ICT in Bangladesh

30 Critical Success Factors For Data Warehouse Engineering

INNOVATION19 An Overview of BYOD

21 Cloud Computing

23 TV Banking, Internet Banking & PC Banking

DIGITAL BANGLADESH44 Reducing Digital Divide through

Multimedia Classrooms

47 G2G Migration: Bringing Transparency through UISCs

49 E-governance of Bangladesh: Present Scenario, Expectation, Ultimate Target and Recommendation

CONTENTVOL. 01, ISSUE. 01, JAN - MAR 2013

JANUARY - MARCH 2013 www.ctoforumbd.org6

Editorial BoardAdvisors Tapan Kanti Sarkar Md. Musleh Uddin Syed Masodul Bari Tarique Mosaddique Barkatullah Ijazul Haque

Chief Editor Md. Nazmul Hoque

Executive Editor Nawed Iqbal

Managing Editor Debdulal Roy

Cover Design & Graphics Nawed Iqbal

Contact Information:Office SecretaryCTO Forum Bangladesh12-F (12th Floor) Meherba Plaza33, Topkhana Road Dhaka – 1000Bangladeshemail: [email protected] Phone: +880-1818-525236

The articles available on this magazine are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the CTO Forum Bangladesh and respective author. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the author. Breach of this condition is liable for appropriate legal action. Published and printed in Bangladesh by The CTO Forum Bangladesh.

MAGAZINE

January - March 2013 Volume 01 Issue 02 www.ctoforumbd.org

E-mail us:Feedback:[email protected]

Visit us on the web:www.ctoforumbd.org


Chief Editor’s Details:

Honorary Member CTO Forum Bangladesh

Ex-Executive Director Bangladesh Bank

Ex-Consultant DMTBF ProjectMinistry of FinanceGovernment of Bangladesh

“Efforts need to realize the goal of making Bangladesh the destination of outsourcing of developed countries taking account of the recent banking and economic crisis which may have dampened the demand temporarily”

.... MD. NAZMUL HOQUE

EDITORIAL

Bangladesh has been taking keen interest to achieve its objective of digital Bangladesh. One organization in the forefront in this respect is Bangladesh Bank. They have introduced, among others, the National Payment Switch to facilitate connectivity between banks switches and their ATMs and will introduce e-payment gateway for authentication and routing the payment details of various eCommerce transactions and eGovernment activities. BB has also quite a few eServices like online foreign exchange transaction monitoring system which includes Export, Import, Inward and Outward remittances.

BASIS has recently organized eCommerce week to develop awareness about national payments switch and issues regarding eCommerce. Different ministries/ departments of the government have recruited a number of IT professionals to support new developments. BB has asked banks to come forward to promote eCommerce and recently one private bank has provided funding for setting up e-shop.

Efforts need to be made to realize the much awaited goal of making Bangladesh the destination of outsourcing of developed countries taking account of the recent banking and economic crisis which may have dampened the demand temporarily.

Our neighboring country is earning a huge amount of foreign exchange from outsourcing and their software development model allows a cost saving of up to fifty percent. In Bangladesh, this would require collaboration among functional groups and IT experts in different forums and a marketing drive.

We hope we can forge renewed efforts to overcome the impediments to the much needed growth of inventiveness and support from interested entrepreneurs who are willing to engage in new product developments which are cutting edge and cater to niche markets. I would also like to devote an entire issue in future for creating awareness in this regard.


Introduction:According to a Forrester survey, 85% of companies have either implemented server virtualization, or are planning to do so.

A study by a leading analyst also supports the rise of virtualization in the marketplace, predicting that 50% of x86 architecture server workloads will be virtualized by the end of 2012.

At the same time that virtualization is becoming a standard practice, the security of those virtualized environments is lagging behind.

In fact, another report claims that ‘…in 2012, 60% of virtualized servers will be less secure than the physical servers they replace’.

And yet security threats – particularly from malware – are greater than ever before.

As John Sawyer from influential technology site Tech Center points out, “In the end, they’re all servers – and someone somewhere is going to want to break into them.”

So what reasons lie behind the apparent paradox of ‘fast to virtualize, slow to secure’?

1. A perception that a virtual machine is more secure than a physical one.

2. Performance and protection issues arising from traditional agent-based anti-malware solutions operating in virtual environments.

3. Inadequate protection and increased management overhead of agentless anti-malware solutions.

So far, it’s clear that the options for securing virtual machines have created an unhappy compromise between protection, performance and management.

1.0. Reversing the benefits of virtualization with securityEliminating ‘server sprawl’ by virtualizing servers and desktops can bring enormous business benefits.

Some key examples include:

1. Cost containment: Virtualization reduces the overall hardware footprint, reducing hardware expenditures, floor space, power consumption, management requirements, etc.

2. Speed: Virtualization increases the speed of IT by delivering new capacity on demand. This

agility can ultimately result in greater competitiveness of the entire business.

3. Stability: Simpler, standardised, redundant systems lead to greater resiliency, ensure better system availability, enabling employees to be more productive whenever and wherever they work .

4. C e n t r a l i s e d management: Virtual systems can be created instantly, and managed and configured centrally reducing administrative and support costs.

5. OS migrations: In virtual environments, these are easier and faster, and ultimately require less ongoing maintenance.

Unfortunately, many businesses undercut the inherent benefits of virtualization when they fail to properly implement anti-malware solutions to protect from data loss and cybercrime. And it’s a fact

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SECURITY FOR VIRTUALIZATION:FINDING THE RIGHT BALANCECombining protection and performance in your virtualized environmentBy Kaspersky Lab


that some anti-virus implementations can bog down the virtual infrastructure, reducing consolidation ratios and limiting ROI.

So, what can the prudent IT manager do to maintain an efficient yet well protected virtual environment – while still realising the oft-touted business benefits?

In this paper we’ll discuss three security approaches, their effect on achieving virtual ROI, and offer some advice on the best way to protect your virtual, as well as physical and mobile environments.

2.0. The NO-PROTECTION optionThere is a pervasive myth that virtual machines are inherently more secure than physical machines.

The truth is that while virtual machines may be less prone to threats such as spyware and ransomware, they are just as vulnerable to malware in the form of malicious email attachments, drive-by-downloads, botnet Trojans and even targeted ‘spear-fishing’ attacks.

These threats persist while the virtual system is active and in use. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology:

“Virtualization adds layers of technology, which can increase the security management burden by necessitating additional security controls. Combining many systems onto a single physical computer can cause a larger impact if a security compromise occurs. Further, virtualization systems, which rely on a shared resource infrastructure, create a dangerous attack vector in which a single compromised virtual machine impacts the entire virtual infrastructure.”

Additional risks to the virtual environment exist:

1. Infection in one virtual machine has the ability to infect data stores that other virtual machines use, spreading the infection and compromising additional systems and data.

2. One virtual machine can be used to ‘eavesdrop’ on another virtual machine’s traffic.

3. Malware has historically been created to avoid virtual systems. Now malware creators are writing code that targets both physical and virtual machines.

4. Some malware is designed to survive the ‘tear-down’ of a non-persistent virtual machine allowing it to ‘return’ when the virtual machine is re-commissioned.

Moreover, cybercriminals have begun to shift their focus from consumers to corporations.

Roel Schouwenberg, Senior Researcher for Kaspersky Lab, comments, “For the past 15 months there has been a real focus on corporations with valuable data that can be monetised. Cyber-gangs are targeting businesses.”

Malware threats continue to rise at an alarming rate.

In early 2011, leading anti-virus vendor Kaspersky Lab was tracking 35 million threats in its master database. One year later that database has nearly doubled to over 67 million. Kaspersky now sees an average of 70,000 new threats every day. One in every 14 web downloads now contains malware. Both physical and virtual machines alike are susceptible. In short, there has never been a more serious need for premium protection, both in the physical and the virtual worlds.

3.0. The AGENT-BASED PROTECTION optionMany organisations have implemented a traditional, agentbased, anti-virus methodology.

This involves loading a full copy of anti-virus software on each virtual machine. While this approach can provide robust protection, there is typically a steep cost in deploying redundant software across a shared resource.

As the anti-virus software and signature database is loaded on each virtual machine, the underlying redundant resource requirements negatively impacts memory, storage, and CPU availability. This increases hardware utilisation and decreases performance. Specific symptoms include:

Resource contention

1. Scanning storms – when multiple virtual machines begin scheduled scans simultaneously, processing power of the host machine can be drained resulting in host utilisation and performance issues, (even potentially crashing the host).

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2. I/O storms – similar to a scanning storm, this may occur when all virtual machines with local signature database download updates simultaneously.

3. Duplication/redundancy – duplication of signature databases and redundant file scanning unnecessarily consumes valuable system resources.

Instant-on gaps

Virtual machines can be easily taken off line and go dormant for long intervals. When they are brought back online (awakened), the virtual machines may have security gaps, such as unpatched software vulnerabilities and outdated virus signature databases.

VM sprawl and security visibility

Virtual machines can be created in minutes, often without the IT department’s knowledge or consent. Visibility then becomes an issue; as security managers cannot protect virtual machines that they cannot see.

Agent-based anti-virus in virtual environments, particularly in virtual desktops, can hamper ROI as it impedes the performance of the guest, limits the density of the virtual cluster and allows for unnecessary risk.

4.0. The AGENTLESS PROTECTION optionWith the growth of the virtualization market, anti-malware vendors have begun creating anti-virus software specifically designed to operate in virtual environments.

A virtual appliance provides anti-virus protection to many virtual machines. This improves performance by offloading the anti-virus processing from all the individual virtual machines, dramatically reducing overall memory footprint, extending the physical hardware capabilities and increasing consolidation ratios (density).

This agentless approach, while driving better ROI, can create two problems that should be addressed:

1. Narrower protection:

Modern agent-based anti-virus software may include layered protection modules such as

application control, web filtering, host intrusion protection, personal firewall and more. Agentless anti-virus solutions designed for virtual environments have a narrower scope, providing traditional anti-virus protection only.

If these robust tools are absent, the remaining anti-virus detection engine should be the best available in order to compensate for shortcomings that may have otherwise relied on additional protection layers. If the agentless solution has poor detection rates (as qualified by a third-party testing organisation) the purchaser might be unknowingly accepting unnecessary risk.

There also may be circumstances where critical systems may require agent-based anti-virus applications. This creates a mixture of both anti-virus protection methods that must be administered and maintained, increasing administrative costs.

2. Physical and virtual system management:

All companies that have deployed virtualization maintain both physical and virtual environments.

Today this requires multiple management consoles as both types of systems must be managed and maintained separately, doubling administrative overhead and increasing cost. Agentless anti-virus solutions are definitely a solid step forward in efficiency, but the wrong agentless solution can negatively impact the desired ROI.

5.0. The RIGHT PROTECTION option The vast majority of IT professionals would agree that having no anti-virus protection is not an option. Which leaves the flawed alternatives of agent-based and agentless based virtual anti-virus solutions, or a middle way that combines the best of both approaches, without compromising the ROI and other business achievable from server virtualization.

This ‘right protection’ option features a virtual appliance that integrates into VMware’s vShield Endpoint to provide real-time anti-malware scanning capabilities for all guests on a physical host. Endpoint uses a virtual appliance on the host, connected to each virtual machine through a small driver. The driver offloads the scanning and updating processes from the individual virtual machines to the virtual appliance. This reduces host-resource

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utilisation problems. Instead of several anti-virus agents running full bore, the virtual appliance — acting as a centralised hub — eases the load on the host.

As illustrated, a virtual security platform using VMware vShield Endpoint includes three components:

1. vShield Manager (a module installed via vShield Manager into the vSphere Hypervisor on physical boxes).

2. vShield Endpoint – A stub agent that is automatically installed in each virtual machine to capture file event context.

3. A security appliance from an anti-malware vendor that supports vShield Endpoint APIs.

vShield Endpoint uses vSphere 4.1 or 5.0 ‘plumbing’ to deliver the files for inspection to the chosen security appliance. This provides a remedy to the issues affecting both agent-based and agentless security solutions, as outlined above:

1. Manageability/Visibility/Agility/Flexibility: A single-pane view of all protected machines (whether virtual or physical) enabling easy management. Protection status, security events and reports are presented clearly and intuitively. Administrators have visibility into the logical and physical structure that resembles familiar VMware management tools. This allows them to effectively manage security operations and take quick actions (such as remediation, diagnostics or forensics).

2. Effective detection and malware remediation: Integrates anti-malware technology with powerful controls such as web content filtering, application controls and granular device controls.

3. Efficiency: There is no redundancy and duplication of the anti-virus engine or database. In addition, this form factor addresses the

redundancy and resource contentiousness issues associated with agent-based anti-virus.

4. Automatic Protection, ease of deployment/compliance: The combination of vShield Endpoint Security and anti-malware technology provides automatic protection for VMware virtualized environments. Once the virtual appliance is deployed on a host, all guest virtual machines (whether current or newly created) will be automatically protected with the latest signatures. (a centralised signature database means protection is always up-to-date, regardless of whether the virtual machine was previously off line.) This also addresses many compliance issues.

5. Integration of security policy enforcement: With tight integration with VMware’s platform and tools, the protection (and security settings) seamlessly follows the workload as it moves from one host to another, without i n t e r r u p t i o n . It also affords the flexibility to configure and apply different

security settings to selected virtual machine groups and perform deep scans on selected virtual machines.

ConclusionCompanies are intrigued by the attractive value proposition that virtualization presents. However, the challenges related to managing traditional agent-based and agentless virtual assets significantly limit potential benefits.

The ‘right protection’ overcomes the failings of legacy protection solutions, with an approach that mirrors that of virtualization itself – flexible, adaptable, scalable and capable of delivering fast ROI and providing the right balance between protection and performance.

Source: kaspersky.co.uk/beready

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We are all purchasing goods online more frequently nowadays; whether they are presents, treats for ourselves, or practical buys for the house. We shop online now more than we visit stores, which is fine so long as you take extra precautions to keep your personal information safe. Consider these five tips to secure your online transactions.

1. Use a Secure Connection

A secured connection is an encrypted (SSL) internet connection that hides what you are doing from unauthorized people. (Which is especially handy if you are using an open Wi-Fi connection.) Recognizing the difference between a secure and insecure connection is simple. Https:// is a secured site. Http:// is not secured.

Additional Tips:

If you are a Mozilla Firefox user, you can install an add-on called “HTTPS Everywhere” which makes your browser more secure by automatically using the SSL protected versions of webpages when available on websites.

Google Chrome users can also install the extension “Prefer HTTPS” which forces websites to load their secure HTTPS versions (if available) every time.

2. Determine If a Site is Trustworthy

You must always make payments through sites you know you can trust. Giving your personal information, such as your bank details and passwords to a site you are unfamiliar with, is asking for trouble. Look up its reputation first. You should also use secured gateways when making online purchases. For example, AlertPay and PayPal are two trusted online transaction sites that allow you to make payments through them, rather than straight from your bank account.

Additional Tip:

Visit mywot.com (Web Of Trust) to verify the trustworthiness of a website. This is a free to use service (also has a free browser add-on) that not

only alerts you of malware, viruses, phishing but also of known scam sites and bad online shopping experiences. Their data is based on ratings from millions of web users as well as trusted technical sources.

3. Keep an Eye on Your Transactions

When you have a busy life, keeping up-to-date with your monthly and weekly transactions can be difficult. Make sure you keep an eye on your banks statements and what you’ve been purchasing,

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5 Essential Tips To Secure Your Online TransactionsBy Jimmy Wentz


and especially keep tabs on when and where. You’ll be better equipped to notice an unusual purchase then, and put a block on your card.

4. Secure Passwords

Passwords and codes are becoming more sophisticated over time. Take advantage of this when completing online transactions. For example, online banking services do not ask you for your entire password or pin in one go. This means that should anyone claim to be your bank, and ask you

for your full information, you’ll know it is a scam. Also, some banks have 2-factor authentication services now, where a passcode or pin number is sent to your mobile phone every time an online transaction takes place–and will only be approved once you confirm the purchase with by entering the code. This ensures that you are who you say you are by asking for something you know (your password), and something you have (your phone).

5. Leave No Evidence Behind

If you were required by a friend or relative to hand over your personal details via email or text, make

sure you delete all evidence, and remind them to delete the information once they’re done with it. Too many accounts are accessed and used illegally due to people carelessly leaving details lying around. Also do not write your passwords down. It’s too easy for someone to spot it.

You should also be extra vigilant about your credentials when using another computer (or a computer that is not your own) to shop online as well. Make sure to select “No” whenever a browser asks you if you want it to remember your username

and password. Also, take the extra step and clear the browser’s cache, cookies, and browsing history before exiting it.

A password manager such as Keepass and a cleanup program like CCleaner are useful utilities for creating and storing strong, secure passwords and deleting tracking data and temporary files from web browsers. Remain vigilant, and stay safe. What do you do to secure your online life? Let us know in the comments below!Source: http://verrytechnical.com/5-essential-tips-to-secure-your-online-transactions/

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Author Details:Jimmy WentzJimmy Wentz is a budding freelance tech writer, gadget and gaming enthusiast, and social media junkie. He writes regularly about O2 and the latest news in the tech, gaming, and social media world.

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BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is now a much-talked and debating concept in the management & access to information technology service as it allows access to the corporate inside network using a wide range of personal devices owned by employees. Implementation of BYOD concept is increasing as the corporate are thinking that it might have impact on employee productivity as well as mobility for its ease of use.

However, paced revaluation occurred on mobile technology in the last few years, which also brought potential security risk into the enterprise network. As a result, CTOs/CIOs around the world not only concern about the controls & monitoring for compliance but also about the methodical project implementation strategy.

Pre-assessment of BYOD: Before diving into BYOD, corporate should think or define strategy in line with its Nature of Business. What are the scopes of BYOD in the Business? How can BYOD transform the way of doing business? Whether this transformative concept is at all worthy for the Business. BYOD brings your employee connecting at anytime from anywhere but it may suffer your corporate network.

So, Business should not consider only advantages & disadvantages but should think about the built-in challenges that need to be planned proactively. Considering the above facts, if management determines going for implementation of BYOD then identification of resources to be accessed should be listed in detail. This also includes distinguishing indication of corporate and personnel resources. Corporate resources should be separated and under control. All stockholders should be determined and accordingly policy, procedure or activity workflow should be documented in the following areas:a) Personnel Device Security b) Application (Mobile Apps) c) Disposal or Device Lost d) Communication Channel etc

Group of human resources should also need to be identified and segregation of these groups by their role is important for managing security of sensitive corporate resources. At last, selection of mobile devices & operating system to be used in BYOD implementation can be determined and finalized.

There are some financial involvement in implementation of BYOD in any corporate so following issues need to be consider before doing any cost benefit analysis:a) Repair of devicesb) Additional accessories c) Roaming Bill re-imbursement when employee

was in personnel visit.d) Any additional support

Benefits of BYOD: 1. Regain visibility and control by managing

company data and limiting liabilities on personal devices,

2. Share corporate data confidently with secure access, backup, and file sharing,

3. Protect data wherever it goes with context-aware security.

4. Increase productivity - employees who use their own devices in work and at home put in more hours work per year,

5. Save money - reduce the overhead of company provided devices and maintenance.

6. Improve staff satisfaction - by giving them the flexibility to use the device of their choice,

9. Attract and retain the best employees

Risks in implementation of BYOD: 1. May decrease employees productivity as control

in browsing web site is difficult, 2. Chance of Business Software theft, 3. Business Data Security and Chance of theft, 4. Malicious attack on Mobile Device can spread

in corporate network so chance of service disruption.

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An Overview of BYODBy Tapan Kanti SarkarChief Technology Officer (CTO), NCC Bank Limited


Experience from Adopting BYOD: More organizations around world are now adopting BYOD strategy for its simplicity and cost effectiveness. For example, IBM adopted BYOD Model in 2010 as it believes that “At IBM we use what we sell”. Moreover, the demand came from

UK “Innovation Jam” as well as it was observed then that it was not worthy to provide all employees a new corporate funded device. As a result, IBM started with “Lotus Traveler” in Europe by extending not only security in email/calendar/contacts onto smart-phones & tablets but also taken care of in privacy and support for variety devices, platforms and carriers. Now, worldwide adoption of IBM:

a) 100,000 employees with smart-phone or tablet access today

b) 200,000 forecast for 2012 – around half our global workforce

c) Most pay for their own devices and monthly service plans

d) IBM controls corporate data via security policies

The lessons learned by IBM

a) Employees supportive of personally owned (and funded) devices

b) Employees want single device for personal & business use

c) Biggest dissatisfied is the enforced device pass-code

d) Employees requested better separation of work & personal data

(Source: IBM Client Technology Innovation Exchange 2012)

However, at Bank of America, employees who are using their own technology for work purposes must install a firewall on the devices for separating access to personal and company information. The bank has been supporting accessing working environments remotely for some of its employees “for years,” so the company has the awareness & know-how from a tech perspective to secure remote devices accessing corporate working environment.

There’s more to securing smart-phones and tablets than securing laptops or desktop computers. However, securing mobile devices are more difficult as there’s a difference between a dispersed working environment and a mobile working environment. Fraud is always a potential problem. Essentially, it’s the storage that creates the bulk of the risk in a mobile environment. Thus we need to evolve toward the ability of devices to use data but not store it. In this context, implementing a cloud-based architecture can mitigate the risk of storing sensitive data on mobile devices, as data can be stored in an off-site, fully encrypted cloud environment, and you can obtain it with a password. In terms of security, cloud providers’ systems are probably more secure than most large-scale financial institutions. Storing data in the cloud also saves an employee’s personal data if the device needs to be wiped remotely.

Though it requires much consideration prior to implement BYOD, however, if it is implemented properly and maintaining continuity in monitoring and control, then it can reduce operating cost and increase employee productivity. Moreover, now BYOD goes mainstream in IT Division thus security should be front and center for users and IT administrators alike. However, in our country, where ICT Policy and its implementation is still unsatisfactory, should not be the right strategic model in the name of reducing operating cost or to take BYOD as to increase employees productivity.

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Tapan Kanti SarkarCTO, NCC Bank Limited.President, CTO Forum Bangladesh.Feedback : [email protected]

Author Details:


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Cloud Computing is entrusting the services with data, software, storage and computation over a network to a community of end-users upon resource sharing.

End users access cloud-based applications through a web browser or a light-weight desktop or mobile app while the business software and user’s data are stored on servers at a remote location.

The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams.

There are three types of cloud computing:

n Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

n Platform as a Service (PaaS)

n Software as a Service (SaaS)

While using Infrastructure as a Service, users rent servers (as many as needed during the rental period) provided by one or more cloud providers. While using Platform as a Service, users rent servers and system software to use in them. While using Software as a Service, users also rent application software and databases. Rented users don not own these infrastructure platform & Software.

Example of IaaS: Google Compute Engine, Amazon CloudFormation (and underlying services such as EC2), Rackspace Cloud, Right Scale etc.

Example of PaaS: Google App Engine, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, Microsoft Azure etc.

Example of SaaS: Google Docs, Quickbooks Online, Salesforce.com etc.

The cloud providers manage the infrastructure and platforms on which the applications run.

Cloud clientsUsers access cloud computing services using networked client devices, such as desktop computers, laptops, tablets, iPad, smart phones etc. Many cloud applications do not require specific software on the client and instead use a web browser to interact with the cloud application.

Advantages

n Minimum Hardware required at user end.

n Low cost at user end

n Low maintenance hazard

n Runs faster

n Better resource utilization

n Switching from company-owned hardware and software assets to per-use service-based model

n Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile phone). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by

Cloud ComputingBy Biprajit SahaAssistant Vice President, IT Division, IFIC Bank Limited


a third-party) and accessed via Internet, users can connect from anywhere.

n Virtualization in cloud computing allows servers and storage devices to be shared

and maximize utilization. Applications can be easily migrated from one physical server to another.

n A new form of “green computing”

Disadvantages

n Fully dependent on Cloud Computing provider

n Single point of failure

n Dependent on network performance

n Smooth Service availability is a concern

n May compromise data privacy

Security

n Solely managed by Cloud Computing provider

n Data and Software remains centrally

n Centralized control

n Encryption of user data along network path

n Reliability is improved if multiple redundant sites are used

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Biprajit SahaAssistant Vice President, IT Division, IFIC Bank LimitedAssociate Member, CTO Forum BangladeshEmail : [email protected]

Author Details:


TV Banking

The Television Banking enables customers to conduct banking business with television and TV set-top box as the terminal and remote control for the operational tool based on the cable TV broadband network. Compared with online banking, television banking is closer to the life of everyone.

Customers of television banking do not need to purchase a computer or bear the internet “jam”; compared with telephone banking, television banking has a more direct trading interface and all-inclusive information display. Television banking enables customers to complete banking transactions through the television, have access

to financial products and industry information, and experience a more fashionable and convenient wealth management approach.

Currently, ABC, BOC, CCB and a number of other financial institutions have launched television banking service based on digital television. With this service, customers can enjoy such financial services as bank card transfer, inquiry and bill

payment. Television banking has become another self-service channel following online banking, telephone banking, mobile banking and ATM. The television banking is still in its initial stage and has a limited number of customers, however, it will have plenty of room for development with the help and promotion of digital television technology.

Digital Sky TV subscribers can bank via their TV if they are a HSBC customer – they are the only providers* of TV banking at present. By pressing the ‘Interactive’ button on the sky remote, you can access the HSBC banking page (after going through the right navigation channels) and access a range of service information.

In addition, after registering to use the service, you can view your balance, transfer money between HSBC accounts in your own name, pay bills, and make changes such as cancelling standing orders/direct debits/cheques.

For you to access your account, your Sky TV box must be connected to the telephone system (usually connected when Sky TV is installed). If

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TV Banking, Internet Banking & PC Banking


the connection is broken or damaged, the customer will not be able to access their account. You will be charged a fee to access your account via the TV: charged by the minute.

Advantages:

• 24 hour, 7 day a week access

• No need to queue as you would at a bank Disadvantages:

• Limited use of your account compared to other methods

• Costs are incurred when accessing your account (charged at local rate)

• There is no personal interaction between yourself and the bank (employee/advisor)

• You cannot deposit physical cash using TV banking i.e. cheques, cash in hand. This would require a personal visit to the bank

• If your Sky TV system fails to function, you cannot access TV banking

• * HSBC is the only provider out of the high street banks. However, some internet banks allow customers to bank via TV.

Internet Banking

Every major bank has an on-line presence where information about services can be obtained. However, internet banking goes one step further allowing a customer to access their account on-line, make transactions and amend account/personal details. Just about every major bank offers an internet banking service but you will have to register which may or may not incur charges (depending on your bank): usually, it is free to register for personal internet banking but there may be a cost for business internet banking.

Security is set up which usually consists of a unique number/password issued by your bank and a 6-10 digit number set up by yourself. The security procedure will vary between banks.

If transferring money on-line, usually the money will be transferred over-night if being transferred to an account within the same bank. However, if you are transferring money to an external account, it can usually take over three working days to transfer.

Advantages:• 24 hour, 7 day a week access• No need to queue as you would at a bank• You can access your account at any computer

with Internet access

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• Security is integrated

• Applications for a majority of popular services can be made on-line i.e. loans, savings accounts, mortgages, etc

• Disadvantages:

• You pay for internet connection costs when using the service

• If your internet connection fails to function, you cannot access Internet banking


• Internet banking can be slow with a 56k modem

• You cannot deposit physical cash using internet banking i.e. cheques, cash in hand. This would require a personal visit to the bank

• You still have to visit the bank to obtain cash floats and/or use an ATM machine to withdraw cash

PC Banking

PC banking is similar to Internet banking. The main difference is that you do not use the Internet to access your account. Instead, from your PC, you connect directly to the bank’s intranet using specialist software, modem and existing telephone line. In general, PC banking allows you

to perform the same degree of functionality as Internet banking. However, PC banking is potentially faster than Internet banking and offers increased security, therefore allowing you to access more services. Again, not all banks offer PC banking. A fee may also be paid to use the service. Consult your bank for more information.

Advantages:

• 24 hour, 7 day a week access

• No need to queue as you would at a bank

• A higher level of security compared to Internet banking

• Potentially, more services can be accessed due to increased security

• Disadvantages:


• You can only access your account from the PC that you originally installed the software

• You cannot deposit physical cash using internet banking i.e. cheques, cash in hand. This would require a personal visit to the bank.

INNOV

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It is beyond any doubt that Bangladesh would benefit immensely from the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The importance of ICT in national development was stressed upon by the Care Taker Government (CTG) under the term “e-Governance”, which has later termed as “Digital Bangladesh” by the present government.

We constantly talk about the importance of ICT in our national activities in seminars, workshops and discussion meeting as well as in media dialogues, but result is still unsatisfactory. We did not really make much progress in this area.

Recently I have attended a workshop on “Improving Property Registration Process and IFC Ranking of Bangladesh” organized by the International Business Forum of Bangladesh (www.ibfb.org). The idea of introduction of information technology in property registration process was discussed and proposed to the respective ministries. A thorough research was conducted by IBFB and a written proposal was submitted to the government formally at the meeting. Overall ranking of Bangladesh with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) was also discussed.

It may have been forgotten that during the past political government there have been a pilot project that was quite successful, but due to political pressure the project was killed. The president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) also indicated that software to handle such a job is already available for use that is developed by local software engineers.

A participant in the meeting revealed some inside information on why such projects fail. He mentioned that a huge amount of money is being transacted illegally in such institutions or departments where many individuals and groups have their stakes. Therefore, having an IT based system stalls all those transactions depriving these people from some

extra earnings. During the past government I have witnessed a similar situation at the Passport Office in Chittagong when I went there to renew my passport.

If we are to install an IT based passport service system then the process would be so speedy that no extra speed money would be required and all those folks who are dependent on the extra income would have to go home empty handed everyday. It would definitely be a problem for them.

At least principally at the meetings we are all agreeing to the fact that ICT implementation would reduce corruption and speed up system processes. Every government when they come to power uses this as a slogan and kills their time on other priorities. As a result, none of the governments have been able to achieve anything so far totally disappointing the IT people and the concerned citizens of Bangladesh. We are observing the same thing with our present government as well.

In the name of “Digital Bangladesh” what we have today is some static websites that are not regularly updated or still incomplete. It shows that despite the effort of digitization a workable business process has not been re-engineered to incorporate this new activity in the organization.

Ideally, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MoICT) should take the initiative of business process re-engineering (BPR) and manning the departments with appropriately trained IT personnel. If we have a cadre for ICT this should not be a difficult task to handle.

What is basically needed is an independent IT department at all the ministries taking care of the IT setup and activities for their respective institutions. The IT department could consist of the following personnel:

1. IT Manager ( a senior position to manage the IT department)

Business Process Re-engineering in accommodating ICT in BangladeshBy Sayed Javed AhmadCOO, CDBLLEA

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2. Assistant IT Manager (assisting the manager if the department is large and busy)

3. System Administrator (if there are servers to look after and administer)

4. Network Specialists (for organizational network administration)

5. System Support Specialists (for computer software and hardware troubleshooting and support for the organization)

6. Webmaster (to handle daily website maintenance jobs like updating the contents changing the web pages, etc. this job can also be assigned to the System Administrator or any one of the above if the job is light)

7. Database Administrator (DBA) (if the organization maintains a large database).

I do not anticipate any software development activities at the government organizations. As the chances are, most of the software will be supplied by third party private company – either local or foreign. It is advisable that our government organizations deal with local developers or vendors for prompt and low cost services.

If however a software development team is required, apart from relying on local software developing companies the MoICT could maintain a team of software developers to handle all the internal needs of all the ministries under the ICT program. In that case, it is recommended that they also create the following positions to look after and manage the department:

1. Chief Information Officer (CIO)

2. Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

In comparison to the situation discussed above, our Bangladesh Bank is making considerable progress in terms of ICT implementation that would bring comfort and ease in doing business within the banking industry.

From the news article “BB on digital drive” it becomes clear that the Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman is taking personal interest in ICT implementation at the Central Bank. This indicates that if we could place some more people like the governor at different institutions and ministries where ICT is crucial, we would probably see similar results in those organizations as well. So what we really need is people with ICT vision and mission.

We also need to set a deadline to force all the civil servants who are engaged in public communications to be literate with computers capable of at least using their own email accounts so that we could get a quick response to our email inquiries without a miss or waiting indefinitely for an answer.

References:‘Digital Bangladesh’ down: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/print_news.php?nid=137790

Minister suggests planned land use: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/print_news.php?nid=137737

BB on digital drive: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/print_news.php?nid=137723

Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology: http://www.mosict.gov.bd/

Author Details:

Sayed Javed AhmadChief Operating Officer (COO)Central Depository Bangladesh Limited (CDBL), Dhaka, Bangladesh

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IntroductionA data warehouse is more than an archive for corporate data and more than a new way of accessing corporate information. A data warehouse is a subject-oriented repository designed with enterprise-wide access in mind. It provides tools to satisfy the information needs of enterprise manager’s at all organizational levels — not just for complex data queries, but as a general facility for getting quick,accurate, and often insightful information. A data warehouse is designed so that its users can recognize the information they want and access that information using simple tools.

One of the principal reasons for developing a data warehouse is to integrate operational data from various sources into a single and consistent structure that supports analysis and decision-making within the enterprise. Operational (legacy) systems create, update and delete production data that “feed” the datawarehouse.

A data warehouse is analogous to a physical warehouse.Operational systems create data “parts” that are loaded into the data warehouse.Some of those parts are summarized into information “components” that are stored in the warehouse.Data warehouse users make requests and are delivered information “products”that are created from the stored components and parts. A data warehouse is typically a blending of technologies, including relational and multidimensional databases, client/server architecture, extraction/transformation programs, graphical user interfaces, and more.

Data warehousing is one of the hottest industry trends — for good reason. A well-defined and properly implemented data warehouse can be a valuable competitive tool. A data warehouse has its own unique peculiarities and characteristics that make developing a datawarehouse unlike developing just another application. Not every enterprise is able to

successfully develop an effective data warehouse -- in fact there are many more failures than successes.

Critical Success Factors (CSF)The critical success factors for data warehouse engineering are:1. Sponsorship and Involvement2. Business Requirements3. Enterprise Information Architecture4. Data Warehouse Architecture and Design5. Data Warehouse Technology6. Information Quality7. Development Infrastructure

1. Sponsorship and InvolvementEnterprise executives and managers must sponsor data warehouse development. Equally important, all potential users must be involved in data warehouse engineering. Without both management sponsorship and near universal involvement, enterprise-wide data warehouse projects usually fail.

Management

Enterprise management must fully sponsor data warehouse development and usage.Sponsorship includes ensuring sufficient resources are available. Sponsorship also means consistent commitment to implementing a data warehouse that is the single source for corporate measurement and decision support data.

Data warehouse development and usage often requires significant culture change.This cannot happen without management commitment. Managing internal change, particularly culture change, requires three things: management commitment, universal approval, and appropriate measures and rewards.

Management Commitment: In order for anything to happen in an enterprise, including change,

Critical Success Factors For Data Warehouse EngineeringData Center VS Data Recovery

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executives and managers must be consistently committed to making it happen. Only enterprise leaders can ensure that resources necessary to effect the change are available. Consistent commitment means that the change becomes both an enterprise strategy and an enterprise goal that leaders continuously and obviously support. The visibility of leadership support is a primary factor in achieving universal approval for change.

Universal Approval: Change is successful only when the people involved approve of the change. They understand the need for the change. They believe the change is good for the enterprise and good for them. They agree that the change being undertaken is the right change. Peter Senge, in his bookThe Fifth Discipline,describes the need for universal approval in order to implement systemic change: “People want change; they don’t want to be changed.”

Measures and Rewards: Getting everyone to want change is difficult.It requires a level and degree of communication and cooperation not found in most enterprises. Maintaining universal approval is even more difficult. The best way to achieve and maintain universal approval is to ensure that the process and results of change are measured appropriately and accurately and communicated enterprise-wide. Good results and changed behavior must be rewarded. At the same time, unchanged behavior and poor results should not be rewarded. Employees will not work toward change if they continue to be rewarded for old practices.

Potential Users

All potential users of the data warehouse, even executives, from every organizational unit and level, must be actively involved in data warehouse design, development, and management. Datawarehouse users will have the most influence on acceptance of the warehouse, so it is imperative that their needs are addressed. They are also the “owners” and “stewards” of operational data and thus are the best source for subject matter expertise.

2. Business RequirementsDeveloping a data warehouse without first determining strategic business requirements is a sure recipe for failure. The best source for these requirements is the enterprise strategic plan and the performance measures identified in the plan. These

become the basis for the enterprise information architecture as well as the data warehouse architecture and design (see below). An enterprise should never undertake system development efforts, particularly engineering a data warehouse, without first determining its strategic business and information requirements.

Strategic Plan

A strategic plan outlines an enterprise’s mission and purpose, goals, strategies and performance measures (business requirements). Properly used, a strategic plan is the tool with which effective managers guide their organizations and ensure corporate success.

An enterprise’s strategic plan not only provides a guide for effective management; it also provides the guiding force for internal change and the guidelines for responding to external change.

Through the strategic planning process, the enterprise defines and documents its purpose, goals, and objectives, along with strategies for achieving them.Included in the process is an assessment of external opportunities and threats as well as an assessment of internal strengths and weaknesses. The most useful strategic plans are multi-dimensional, incorporating the enterprise’s overall plan with the subordinate plans of every enterprise element, and including performance measures for every critical outcome.

Performance Measures

Establishing the right performance measures is the key to successful enterprise management. An enterprise must be able to tell whether progress is being made on its critical goals and whether stakeholder expectations are being met. The most effective and useful performance measures are cross-functional and are linked to the appropriate strategies, objectives, and performance criteria.Management’s targets and thresholds for the measures, often based upon external benchmarks, form the structure for an enterprise performance measurement system.

Performance measurement documentation should include not only the content of reports and queries, but also document the path of the data from source to ultimate information recipient. The combination of all the reports of all the performance measures

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becomes the basis for a data warehouse and a Strategic Information System that is truly tailored to the enterprise’s requirements.

Executives and managers use the information produced from the data

warehouse to reinforce initiatives, reward behavior and change strategies.Employees use it to adjust operations and respond to strategic needs. Linking timely accurate measures to specific goals and objectives begins to make enterprise management more of a science and less of an art.

3. Enterprise Information ArchitectureLinking the enterprise strategic plan with enterprise data architecture (EDA), information systems architecture (ISA) and enterprise technical architecture (ETA) results in enterprise information architecture. This architecture is a logical organization of corporate information requirements, descriptions of application systems that support the enterprise’s strategic requirements. It includes the relationships between application systems via shared software components and shared data elements. The enterprise information architecture also establishes guidelines, standards, and operational services that define the enterprise’s computing technology environment.

Before an enterprise can define, design, and implement the architecture for its strategic information management systems, including data warehouse, data mart, decision support, and executive informationsystems, it must first document the environment in which these systems will be implemented.

Enterprise Data Architecture

The EDA is a fully normalized data model that describes all the data necessary to the enterprise.It includes relationships between “business data objects,” business rules concerning usage of the data elements, and identification of the “owner” of the data. In addition, it is important for the model to indicate the circumstances (who, when, where, how) for creating, updating, using, and deleting enterprise data. For ease of use, subsets of the enterprise data architecture model shouldbe established. These subsets, or views, can represent functions, organizations, regions, systems,and any other significant grouping of information.

Information System Architecture

The ISA documents all the information systems in use by the enterprise to create, read, update, and delete enterprise data. In order to be useful, the information systems should be linked to appropriate data elements in the Enterprise Data Architecture.Every system should also be linked to appropriate elements of the enterprise technology architecture.

Enterprise Technical Architecture

This third segment of the Enterprise Information Architecture documents the enterprise’s hardware platforms, operating systems, and telecommunications infrastructure. The ETA is also where guidelines, standards, and operational services that define the enterprise’s systems development environment are documented.

4. Data Warehouse Architecture and DesignThe key to success in scaleable data warehouse development and the single factor that contributes most to data warehousing success is data warehouse architecture.

BLUEPRINT FOR A DATA WAREHOUSE

“Engineering” a data warehouse is like engineering a physical warehouse. Both involve a rigorous development cycle and require the right tools.

A building is constructed using architectural diagrams (blueprints) that clearly depict the building’s infrastructure (structural elements, walls, electrical wiring, plumbing, etc.).

Blueprints are also used to enlarge a building or make any significant modifications. Without a diagram of the infrastructure, such changes are quite difficult and very costly and can even be dangerous. It is the same with data warehouses. First, updates an enterprise’s data warehouse architecture model so that it reflects changes (e.g., new performance measures, product lines, or services) and then modifies the data warehouse to support the changed enterprise.

Data warehouse engineering is easier and less costly when based upon an accurate architectural model of the enterprise. Further, a data warehouse is easier to use and consistently produces desired outcomes when decision-makers have access to enterprise architecture (metadata) that accurately

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reflects enterprise infrastructure. The architecture and design of an enterprise’s data warehouse should reflect the performance measurement and business requirements of the enterprise. Its data model, structure, components, and metadata should all be based upon internal information requirements -- not specific technologies.

Data Warehouse Data Model

A data model documents the data elements whose values at any point in time are necessary to tell data warehouse users how well their enterprise is performing. The data warehouse model provides a clear and unambiguous definition of every key data entity, describing the way each is used, as well as defining derivation formulas, aggregation categories, and refreshment time periods. The data warehouse model, linked with the enterprise information architecture, becomes both requirement documentation and a source for communicating the contents of the data warehouse to its users and developers. Issues that must be addressed in the data model include what legacy data will be used to populate the data warehouse, how data will be moved from legacy environments to the data warehouse, and how the legacy data will be integrated or transformed to ensure data quality and integrity in the data warehouse. The two most important issues for any data warehouse are data quality and data access.

Data Warehouse Metadata

Metadata, or data about data, is the nerve center of a data warehouse and is essential. Metadata is essential to all levels of the data warehouse, but exists and functions in a different dimension from other warehouse data. Metadata used to manage and control data warehouse creation and maintenance resides outside the data warehouse, often in a digital repository. Metadata for datawarehouse users is part of the data warehouse itself and is available to control access and analysis of the data warehouse. To a data warehouse user, metadata is like a “card catalog” to the subjects contained in the data warehouse. The two types of data warehouse metadata are called structural and access.

Structural metadata is used for creation and maintenance of the data warehouse.It fully describes data warehouse structure and content. The basic building block of structural metadata is the data

warehouse model that describes its data entities, their characteristics, and how they are related to one another. The way potential datawarehouse users currently use, or intend to use, enterprise measures provides insight into how to best serve them from the data warehouse; i.e, what data entities to include and how to aggregate detailed data entities.The data warehouse model provides a means of documenting and identifying structural metadata. This includes both strategic and operational uses of enterprise measures, as well as multi-dimensionalsummarization. Structural metadata also includes performance metrics for programs and queries so that users and developers know how long programs and queries should run.Data warehouse performance tuning also uses these metrics.

Access metadata is the dynamic link between the data warehouse and end-user applications.It generally contains the enterprise measures supported by the datawarehouse and a dictionary of standard terms including user-defined custom names and aliases. Access metadata also includes the location and description of data warehouse servers, databases, tables, detailed data, and summaries along with descriptions of original data sources and transformations. Access metadata provides rules for drill up, drill down and views across enterprise dimensions and subject hierarchies like products,markets, and customers.Access metadata also allows rules for user-defined custom calculations and queries to be included. In addition, access metadata contains individual, work group, and enterprise security for viewing, changing, and distributing custom calculations, summaries, or other analyses.

Data Warehouse Components

The data warehouse architecture also contains descriptions data warehouse components: current detail of, summarized data, and archivesas well as systems of record and integration/transformation programs.

The heart of a data warehouse is its current detail.It is the place where the bulk of data resides. Current detail comes directly from operational systems and may be stored as raw data or as an aggregation of raw data. Current detail, organized by subject area,represents the entire enterprise, rather than a given application. Current detail is the lowest level of data granularity in

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the data warehouse. Every data entity in current detail is a snapshot, at a moment in time, representing the instance when the data are accurate. Current detail is typically maintained for two to five years, but some enterprises may require detail data for significantly longer periods.

When initially implemented, a data warehouse may include current detail more than two years old, but the often questionable quality of older data must be considered and measures taken to ensure its validity. Current detail refreshment occurs as frequently as necessary to support enterprise requirements.

Lightly summarized data are the hallmark of a data warehouse. All enterprise elements (department, region, function, etc.) do not have the same information requirements, so effective data warehouse design provides for customized, lightly summarized data for every enterprise element (see Data Mart, below). An enterprise element may have access to both detailed and summarized data, but typically much less than the total stored in current detail. Highly summarized data are primarily for enterprise executives. Highly summarized data can come from either the lightly summarized data used by enterprise elements or from current detail. Data volume at this level is much less than other levels and represents an eclectic collection supporting a wide variety of needs and interests. In addition to access to highly summarized data, executives also should have the capability of accessing increasing levels of detail through a “drill down” process.

Data warehouse archives contain old data (normally over two years old) of significant, continuing interest and value to the enterprise. There is usually a massive amount of data stored in the data warehouse archives that has a low incidence of access. Archive data are most often used for forecasting and trend analysis. Although archive data maybe stored with the same level of granularity as current detail, it is more likely that archive data are aggregated as they are archived. Archives include not only old data (inraw or summarized form); they also include the meta data that describes the old data’s characteristics.

A system of record is the source of the best or “rightest” data that feed the data warehouse.The “rightest” data are those which are most timely, complete, accurate, and have the best structural conformance to the data

warehouse. Often the “rightest” data are closest to the source of entry into the production environment.In other cases, a system of record may be one containing already summarized data. Often, “rightest” data is created from diverse sources through a reconciliation process.

The components that link operational systems with the data warehouse are the integration/transformation programs. Even the “rightest” operational data cannot usually be copied, as is, into a data warehouse. Raw operational data are virtually unintelligible to most end users. Additionally, operational data seldom conform to the logical, subject-oriented structure of a data warehouse. Further, different operational systems represent data differently, use different codes for the same thing, squeeze multiple pieces of information into one field, and more.Operational data can also come from many different physical sources: old mainframe files, non-relational databases,indexed flat files, even proprietary tape and card-based systems.Thus operational data must be cleaned up, edited, and reformatted before being loaded into a data warehouse.

As operational data items pass from their systems of record to a data warehouse,integration and transformation programs convert them from application-specific data into enterprise data. These integration and transformation programs perform functions such as:• Reformatting, recalculating, or modifying key

structures and other data elements.• Adding time elements• Identifying default values• Supplying logic to choose between multiple

data sources• Summarizing, tallying, and merging data from

multiple sources• Reconciling data from multiple sources

When either operational or data warehouse environments change, integration and transformation programs must be modified to reflect that change.

Data Warehouse Structure

A data warehouse may have any of several structures. The structure that best meets the datawarehouse needs of an enterprise is fully dependent upon the enterprise business, data, and access requirements. The basic data warehouse structures are:

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Physical Data Warehouse- physical database in which all the data for the datawarehouse are stored, along with metadata and processing logic for scrubbing, organizing, packaging and processing the detail data.

Logical Data Warehouse- also contains metadata including enterprise rules and processing logic for scrubbing, organizing, packaging and processing the data, but does not contain actual data. Instead it contains the information necessary to access the data wherever they reside. This structure is possible only when operational systems exactly reflect the enterprise data architecture and system capacities can support both operational and management functions.

Data Mart- subset of an enterprise-wide data warehouse. Typically it supports an enterprise element (department, region, function, etc.). The organization of data in a data mart reflects the needs of the enterprise element it supports, and may be different from the organization of the enterprise data warehouse. Specific data elements may bestored redundantly in both the data mart and the data warehouse. As part of an iterative data warehouse development process, an enterprise builds a series of physical data marts over time and links them via an enterprise-wide logical data warehouse or feeds them from a single physical warehouse.

Both within the Data Warehouse as a whole and within the individual Data Marts,different groups of users have needs for differing slices of data.For example, users at a branch generally need the “horizontal slice” of data that pertains to their branch (i.e.they need all the data elements - tables and columns - but only the rows pertaining totheir branch). Other users need “vertical slices” or a combination of horizontal and vertical slices.

The general approach is to try to make data that are needed by a user group available on a machine that is as close to the users as is feasible - a Data Mart server. Only that slice of data that is regularly used by the user group should be on their Data Mart server. All other data accessible to the user group should be available on other machines in the network when needed. The major issues to be addressed in implementing a particular data warehouse structure involve data distribution and data replication. How much data? How often? Detail or summarized? Uni-directional or bi-directional update? Data distribution

and replication decisions will also have application implications.

Distribution refers to the parceling out of segments of the data to distinct multiple independent computers (or clusters). Replication refers to the copying of portions of the data in one (or more) databases to a second database (often on a different computer) and guaranteeing that whenever the data is changed that all the replicas implement the change in order to stay in synchronization.

The challenges of distribution and replication not only exist in developing the initial design, but also the ongoing management and maintenance of the overall system. Data Warehouse architecture design must take into accounts the following:

Replication: An effective design must consider• From what database and to what servers is the

data moving? Is the data moved one-way or bi-directionally?

• How many replicas will be needed and are they all identical?

• By operational application, how much data - whole databases or selected sets of fields - will be moved through out the network?

• By application, how time sensitive is the data?• How is data delivery guaranteed? Who is

responsible for the guarantee?• What should be done if the data to be replicated

cannot be delivered due totemporary problems?• How is data replication tracked?

Network: The network issues that revolve around distribution and replication include

• What are the physical characteristics of the network architecture that connects the data sources to the replicas? Can its bandwidth handle the amount of data to be transferred?

• What is the overall processing speed of each component of the network? How fast can data effectively move between each node?

• What type of replication process will be implemented (synchronous orasynchronous)? Will it require 100% availability of the network? How is the replication process affected if the network is temporarily down? How will failed replication attempts be managed?

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Data Warehouse Application(s): Applications must be designed to be aware of the replicas available.• Each application at each site must know where to find the data (preferred site)

• If the data is not available at the preferred site, how does the application detect the problem?

• Should the application have the ability to switch to an alternate site from which to retrieve the data?

Scheduling: Efficient scheduling of replication must consider• What events or conditions will trigger a dynamic

data transfer? How much data is transferred during a triggered data move?

• How long will it take to perform the data transfer under various conditions? Can the required time be minimized through better scheduling

• What time zones play an important consideration when moving data?

Change Management: Replication is not a static concept. Ongoing changes must be anticipated in the overall replication strategy.• What technological changes could impact

the operation or performance of the current replication strategy? What investments will improve the strategic business impact of the data?

• What organizational, product, service, regulatory, market, competitive, or other environmental changes could impact the

operation or performance of the present replication strategy?

• Does the replication strategy fit today’s users’ needs?

Distribution and replication of data warehouse data is primarily a physical architecture designand implementation issue.

• OPERATIONAL DATA WAREHOUSE- for the DW is supplied from mainframe operational data held in first generation hierarchical and network databases, departmental data held in proprietary file systems, private data held on workstations and private servers and external systems such as the Internet, commercially available DB, or DB associated with and organization’s suppliers or customers

• OPERATIONAL DATABASE- is a repository of current and integrated operational data used for analysis. It is often structured and supplied with data in the same way as the data warehouse, but may in fact simply act as a staging area for data to be moved into the warehouse

• LOAD MANAGER- also called the frontend component, it performs all the operations associated with the extraction and loading of data into the warehouse. These operations include simple transformations of the data to prepare the data for entry into the warehouse

• WAREHOUSE MANAGER- performs all the operations associated with the management of the data in the warehouse. The operations performed by this component include analysis of data to ensure consistency, transformation and merging of source data, creation of indexes and views, generation of denormalizations and aggregations, and archiving and backing-up data

• QUERY MANAGER- also called backend component, it performs all the operations associated with the management of user queries. The operations performed by this component include directing queries to the appropriate tables and scheduling the execution of queries

o detailed, lightly and lightly summarized data, archive/backup data

o meta-data

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o end-user access tools can be categorized into five main groups: data reporting and query tools, application development tools, executive information system (EIS) tools, online analytical processing (OLAP) tools, and data mining tools.

DATA MART

DATA MART- a subset of a data warehouse that supports the requirements of particular department or business function

The characteristics that differentiate data marts and data warehouses include:• a data mart focuses on only the requirements

of users associated with one department or business function

• as data marts contain less data compared with data warehouses, data marts are more easily understood and navigated

• data marts do not normally contain detailed operational data, unlike data warehouse

DATA MART ISSUE• DATA MART SIZE: the performance

deteriorates as data marts grow in size, so need to reduce the size of data marts to gain improvements in performance

• DATA MART FUNCTIONALITY: the capabilities of data marts have increased with the growth in their popularity

• DATA MART PERFORMENCE: two critical components: end-user response time and data loading performance to increment DB updating so that only cells affected by the change are updated and not the entire MDDB structure

• USER ACCESS TO DIFFERENT MARTS: one approach is to replicate data between different data marts or, alternatively, build virtual data mart which are views of several physical data marts or the corporate data warehouse tailored to meet the requirements of specific groups of users

• DATA MART INTERNET: its products sit between a web server and the data analysis product. Internet/intranet offers users low-cost access to data marts and the data WH using web browsers.

• DATA MART ADMINISTRATION: organization cannot easily perform administration of multiple

data marts, giving rise to issues such as data mart versioning, data and meta-data consistency and integrity, enterprise-wide security, and performance tuning . Data mart administrative tools are commercially available

• DATA MART INSTALLATION: data marts are becoming increasingly complex to build. Vendors are offering products referred to as ”data mart in a box” that provide a low-cost source of data mart tools

DATA FLOW• Inflow- The processes associated with the

extraction, cleansing, and loading of the data from the source systems into the data warehouse.

• upflow- The process associated with adding value to the data in the warehouse through summarizing, packaging and distribution of the data

• downflow- The processes associated with archiving and backing-up of data in the warehouse

• outflow- The process associated with making the data available to the end-users

• Meta-flow- The processes associated with the management of the meta-data

5. Data Warehouse TechnologyOnly after the data warehouse architecture has been defined should an enterprise begin selecting

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and implementing its data warehouse technology.Otherwise, there is a high probability that the technology will not support enterprise requirements.Further, if the enterprise data warehouse solution is designed for a specific technology it will be difficult, if not

impossible, to change technologies as requirements change and as technologies improve and mature. There are more and more technologies available to support enterprise data warehousing. They can be conveniently grouped into user interfaces, warehouse engines, hardware platforms, system software, and security.

User Interface(s)

Data Warehouse users get useful information from the data warehouse and data marts through user interfaces. It is these user interfaces that have the most impact on how effective and useful the data warehouse will be perceived. Therefore, users must be actively involved in selecting their own interface to the data warehouse.

Two primary criteria for selecting an effective userinterface are ease of use and performance. For ease of use, most enterprises turn to graphical user interfaces. For performance, developers must ensure that the hardware/software platform fully supports and is optimized for every chosen user interface. The most important selection criteria for user interfaces are the information needs and the level of computer literacy of potential users who

will retrieve the information they need from the data warehouse. The following data warehouse user categories are based on levels of literacy and information needs:

Information Systems Challenged- data warehouse users who are hopelessly lost whenit comes to information systems. In management roles they rely on their secretaries or assistants to retrieve information for them. These users need an extremely easy to use and highly graphical interface or standard queries and reports with a limited number of parameters.

Variance Oriented- users who are focused on the variances in numbers over time. These users mainly want a set of standard reports that they can generate or receive periodically so that they can perform their analyses.

Number Crunchers- users who are spreadsheet aficionados. They will take whateverdata are available and refine it, re-categorize it and derive their own numbers for analyzing and managing the enterprise. Their needs can best be met by providing a spreadsheet extract output format for any reports or ad hoc queries provided.

Technically Oriented- users who are either already familiar with computers or have sufficient motivation to learn and use everything they can get their hands on. These people want to have complete control over the way they retrieve and format information.

They are often business or systems analysts who have moved into an enterprise function. They want to have all of the tools the data warehouse development staff uses. Most enterprises have all of these categories of individuals. This makes it advisable to provide each type of data warehouse user interface.

The final user interface criterion is that it supports the access metadata designed for the datawarehouse.If a user interface is easy to use, allows all potential users to get the information they need in the format they need, and does it in an acceptable amount of time, it is the right interface.

Data Warehouse Engine(s)

Once the information requirements and metadata for a data warehouse have been identified and documented, user interfaces have been designed,

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and the data warehouse structure has been selected, a data warehouse enginethat will support the data warehouse and all access approaches should be selected.

Key issues include capability for loading information into the data warehouse, implementing access control (security) mechanisms and support for one or more user interface tool sets. The architecture, performance requirements, and overall size of the data warehouse will determine software requirements. For example, a data warehouse that includes data marts will require not only relational technology, but also multi dimensional access and client/server architecture.

Hardware Platform(s)

The selection of one or more hardware platforms involves answering the following questions:

How much data will be in the data warehouse and how much can the platform economically accommodate? How scaleable is the platform? Is it optimized for data warehouse performance?

Will the platform support the software selected for the data warehouse? How many users will simultaneously access the data warehouse? Will their queries be simple or complex?

These are the most important criteria for selecting hardware to support a data warehouse. In answering these questions it is important to consider all hardware platform characteristics; not just CPU speed and disk capacity, but memory capacity and the input/output system capabilities as well.

I/O capacity is often the most critical to overall data warehouse performance. While increasing the number of servers can usually increase memory and CPU capacity, increasing I/O capacity is not as simple.Nevertheless, it is vital that the hardware platform(s) supporting a data warehouse have sufficient capacity. This often requires multiple, independent I/O channels or busses.

Data warehouse capacity planning is not an exact science. Underestimating is the rule rather than the exception. Some experts advise doubling initial estimates of hardware requirements because data warehouse users and query complexity increases exponentially over the first few months after initial data warehouse implementation. Even with

sufficient initial capacity, it is critical to choose scaleable systems to support inevitable but hard-to-quantify future growth.

Despite the many vagaries of data warehousing and the relative youth of the field, early adopters and vendors agree on a few general rules when estimating server capacity.

Small databases, simple queries- LAN (local area network) servers, with a single I/O bus are appropriate for data marts where the database is under 5GB.

Medium to large databases, more complex queries- Response time is faster on SMP (symmetric multi processing) systems than it is on uniprocessors, and they tend to bemore cost effective the systems where nothing is shared. Large amounts of memory reduce outside seek time during queries, speeding performance when querying large databases. Conventional wisdom suggests that SMP machines begin to exceed capacity between 500GB and the low terabyte range. Good performance for a medium-sized database also requires at least two I/O channels.As the size of the database and complexity of queries grows, more I/O channels are needed to maintain performance.

Very large databases, very complex queries-- very large data warehouses (up to 5terabytes) require clusters of SMP servers or MPP (massively parallel processor) servers. The platforms with the best performance for very large databases,

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excluding MPP’s tend to be the ones with a large number of I/O channels. Huge databases, extremely complex queries-- data warehouses that exceed 10 terabytes may need the processing power and I/O channels provided by mainframe systems.

System Software

Concurrent with hardware selection is the selection of system software to support the data warehouse.The operating systems must support the selected user interfaces, data warehouse structure and warehouse engine.

Security

Data warehouse security includes both user access security and physical data security. A datawarehouse is a read-only source of enterprise information; therefore developers need not be concerned with controlling create, update and delete capabilities through access security. But,developers do need to address the tradeoff between protecting a valuable corporate asset against unauthorized access and making the data accessible to anyone within the enterprise who can put it to good use. The best solution is to allow everyone in the enterprise to have access to theenterprise measure definitions and derivations, but only allow access to the underlying detailed data on an approved, need-to-know basis. Developers also need to provide sufficient data security, through backup, off-site storage, replication, fault-tolerant and/or redundant hardware, etc, to protect the data from loss due to power failures, equipment malfunction, sabotage, and so on.

6. Information QualityThe single most important success factor for data warehousing is the quality of information provided to data warehouse users. Data in the data warehouse must be of the highest possible quality. It must be accurate, relevant, complete, and concise. It must be timely and current. It must be presented in a way that is clear and understandable.

A data warehouse that contains trusted, strategic information becomes avaluable enterprise resource for decision maker’s at all organizational levels. If its users discover that it contains bad data, the data warehouse will be ignored and will fail. Worse, if it contains bad data, but its users never find out and make decisions based upon the data, it is possible that the enterprise will fail.

7. Development InfrastructureThe most ignored critical success factor is the one that can have the greatest impact. In order to consistently design, develop, and implement a data warehouse, an enterprise must have a developmentinfrastructure that uses best practices and techniques. The elements of this infrastructure include project teams, methodology, and tools.

Data Warehouse Project Team(s)

In addition to consistent management commitment and sponsorship and data warehouse user involvement, there is another critical enterprise culture element. The teams that will be actually designing, developing, implementing, and managing the enterprise data warehouse must have certain

characteristics.

They must understand the importance of strategic information. They must be able to analyze and document business requirements in business language.

They must be dedicated to the data warehousing project.They must have sufficient resources. They must practice effective project management.

Every team member must have appropriate skills, knowledge and experience (see below), be sufficiently familiar with the

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enterprise development methodology, and be able to effectively use the enterprise data warehouse engineering tool set.

Development Methodology

Enterprises that consistently produce quality information systems rigorously use a full life cycle development methodology. Such a methodology is characterized by a sequence of interrelated steps beginning with determining business requirements and resulting in system design, development, and implementation.

The Software Engineering Institute, which established the industry-standard, software development capability maturity model (CMM), declares that a methodology is an absolute necessity in order to be an effective software developer.

Having a strategically-driven, customer-focused, information-centric, model-based, disciplined, rigorous, and repeatable methodology is absolutely essential for successful data warehouse engineering.

Development Tools

A data warehouse is too complex and too massive to be developed using manual methods.

Development tools such as Computer Aided Systems Engineering (CASE) tools, repositories and fourth/fifth generation programming languages are useful for data warehouse engineering.

In addition, there are several Executive Information System (EIS) and Decision Support System(DSS) tools that can help with data warehouse access. There are also many special purpose datawarehouse tools including middleware and data integration/transformation tools. Some combinations of these tools are necessary to quickly

and effectively develop and maintain a data warehouse. The specific tools set which an enterprise uses will depend upon its data warehousing needs.

No matter what tools are used, it is important that the tools work together and that they can be used within the enterprise’s chosen technology environment.

Skills and Knowledge

A specialized set of skills and knowledge is required to efficiently develop a data warehouse. They include experience with online analytical processing (OLAP) tools and systems integration; strong technical background with emphasis on operating systems, data bases, decision support tools, user interfaces and client-server; high conceptual level of relational theory; strong communication (speaking and writing) skills; and the ability to interact with everyone in an organization from office workers to the CEO.

The necessary skills and knowledge may be acquired by hiring experienced consultants, or by training internal staff. The most effective approach is for consultants to begin development while helping internal staff become skilled so that the enterprise eventually becomes self-sufficient.

SummaryData warehouse engineering is not like normal application development.Its scope is broader, its visibility is greater, its user community is larger, and it is more prone to failure.

Before beginning a data warehouse project, an enterprise should evaluate whether it has adequately addressed the critical success factors for data warehouse engineering.

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Md. Anowar Hasan SalimManager-MISAbdul Monem Ltd.

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A Snapshot

‘A buzz can be heard from a classroom, with 60 students organized in 10 groups. The teacher is constantly in motion and moving around, encouraging students to engage in peer and group discussions to raise questions and, at the same time, solve some of the problems together in a team. The students are discussing and noting down their queries which are submitted to the teacher. The teacher then starts to illustrate some colorful pictures and animations on a large screen. Now students have visual clues and they are arguing among themselves to come to a decision. Finally, through this group-learning exercise, students are widening their curiosity radar, which is evident from their buzz composed of arguments, giggles and joys of learning.’ This is a snapshot of a multimedia classroom which has recently been introduced in secondary schools of Bangladesh. The Access to Information (A2I) Programme, located at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has undertaken this innovative initiative with the objective of bringing about a positive change in the education system.

Context

Bangladesh is committed towards enhancing the quality of education by improving the teaching-learning processes in classroom. The traditional teaching-learning process is old-fashioned and teacher-centric, which provides very little opportunities for students to get engaged in the learning process. For instance, science-lab facilities are not sufficient, black and white textbooks with few pictures or illustrations deters the attention of a young group of

students in their teenage years, detachment from modern concepts, technologies and methods of classroom practice, and many other problems . The conventional methodologies are still being practiced to equip children with the necessary skills and prepared them for the 21st century’s globalized and competitive world economy and employment market. In an increasingly knowledge-based global economy, which is driving the ICT revolution, inequitable access to modern technology has emerged as one of the sources of structural injustice perpetuating inequity and poverty. Besides other interventions, it was felt that some interventions were needed to integrate the modern technologies in the prevailing education system, designed to be compatible with the ongoing classroom practices. Multimedia classroom was, therefore, introduced to respond to the teaching-learning challenges.

ICT-enabled Classrooms

The Bangladesh government decided to establish multimedia classroom in every school across the

Reducing Digital Divide through Multimedia ClassroomsBy Afzal Hossain Sarwar, Policy Expert (Education), Access Information (a2i) Programme, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Bangladesh

Reducing Digital Divide through Multimedia ClassroomsBy Afzal Hossain Sarwar, Policy Expert (Education), Access Information (a2i) Programme, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), BangladeshDi

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country. Multimedia classroom consists of One laptop, One multimedia projector, development of teacher-led digital contents and internet connectivity in a classroom, not excluding the traditional teaching-learning teaching materials. Both teachers and students are using this classroom to discuss difficult-to-teach and difficult-to-learn contents e.g. blood circulation system, digestive system, the respiratory system, the gravity and solar system, problems of mathematics and geometry etc. The multimedia classroom is the integration of ICT and traditional teaching-learning approaches, which has revamped the education system of Bangladesh through enabling teachers and students to conceptualize ideas and broaden their cognitive abilities through this visualization process.

Use of multimedia content in classrooms is not a new concept for many countries. Traditionally, multimedia content for classroom was fashioned by e-Learning and curriculum experts. For the first time in Bangladesh, thousands of teachers have been empowered through the multimedia classroom model where they can come together and share experiences in making the classroom teaching-learning more proactive for the students in Bangladesh. It is to be noted here that this innovation was pioneered by the A2I in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education.

Multimedia classroom is making the learning environment amiable and enjoyable. Students are happy with this new mode of learning. “I enjoyed the class very much today. I came to know about human skeleton, how it works, how it looks like, how the muscles look like, what is their functions, and so many other things about the skeleton that I could never imagine in my dreams of going through my own body. I love colorful pictures and animations too. These contents help me to learn quickly about new topics,” Nurjahan Akhter, a student of Grade-VI, Govt. Laboratory School, Comilla, expressed her feelings about multimedia classroom.

In general, students learning process has undergone significant changes and they have been enthusiastic in responding to this initiative, which seeks to reduce the digital divide through equipping students from rural areas with the skills that are necessary to be a part of the mainstream activities of a market. Students want their teachers to teach all classes in this new and innovative way. Every student’s attention is easily drawn using multimedia.

Using multimedia in classroom has helped teachers to ensure active participation of students. They have reported that showing a picture, animation or any video clip teachers are asking students to discuss in pairs or in groups about what they have seen. The students write down their opinions in poster papers or on black board or note books, in order to keep the traditional materials of teaching in the multimedia classroom. Thus, the multimedia classroom has reversed the order of the teaching-learning method by making a student and teacher focused system.

Teachers also share the contents they have developed on an education blog (http://ictinedubd.ning.com/) developed by A2I. This blog is dedicated

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to school teachers, trainers and educators.

Like students, even teachers have responded very positively to this effort. Their teaching approach has witnessed significant

changes but it is to be highlighted here that they have raised over the tides of change, brought about by technological adoption. “We have got wonderful responses from students when we use multimedia in classroom. Students are very spontaneous and active in their discussions. Their learning has become very easy and attuned to their curiosity,” said Mr. Gazi Salahuddin Siddiquee, science teacher of Agrani School and College, Dhaka.

Food for ThoughtsMultimedia classrooms, digital contents and teacher training together will ultimately improve the overall quality of learning in primary and secondary education by promoting effective and participatory learning, and eliminating unnecessary memorizing tendencies. With training and infrastructural support such as internet and computers, teachers will be better equipped; access to unlimited global resources and knowledge sharing through blog will empower teachers and students to remain informed about the world around them. In the long-run, it is envisaged that a teachers’ network will be created, around the concept of education content/blog, which will make the education system more effective in its implementation of budgets and policies.

The following are the immediate doables:

n Creation and establishment of a teaching-learning content repository to store the teacher-made digital content. An advisory and editing board will be formed for quality control of the content.

n Development of a central national curriculum and textbook repository to make available, in interactive electronic version, all primary, secondary, technical, vocational and madrasah textbooks.

Expansion of multimedia classrooms to 23,000 secondary schools and 10,000 primary schools by 2013; and, gradually all schools will be operated under the multimedia classroom model. About 2 lakhs primary and secondary school teachers will be trained on ICT use in classroom by 2015 which is a landmark for Bangladesh

in attaining progress towards the Information Society.

Editor’s Note: Afzal Hossain Sarwar is a Policy Expert (Education) at the Access Information (a2i) Programme at Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Bangladesh. His primary area of interest lies in ICT for Educational Development (ICT4ED). Over the last 10 years, he has worked extensively in the educational development sector. Today, he is playing a key role from the A2I in order to enhance the quality of education using ICTs with Education Ministries and Directorates and other Agencies.

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Afzal Hossain SarwarPolicy Expert (Education), Access Information (a2i) Programme, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Bangladesh

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Mr. Ashikur Rahman stated, “The government has taken a bold but very good initiative.The entire system is open to all which makes it very acceptable to us. Even if I don’t get lucky in the lottery, I will not be disappointed. The system has proven to be very trustworthy”

Mr. Ashikur Rahman (36), Baragachi union, Paba upazilla of Rajshahi district, dreamed for a long time of going abroad for overseas employment. About 4/5 years ago, he along with his friend gave about BDT 200,000 to one middlemen of a recruiting agency. After a, long time passed, they came to learn from sources that the agency was shutdown. Ashikur was very disappointed and lost all interest of his dream of going abroad. On 16th January, he stood in a long queue in front of the Baragachi Union Information and Service Centre (UISC), of paba upazilla in Rajshahi district. He knew, through the advertisement of UISCs, that passport was not mandatory for the initial registration process. He completed his registration through the UISCs without going through a layer of intermediaries in the form of middlemen.

Malaysia started recruitment of Bangladeshi workers in 2006 after 10 years of suspension. During caretaker government in 2007 and 2008, around 4,04,963 workers were employed in Malaysia but in an unplanned way within a very short time. It was reported that recruiting agencies were involved in unscrupulous activities and unethical competition. It resulted in exploitation of workers having either no job or job without any pay. Malaysia thus suspended recruitment from Bangladesh in 2009 as a result of the negative impact of migration from Bangladesh on its labour market. On 26 November 2012, the procedure of workers recruitment under G2G mechanism received renewed attention from all stakeholders. The agreement between the governments of Bangladesh and Malaysia is the first of its kind which formally seeks to promote movement of citizens between the two countries.

In order to ensure that such opportunities are not missed by the rural farmers, in particular plantation workers, the Government decided that the registration of the aspirant candidates would

take place in a digitized manner through the Union Information and Service Centres (UISCs). The UISCs established across 4,516 unions in Bangladesh under the principles of PPP Policy and Strategy, are an example epitomizing one of the key priorities of the good governance agenda, with regard to efficient public service delivery through using ICTs.

The online registration process cuts across both the horizontal (G2G) and vertical (government-to-citizen) dimensions of e-governance. This has, at the least, eliminated one of the sources of structural injustice, i.e., information, excluding the poor from the entitlements. This has, at the least, eliminated one of the sources of structural injustice, i.e., information, excluding the poor from their entitlements.

The online registration process through the UISCs has created tremendous effect in terms of public service delivery mechanisms to the rural people in a very transparent and efficient way. For the first time in Bangladesh’s history, the aspirant migrant people have been able to participate in the registration process avoiding the high transport cost, accommodation costs, alongside other contingent liabilities. The rationale for making UISCs the central node in the registration process is to ensure equal distribution of opportunities according to the demographic structure, and to protect prospective workers from the harassment of middlemen.

The selection of workers from each union is being done under a quota system, based on a demographic map. About 1,435,436 have been registered from 7 divisions from 13th January to 21st January, 2013. Out of the total registration, Dhaka division scored the highest registration ( 321,945), Chittagong scored (224,416), Rajshahi scored (208,643), Rangpur scored (234,968), Sylhet scored (139,756), Khulna scored (233,410) and Barisal scored 72,298 online registration.

Malaysian Government has committed to take 30,000 plantation workers from Bangladesh for the year 2013. The Bangladeshi Government has already selected 34,500 workers from 7 divisions through an automated lottery system. All of the DCs offices

G2G Migration: Bringing Transparency through UISCsBy Suparna RoyContent Coordinator, A2I Programme, PMO

G2G Migration: Bringing Transparency through UISCsBy Suparna RoyContent Coordinator, A2I Programme, PMO Di

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generated an automated lottery system for selection of the aspirant people and finally the 11,500 people were selected from the Ministry of expatriate’s welfare and overseas employment premises. Lottery confirmation and other

services were provided through SMS which has directly connected in digitized manner, the end users with the migration process under the G2G agreement.

The UISCs has opened a new window of opportunity not only for digital registration, but it has provided scope for the poor plantation workers to avail of overseas employment opportunities from the remotest corner of the country. This access point has become a real “trustworthy place” for citizens seeking overseas employment. After completion of the registration process, lottery winners will be collecting their confirmation card and seeking information for further steps through UISCs. In fact, this access point could play a dual role in facilitating the vision of seamless and safe migration and, at the same time, serve as outlets for delivering remittances in future.

The necessary instruction and information and troubleshooting support were provided to the last mile service providers (the entrepreneurs) and also the district administration through UISC blog (uiscbd.ning.com) which ultimately saved the Government expenses avoiding the movement in the countrywide. The registration process through UISCs was led by the Access to Information (A2I) Programme, housed at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

On 7th January, 2013, the A2I provided training to 817 officials including Upazailla Nirbahi Officer, Assistant programmers of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and District Employment & Manpower officials of BMET. These TOT (Training for Trainers) were designed to provide basic technical training for online registration and set up district control room to assist the 9,000 UISC entrepreneurs in effectively discharging their new responsibilities.

To support all District and UNO Control room, the A2I set up a control room to monitor and supervise the overall registration process. Additionally, a call centre, classified as general and technical, was set up to provide prompt feedback to the UISC entrepreneurs (supply-side) and the prospective migrant workers (demand side). From 10 to 22nd January, about 18,567 calls were received by the call centre agents. Out of total calls, 39 per cent calls were from prospective migrant workers and the 61 per cent from different control room and entrepreneurs. The number of calls indicated a common problem relating to bandwidth connectivity, which have to be addressed on a national scale in order to not only ensure the uninterrupted Internet service for the users, but also institutionalizing the new innovative process of digital migration as well as the e-service delivery to the doorsteps from the remote corner of the society.

The database for 1.4 million labor force which was developed through UISCs is a valuable point of reference for the public and private recruiting agencies. This is the first digitally integrated database covering all the Union Parishads. The database could serve the purpose of identifying and targeting the appropriate migration workers. The overarching lesson learnt is that those UISCs which encountered challenges in terms of sustainability issues, they are now much more confident to deliver the entitled services associated with the migration process and other public services to its potential beneficiaries’ doorsteps. The public representative of the lowest local administrative tier, the UP chairman, found a way of fostering close relationships with their constituents. This is the first time that the whole UP body comprising of the local law enforcement agency, community members and other authorities are in a collective action toward making the G2G mission successful. And this event indicates the true implementation of e-service delivery towards the end user in larger scale and making the “Digital Bangladesh” mission successful.

Suparna RoyContent Coordinator, A2I Programme, PMO

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AbstractE-governance has been recognize as an integrated system of radical change and strategic tools that supports and simplifies governance to improve some criteria like easy access to information, participation of citizens, efficiency, prompt service delivery, reduce corruption, and increase transparency and accountability to reform and provide dynamism in the public sector. Similarly it improves the communication with the others government organizations, business organization as well as public.

The aim of the paper is to study and analyzes the current status of emerging electronic and web based governance (e-governance) in Bangladesh. The evaluation of e-governance conducted through this study.

Theoretically the paper considers some criteria of e-governance to know the state of governance and development of the country. Similarly it examines the dynamics, challenges, drawbacks and recommendation of e-governance in Bangladesh. It is shown that e-governance can add tremendous dynamism in reforming public administration and can change the mode of interaction between the state organizations, business organizations and citizens. I

t also suggests easy access, increase transparency and accountability; reduce corruption and participation of citizens. The paper tried to identify organizations which are advanced and those which and lag behind in respect of e-governance.

Several studies have discussed how e-government will transform public sector organizations from traditional paper-based systems to electronic delivery system to lead self-service operations that develop efficiency, accountability and reduce corruption. Some tools of e-governance are using different organization randomly but it should be systematic and is a concentrated way.

1. INTRODUCTION1.1 Background

E-governance is an arrangement of selected tools and techniques used to increase effectiveness and efficiency of public administration by using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is a massive change from the previous manual and paper based slow public administration procedure to faster effective and paperless system. It is not one time job rather step by step procedure of pre-planned framework with proper central guideline. This change is tougher and difficult job because it needs attitude change and technological change. Especially it is very tough when there is no accountability and transparency. All required e-governance tools are not available and those which are available sometimes not properly used.

E-Governance or ‘electronic governance’ is basically the application of Information and Communication Technology to the processes of Government functioning in order to bring about ‘Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent’ (SMART) governance. This would generally involve the use of ICTs by government agencies for any or all of the following reasons: (a) Exchange of information with citizens, business and non-government organization or other government departments (b) Speedier and more efficient delivery of public services (c) Improving internal efficiency (d) Reducing costs/increasing revenue (e) Re-structuring of administrative processes (f) Improving quality and accurateness of services. [2]

E-government is a radical change and strategic tool that supports and simplifies governance for parties, government, citizens and businesses (Gupta and Jana 2003; Evans, 2003; Basu 2004). Its benefits can be divided into two broad aspects, specifically the transformation of government operations and the transformation of governance positively affecting the relationship between citizens, businesses and governments through improving the interactivity

E-governance of Bangladesh: Present Scenario, Expectation, Ultimate Target and RecommendationBy Engr. Giash Uddin, IT Consultant (Network & System), DMTBF Project. Finance Division, Ministry of Finance

E-governance of Bangladesh: Present Scenario, Expectation, Ultimate Target and RecommendationBy Engr. Giash Uddin, IT Consultant (Network & System), DMTBF Project. Finance Division, Ministry of Finance Di

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between these parties and making it smoother, faster and more responsive (Moon 2002; Altallab 2001, cited in Al-Sebie et al. 2005). [37]

These far-reaching developments in e-government have encouraged governments around the world to establish an on-line presence by publishing statistical information on the Internet. In so doing, they hope to increase efficiency, effectiveness and organizational performance. Countries, irrespective of their developing characteristics, are constantly striving to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of e-government delivery services. They hope that e-government will emerge as a magical antidote to combat corruption, red tape, bureaucratic inefficiency and ineffectiveness, nepotism, cronyism, lack of accountability, and transparency. [3]

Overall performance improvement is necessary in the government sector of Bangladesh and all are interested in the e-government system to use and utilize electronics service delivery, citizen’s direct participation as well as reduce fragmentation and complexity of the government system. Use of e-governance system by public administration would resolve the obstacles and barriers of the old manual system. As a result e-governance implementation would generate more benefits including increasing transparency and accountability, reduce corruption, efficient and prompt service delivery, wider participation and deeper involvement of citizens, institutions, civil society groups and the private sector in the decision making process of governance.

In response to this transition in the context of governance, in almost every country, the state has taken the necessary initiatives to restructure political and administrative institutions by adopting ICT in order to enhance electronic interaction and service delivery (Menzel, 1998; Galbi, 2001). Today public servants are encouraged and trained to be familiar with the tools and languages of ICT (Menzel, 1998). In fact, there have emerged many buzzwords — including digital governance, smart governance, net-governance, cyber-management and digital democracy — which overlap with the notion of electronic governance or e-governance (MIT, 2001b). [6]

ICT offers three information processes to promote governance: [3]u Automation: replacing current human-

executed processes, which involve accepting,

storing, processing, outputting or transmitting information (i.e., the automation of existing clerical or managerial functions of the different offices).

uNormalization: supporting current human-executed information processes, namely supporting current processes of decision-making, communication, and decision implementation.

uTransformation: creating new ICT-executed information processes or supporting new human-executed information processes. For example, create new method /system of public service delivery.

In brief, e-Governance as a vehicle to initiate and sustain reforms by focusing on the following three broad areas [24]:

Governance uTransparency uPeople’s participation uPromotion of a democratic society

Public services uEfficient, cost-effective and responsive

governance uConvenient services to citizens and businesses uGreater citizen access to public information uAccountability in delivery of services to citizens

Management uSimplicity, efficiency and accountability uManaging voluminous information and data

effectively uInformation services uSwift and secure communication

In the age of the information and communication technology (ICT) e-governance may be used to make life easy by providing proper support using intelligence, speed and effective application of ICT. It is necessary to make government more responsive, prompt and sustainable for future benefit of the whole society and the world.

This study discusses about necessary environment of e-governance and existing tools and requirements for e-governance in Bangladesh. This paper also indicates some guidelines of future research for further improvement of e-governance in Bangladesh.

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1.2 Statement of the problem

Sometimes it is essential to identify a citizen who he or she is. But in Bangladesh it is not easy. You need a passport that is dependant on police verification. You need a bank account/loan or driving license or government job or government benefit but you have to show national certificate or commissioner certificate. Sometimes it may be false. Similarly some criminals are identified by face but not identified who is he and where he is living. However this type of system has just started by Voter ID and now working at the initial level.

Suppose, someone has submitted his educational certificate for job, further education and related other purpose. Verifying this certificate is very tough job and also time consuming. Sometimes false certificate is provided for various purposes.

Someone needs very simple information. He has to go to the related office which may be in the other district. He has to identify who is responsible for that information. Responsible person have to find out this information from a lot of documents manually. Sometimes it is very difficult to identify who is responsible for a particular job and who is working in the position.

Government follows bottom up hierarchy. You can not reach the higher officer though it is essential and even when your valid job is refused from lower level. Almost all offices of the government sector are using manual register system to track a file and their activities. It is very tough to identify a file movement that was submitted one month ago or more.

Movement of file from a table to another table need 2 to 4 weeks sometimes it takes even months. Sometimes junior officer is not forwarding a file to proper place in proper time. Sometimes file will not move without benefit being provided to middleman. Sometimes manual system is also responsible for the corrupt practices.

Land disputes lead to many criminal offences in Bangladesh. The land ownership system is very complex in Bangladesh. One land is being sold several time to several people. Land registration is very tough job and perplexing. It is related with several previous records and previous owner of the land. In the manual system maintainence of previous record is very tough and as a result registration may become false. Similarly lots of government owned land is grabbed by powerful people and ultimately

registered is their own names. Automation of land system of a nacessity.

So e-governance will provide information and services from a center point within a very short time. One department will share information with other departments easily. Information cross check will be easier and provided service will be prompt. File movement will be supervised by higher officer easily that will make overall activity faster.

1.3 Rationale of the Study

Project report writing job is a process of learning and good combination of theoretical and practical reality of the particular subject. If someone like to write something about a topics or subject he has to gain enough practical and theoretical knowledge of that subject. Project work helps us to learn how to apply knowledge and to address practical problem of the real working scenario?

Preliminary stage of e-governance culture just started in the Bangladesh. I think, it is necessary to know and realize what the actual procedure is? It is essential to identify the proper steps for e-government that are required to implement e-governance. What will be the ultimate target or output of e-governance? Time to time these should be evaluated and measured to identify how much we have proceeded? We should have real statistics of e-governance of the country to identify the lack and progress. So it is necessary to study e-governance in respect of Bangladesh.

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the analysis is to: 1. Study the present scenario of the government in

respect of e-governance. 2. Introduce the steps to implement e-governance

or to create environment.3. Identify the advanced and lagging organizations

in respect of e-governance. According to that they should be encouraged and take measure to advance in their respectively.

4. Identify the level of advancement and how should it be accelerated if necessary.

5. Determine steps to achieve the goal and measure their acceptability.

6. Identify the standard levels of expectation that they are trying to fulfill.

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7. Identify a supervisory authority or central committee who will centrally maintain standard rules for the total infrastructure. 8. Determine the benefits which general people are getting

or expected in the future.9. Determine what are the major obstacles and

methods for resolving the issues. 10. Identify the government external and internal

obstacles clearly.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW OF E-GOVERNANCE

2.1 Defining e-Governance:

There is no standard definition of this term. Different institutes, governments and non-government organizations define this term according to their own aims and objectives. Sometimes, the term ‘e-government’ is also used instead of ‘e-Governance’. Some widely used definitions are listed below:

I. World Bank Defines e-Governance as:

“E-Government refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions.”

Thus, the stress here is on use of information technologies in improving citizen-government interactions, cost-cutting and generation of revenue and transparency.

II. UNESCO defines e-Governance as:

“Governance refers to the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority in the management of a country’s affairs, including citizens’ articulation of their interests and exercise of their legal rights and obligations. E-Governance may be understood as the performance of this governance via the electronic medium in order

to facilitate an efficient, speedy and transparent process of disseminating information to the public, and other agencies, and for performing government administration activities.”

This definition visualizes the use of the electronic medium in the exercise of authority in the management of a country’s affairs along with articulation of citizens’ interests leading to greater transparency and efficiency.

III. Europe has taken e-Governance to mean:

“The use of electronic technologies in three areas of public action:u Relations between the public authorities and

civil society u functioning of the public authorities at all

stages of the democratic process (electronic democracy)

u the provision of public services (electronic public services)”

In this case, the focus is on making use of electronic technologies with a view to encourage better interaction between government and citizens, promote democracy and provide public services.

IV. The US E-Government Act of 2002 defines “electronic Government” to mean (Section 3601):

“The use by the Government of web-based Internet applications and other information technologies, combined with processes that implement these technologies, to- (A) Enhance the access to and delivery of

Government information and services to the public, other agencies, and other Government entities; or

(B) Bring about improvements in Government operations that may include effectiveness, efficiency, service quality, or transformation”.

This definition reflects the strategy of the US Government regarding the use of ICT in improving Government operations on the one hand and enhancing the access and delivery of information and services to citizens and government entities on the other.

V. E-governance is the application of information and communication technologies to transform the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of informational andtransactional exchanges with in government, between government

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and goverment agencies of National, State, Municipal and Local levels, citizen & businesses, and to empower citizens through access and use of information.

VI. E-government refers to the use by government agencies of information and communication technologies (ICT) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, government employees, and other arms of government in the delivery of services. For the World Bank, it is the use of ICT to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of government.

E-governance is a scenario where the Government of a country, citizens, business organization and all other related organization should be able to perform their activities or Majority of activities with a very low effort, low cost and timely by using electronic means. That is Government organizations providing and sharing services where people are taking services. These give and take of transactions should be accomplished properly and promptly. To create those kinds of environment a country need properly planned infrastructure and to encourage people to use this system. People may be divided into two categories. One part is public sector people mainly those who will provide services and the other part mainly those who will receive services like other government sector, business organization and general people.

2.2 Primary Stages of e-Governance

E-Governance is intrinsically linked with the development of computer technology, networking of computers and communication systems. In developing countries, such technologies and systems became available with a perceptible time lag as compared to developed nations. Bangladesh just started in the initial level of e-governance. Generally e-Governance proceeded through the following phases for initial development.

(a) Infrastructure Development:(i) Computerization: In the first phase, availability

of personal computers, other essential IT- equipment and system software to all the functionaries that is a large number of Government offices got equipped with computers. The use of computers began with word, Excel, power point and quickly followed by data processing.

(ii) Networking: In this phase, Establish and maintain the Local Area Network (LAN) and WAN where necessary. Units of government organizations got connected for sharing of information and flow of data between different government entities shorted.

(b) Automation/ Application Development: Every office should develop a central application or applications that will cover automation of about all major functions of the office. Implement various applications that not only maintain records of receipt, issue of letters and movement of files but also offer enhancement in accountability, responsiveness and transparency in governance. (c) e-Reports: Convert the Acts, Rules, Circulars and other published materials of interest or relevance to the public, in the electronic form. Convert all old documents and hard copy to electronics form to transfer and communicate easily. (d) IT Training: As a human being we don’t like to go through a technological changing or new environment especially where we are not habituated. To be habituated we need training and go progress step by step. Provide relevant training courses to the officers/ staff that enable them to work on computers by using various applications. (e) On-line presence: This resulted in maintenance of website by government departments and other entities. Generally, these web-pages/web-sites contained information about the organizational structure, contact details, reports and publications, objectives and vision statements of the respective government entities.

2.3 Final Stages of e-Governance

As per Gartner’s e-governance model where e-governance can be matured through the following four phases: 1. Information – Presence: in this phase e-governance means being present on the web, providing the public with (G2C & G2B) relevant information. The format of the early government websites is similar to that of a brochure or leaflet. That is government information is publicly accessible; processes are described and become more transparent, which improves democracy and service. Internally (G2G) the government can also disseminate static information by electronic means, such as email and Internet.

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2. Interaction – Intake processes: The interaction between government and the public (G2C & G2B) is stimulated with various applications in this stage. People can ask questions via e-mail, use search engines, and download

forms and documents. These save time. In fact the complete intake of (simple) applications can be done online 24 hours per day. Normally this would only have been possible at a counter during opening hours. Internally (G2G) government organizations use LANs, intranets and e-mail to communicate and exchange data.3. Transaction – Complete transactions: The complexity of the technology is increasing, but customer (G2C & G2B) value is also higher. Complete transactions can be done without going to an office at this stage. Examples of online services are filing income tax, filing property tax, extending/renewal of licenses, visa and passports and online voting. Phase three is made complex because of security and personalization issues. e.g. digital (electronic) signatures will be necessary to enable legal transfer of services. On the business side, the government is starting with e-procurement applications. In this phase, internal (G2G) processes have to be redesigned to provide good service. Government needs new laws and legislation to enable paperless transactions.4. Transformation – Integration and exchange: At this stage all information systems are integrated and the public can get G2C & G2B services at one (virtual) counter. One single point of contact for all services is the ultimate goal. The complex aspect in reaching this goal is mainly on the internal side, e.g. the necessity to drastically change culture, processes and responsibilities within the government institution (G2G). Government employees in different departments have to work together in a smooth and seamless way. In this phase cost savings, efficiency and customer satisfaction reaches the highest possible levels.

2.4 Types of Interactions in e-Governance

E-Governance facilitates interaction between different stake holders in governance. These interactions may be described as follows:

G2G (Government to Government) – In this case, Information and Technology is used not only to restructure the governmental processes involved

in the functioning of government entities but also to increase the flow of information and services within and between different entities.

This kind of interaction is only within the sphere of government and can be both horizontal i.e. between different government agencies as well as between different functional areas within an organization, or vertical i.e. between national, provincial and local government agencies as well as between different levels within an organization. The primary objective is to increase efficiency, performance and output. Examples include using e-mail for internal government communication or customized software for tracking progress of government projects. A popular G2G service is e-Police System in Karnataka, India, which has an electronic searchable database of various types of police records.

G2C (Government to Citizens) – In this case, an interface is created between the government and citizens which enables the citizens to benefit from efficient delivery of a large range of public services. This expands the availability and accessibility of public services on the one hand and improves the quality of services on the other.

It gives citizens the choice of when to interact with the government (e.g. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), from where to interact with the government (e.g. service centre, unattended kiosk or from one’s home/workplace) and how to interact with the government (e.g. through internet, fax, telephone, email, face-to-face, etc). The primary purpose is to make the government, citizen-friendly. Examples include payment of utility bills or downloading government forms from the Internet. The e-Citizen Portal of Singapore is one of the most highly acclaimed G2C sites. The portal has relevant information organized according to topics and has specific entry points for teenagers, working adults, senior citizens and foreigners. It also has scope for citizen feedback and questions.

G2B (Government to Business)– In this case e-Governance tools are used to aid the business community – providers of goods and services – to seamlessly interact with the government. The objective is to cut red tape, save time, reduce operational costs and to create a more transparent business environment when dealing with the government. The G2b initiatives can be transactional, such as in licensing, permits, procurement and revenue collection. They can also be promotional

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and facilitative, such as in trade, tourism and investment. These measures help to provide a congenial environment to businesses to enable them to perform more efficiently. Examples include corporate tax filing or government procurement process through the Internet. One primary success story of online government procurement is Malaysia’s e-Perolehan web-site which has about 3,500 government procurement centers and about 30,000 suppliers.

G2E (Government to Employees) – Government is by far the biggest employer and like any organization, it has to interact with its employees on a regular basis. This interaction is a two-way process between the organization and the employee. Use of ICT tools helps in making these interactions fast and efficient on the one hand and increase satisfaction levels of employees on the other.

Examples include database-driven personnel data sheet software for each government employee that keeps records of all kinds of personnel information, which can be looked up with ease and convenience when required.

2.5 Benefits of e-Governance

In the end, e-Governance is about reform in governance, facilitated by the creative use of Information and Technology. It is expected that this would lead to:n Better access to information and quality services

for citizens: ICT would make available timely and reliable information on various aspects of governance. In the initial phase, information would be made available with respect to simple aspects of governance such as forms, laws, rules, procedures etc and later extending to detailed information including reports (including performance reports), public database, decision making processes etc. As regards services, there would be an immediate impact in terms of savings in time, effort and money, resulting from online and one-point accessibility of public services backed up by automation of back end processes. The ultimate objective of e-Governance is to reach out to citizens by adopting a life-cycle approach i.e. providing public services to citizens which would be required right from birth to death.

n Simplicity, efficiency, transparency and accountability: In the government: Application of ICT to governance combined with

detailed business process reengineering would lead to simplification of complicated processes, weeding out of redundant processes, simplification in structures and changes in statutes and regulations. The end result would be simplification of the functioning of government, enhanced decision making abilities and increased efficiency across government – all contributing to an overall environment of a more accountable government machinery. This, in turn, would result in enhanced productivity, transparency and efficiency in all sectors. An improvement in the transparency of government also raises investor confidence, which in turn contributes to increased foreign direct investment in the long run.

n Expanded reach and decentralization of governance: Rapid growth of communications technology and its adoption in governance would help in bringing government benefit to the doorsteps of the citizens. Expansion of telephone network, rapid strides in mobile telephony, spread of internet and strengthening of other communications infrastructure would facilitate delivery of a large number of services provided by the government. This enhancement of the reach of government – both spatial and demographic – would also enable better participation of citizens in the process of governance. E-Government makes decentralization of government easier since data stored in digital format can be updated and accessed from virtually any office within a networked environment.

n Reduces scope of corruption: Reduced scope of corruption is being another important impact of e-Government. Corruption may be significantly reduced by accountability. Accountability and transparency make much easier to reduce corruption in the e-government process. Combating corruption is a top priority and e-Government can provide an effective tool for that purpose.

n Helps boost in the private sector: e-Government helps provide boost to the private sector, particularly SMEs, by reducing the time and expense required for businesses to interact with the government. Furthermore, through

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simplification of government processes and services such as online procurement, the government can reduce barrier to entry for new businesses and also increase competition. n Greater scope

of integration and analysis past data: Digital storage of data and software applications allow greater scope of integration of activities of different government offices as data can be shared easily and efficiently. Since e-Government allows data to be stored and retrieved easily, experiences and statistics from past projects can be easily used for new similar projects.

The Present renaissance in Information Technology has brought the following features.

(1) The world has narrowed into a neighborhood in a global village, (2) Universality of trade and commerce, (3) Breaking away of geographical and cultural barriers to social development, (4) Technology upgrade, (5) Cost reduction in Information technology applications, (6) Increase in the processing of data for governmental administration, (7) A vision and mission for universal brotherhood for mankind, (8) Increase in social work and journalism interventions for Technology transfer and technology utilization, (9) Increase in social work and counseling services in health and human development, (10) Development of multi professional, multi sectored and multidisciplinary team work in policy analysis, planning, administration and in the delivery of services.

The purpose of implementing e-governance is to enhance good governance. Good governance is generally characterized by participation, transparency and accountability. The recent advances in communication technologies and the Internet provide opportunities to transform the relationship between governments and citizens in a new way, thus contributing to the achievement of good governance goals.

The use of information technology can increase the broad involvement of citizens in the process of governance at all levels by providing the possibility of on-line discussion groups and by enhancing the rapid development and effectiveness of pressure groups. Advantages for the government involve that the government may provide better service in terms of time, making governance more efficient and more

effective. In addition, the transaction costs can be lowered and government services become more accessible.

2.6 Goals of e-governancel Improve the internal organizational processes

of governments l Provide better information and service delivery l Increase government transparency and

accountability in order to reduce corruption l Citizen easy access to government public

information l simplicity, efficient, cost-effective and responsive

governance l Reinforce political credibility and accountability l Encourage democratic practices through public

participation and consultation

2.7 Enterprise Architecture of e-governance

Enterprise Architecture is the sample structure and standards of e-government systems. All government departments and agencies concentrated their services and jobs to one point. Other government agencies, individuals, NGOs, business organization will be benefited or get services from this concentrated point. Whether or not it is called Enterprise Architecture, there is no doubt that we must find an integrated architectural approach that goes beyond IT and incorporates all aspects of the public sector when we implement and renew our IT systems. EA is basically about using IT strategically, and about integrating business development and IT development.

2.8 Relation between ICT and Development

There are four main lessons of this model for

Figure 01: Enterprise Architecture

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e-development: 1. Information is at the heart. To understand the

role of ICTs in development, a good start is to understand the role of information first; only then looking to the technology. A process model for information – the information chain – is presented in e-Dev Briefing 3, to complement the structural model shown here. (Though we discuss in other e-Dev Briefings the dangers of going too far down the information-centred road.)

2. Embrace all information-handling technologies. Most information systems in most people’s lives still rely on non-digital technologies. Many of these are informal information systems. Don’t cast such a spotlight on digital technology that these are ignored.

3. Information systems not information technologies add value. Information technology is just a dead box in the corner of the room until you add what’s needed to make it an information system: information to handle; people to work with it; processes to contribute to.

4. Information systems sit in a context. Information systems are like trees with their roots buried in the surrounding “soil” of organizations, institutions, and environment: political, economic, cultural, etc. This brings two sub-lessons: a) Take account of context. So many

e-development failures happen because

of context factors: legal restrictions, infrastructural and economic constraints, cultural factors and, above all, politics. In proposing, planning and implementing an e-development project, you ignore context at your peril.

b) You can’t just photocopy e-development solutions. If you rip a tree from its roots and thrust it down into different soil, the result will be a transplant failure. So it is similar with e-development systems. You can’t just pull solutions from one context and imagine they will work in another. Yet, too often, this happens – naïvely thinking that what works in one place must work the same way in another; or that what works for the private sector will work for the public or NGO sector. Every context is different, and work must be done to match system and context. The watchwords must be “customized” not “off-the-shelf”, and “adapt” not just “adopt”.

2.9 E-governance Status of World and Asian Region (UN Survey 2012)

Progress in online service delivery continues in most countries around the world. The United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 finds that many have put in place e-government initiatives and information and communication technologies applications for the people to further enhance public sector efficiencies and streamline governance systems to support sustainable development. Among the e-government leaders, innovative technology solutions have gained special recognition as the means to revitalize lagging economic and social sectors.

2.9.1 Global leaders at a glance

Building upon the transformative nature of ICT and maintaining their focus on e-government development, all of the top 20 countries in 2012 were high-income developed economies. All have values that range from 164 to 190 per cent of the world average. Of the 20, 14 are in Northern America and Europe; 3 in East Asia (Republic of Korea, Singapore and Japan); 2 in Oceania (Australia and New Zealand); and 1 in Western Asia (Israel).

In 2012 no country had a true single-sign-on integrated portal. The United States, Republic of Korea, Israel, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and New Zealand are

Figure 02: Onion-Ring Model (Richard Heeks, October 2005)

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among the few that come close to a pure one-stop shop portal with information, services and participation services integrated on one site.

2.9.2 Emerging leaders in e-government development

The emerging leaders group includes some developing countries that have begun to catch up with higher-income countries, such as Kazakhstan

Table 01: World E-government development leaders 2012. Figure 03: Emerging leaders

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(0.6844); Chile (0.6769), Malaysia (0.6703), Colombia (0.6572), Barbados (0.6566) and Cyprus (0.6508). Many of these countries have invested considerable resources in e-government in the last few years. They have expanded infrastructure and human skills on which to build further advances in service delivery and employ the full potential of

information technologies for long-term sustainable development. They have reoriented their public sector governance systems towards user-centric approaches visible on their websites through multi-channel service delivery features.

2.9.3 Countries with a large population

Since each country faces a different set of factors that can help or hinder its overall progress towards e-government development, this year the United Nations Survey is extending special recognition to those countries which, with a population of over 100 million, have made a tremendous effort to provide e-government services to their people, despite the challenges they face.

2.9.4 Regional comparisons

Sustained integration, expansion and consolidation of government online offerings led to more than a 10 per cent increase in the world average of e-government development compared to two years ago. The region of Europe (0.7188) shows the highest e-government development followed by the Americas (0.5403).

2.9.5 E-government in Asia

In 2012, three of the world’s top 20 e-leaders are from Asia, and the region as a whole has a higher level of e-government development than the world average. While there has been improvement in providing e-services across the continent, some of the largest gains are found in Western Asia.

Republic of Korea (0.9283), the world leader in

Table02: Largest population Countries

Figure 04: World regional average

Table 03: E-government leaders in Asia

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e-government, is also the top performer in Asia with around double the average world e-government offerings. The second slot is taken this year by Singapore (0.8474) followed by Israel (0.8100) and then

Japan (0.8019). The performance of the United Arab Emirates (0.7344) is especially notable as it advanced 21 positions to the ranking this year of

28th globally and 5th in Asia.

2.9.6 E-government development in Southern Asia

Maldives (0.4994) leads in e-goverment is the sub-region followed by the Islamic Republic of Iran (0.4876) and then Sri Lanka (0.4357). Service provision in Maldives builds on providing easy access to information to citizens and businesses. Through an ‘I Want To’ section organized by theme and life cycle, users can find information on service procedures, including how to obtain driver licenses, obtain ID cards and register vehicles. The national site of the Islamic Republic of Iran is available in two languages: Persian and English. Transactional service offerings in the Islamic Republic of Iran are joint public-private partnerships with some available online but also though banks and other local and national institutions.

A cursory glance at the characteristics of online

presence of countries in 2012 indicates a greater number of features than in previous years and a growing recognition of the importance of providing relevant and up-to-date information.

The majority of countries (88 per cent) were involved in ensuring that their online e-government offerings were current and updated within the last three months. Two thirds offered a site map or index to guide the user through the services. However, advanced features had an inverse relation to the number of countries

represented.

2.9.7 Progress in online service delivery

Information and communication technologies support development. When that development is effective, efficient and enduring it is called sustainable. E-government impacts directly on sustainable development through the use of ICT in public sector social and economic development programs.

The 2012 Survey assesses four different types of indicators encompassing: information such as documents on laws, policies etc., across sectors of education, health, finance, social welfare and labor; public services such as taxes, fines, licenses; e-participation information and services; and technical features (audio, video, RSS, etc.), which provide a conduit for these kinds of information and services to flow from the government to the citizen.

Table 04: E-government Development in Southern Asia Figure 05: Online features availability

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Despite considerable progress in online service, only 22 countries offer 66 per cent or more of the online services assessed. E-services in around 171 countries are below 66 per cent with around half – or 95 countries – providing less than 33 per cent, including three that are not online at all.

3. E-GOVERNANCE CHALLENGESu Inadequate ICT Infrastructure within the

government: Bangladesh has no sufficient infrastructural support e.g. adequate PC, Printers, connectivity network, electricity, fair environment. Inter connectivity infrastructure of the country developing day by day. BTCL has the ability to provide districts connectivity and it is almost completed. But support system is not properly developed. Upzilla connectivity is started and completed very few. For e-governance this connectivity is very important. For the last few years we are connected with submarine cable that is essential to increase both the speed of data transmission and Internet service in Bangladesh. Because of this we are enjoying some facilities but not enough. Power supply is not enough and available to support e-governance activities.

u Resistance to re-engineering of departmental

processes Successful implementation of e-governance projects requires lots of restructuring in administrative processes, redefining of administrative procedures and formats which finds the resistance in almost all the departments at all the levels. Additionally there is lack of expertise of departmental MIS executives in exploiting data mining techniques, updating and collection of real time content onto website etc. Therefore the content as is collected or maintained by various e-governance portals is unreliable or full of gaps. In such a scenario, it is difficult for any e-governance solution to achieve its intended results. It is often seen that ever IT system is implemented in a government office; it is very hard to convince government officials to use it. Besides the general lack of awareness about ICT and the fears of change they play a vital role of non-acceptability of IT systems. Even they fear important data getting lost or they are doubtful about the security features of computers. Technology migration is the biggest challenge.

u Lack of incentive structure for government officials: In the private sector, it is seen that people skilled in the use of IT are generally valued more than a counterpart who is not as IT proficient. In the government, however, there is no such system of discriminatory valuation of personnel. As a consequence, there is not enough of an incentive for government officials to become IT savvy. There is no way to encourage them to take initiatives. The use of IT is mostly self-motivated and a matter of individual free choice.

u Awareness of government officials about ICT: It is the mindset of government officials that e-Government has lots of problem. They are not aware about the benefit of E-government. There are a number of reasons why they resist the use of computers beyond usual typing of letters and documents. Some of the primary reasons are mentioned: (1) they are resistant to any kind of change in their familiar working environment; (2) they fear that computerization of different government activities may make some people redundant; (3) they think that computers are meant for low-level typist kind of work.

Figure 06: Extent of E-service Delivery

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u Lack of adequate training programs: Many e-Government or computerization projects suffer gravely from lack of adequate training programs. Training is of vital necessity in familiarizing users with computers and

breaking their fears. Some officials go through unplanned ‘IT Training’, often in another country, and then come back not getting any scope for utilizing his/her newly gathered knowledge of IT and forgetting it all in due time. The training programs are mostly not need-based and arranged at arbitrary periods, not during the implementation phase of an e-Government project. Comprehensive ICT training program for the government officials has to arrange is different offices.

u Lack of sustainability of IT Systems: Almost all e-Government projects are funded through external sources, primarily foreign funds. This brings about a very vulnerable situation with regards to the sustainability of these projects. As soon as the external fund dries up, it is often seen that there is no fund left even to buy printer paper. As a result, there is a lot of hardware setting in government offices unused and no way to provide support.

u Lack of ownership of IT systems: A direct result of the system of government transfers is that there is great unwillingness to take ownership of IT-related projects. If hardware and IT systems remain unused, there is no one to take responsibility and encourage others to use the system. There is currently no government structure in place to create this ownership of e-Government at the level of individual offices.

u Underutilization of existing ICT infrastructure: To a larger extent, the computers in the department are used for the purpose of word processing only, resulting in the underutilization of the computers in terms of their use in data mining for supporting management decisions. The time gap between the procurement of the hardware and development of the custom applications is so large that by the time application is ready for use, the hardware becomes obsolete.

u Attitude of Government Departments: The psychology of government servants is quite different from that of private sectors. Traditionally

the government servants have derived their sustenance from the fact that they are important repositories of government data. Thus any effort to implement DMS and workflow technologies or bringing out the change in the system is met with resistance from the government servants.

u Lack of reliable maintenance: Another significant problem is that generally there are no in-house maintenance personnel. It is of vital necessity that computers gets fixed as soon as they malfunction or users very easily lose confidence over IT systems. Most offices have contracts with local hardware companies for maintenance, but their services are often not immediate need basis and not fully reliable.

u Lack of necessary regulatory/legal framework: The regulatory/legal framework in Bangladesh has not yet been modernized to accommodate the growing needs of the electronic world. Still, in government offices, an e-mail has no official value and cannot be legally considered an acceptable mode of communication. There are no laws to protect against cyber-crime, neither are there any laws for electronic authentication. E-Governance applications have to stick and implement policies of the governments in terms of dealing with citizens.

u Inadequate human resource capacity: In the government sector very little scope exist for appointment of appropriate IT people as well as existing people is not enough to meet the various IT requirement of e-government. On top of that, most of the well-trained IT graduates of the country leave since there is little scope for them in Bangladesh in terms of professional development.

u Supply of electricity across the nation: With about 50% of the population of Bangladesh having access to electricity, the question of providing access to computers to a large section of the population seems like a two-step problem. Even the fortunate 50% has to suffer daily power cuts. Since there are yet no low-cost methods of running computers without electricity, the issue of electricity has to be solved before a widespread dissemination for ICTs is possible.

u High-cost, low-reliability of Internet access: Internet access cost in Bangladesh is high and highly unreliable. Now there is main source of internet connectivity is mobile operator but expensive. Internet access and availability of

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PCs are disproportionately concentrated in Dhaka. Internet infrastructure is not available everywhere and even very rare out of district town. So internet is not accessible of general people.

u Disaster Recovery: Natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, wars and internal disturbances could cause the E-Governance applications not only loose data, but also make services unavailable. Multiple installations in geographically separated locations with complete backup and recovery solutions must exist. This could create huge problems. Disaster recovery procedures must be in place and practiced from time to time. Applications and data must be redundant and should be available on a short notice to switch from one data center to center.

u Performance and Scalability: The architecture and technology adopted for the E-Governance initiatives should be scalable and common across delivery channels .It is required to meet growing numbers and demands of citizens. If

implemented, the E-Governance portals could become the biggest users and beneficiaries of Information Technology.

u Reporting and Intelligence (Better governance): Data center usage (CPU, storage, network etc), peak loads, consumption levels, power usage along with time are some of the factors that needs to be monitored and reported for better utilization of resources. It minimizes costs and make planning well easy. Profiling data enables better visibility into various services provided by the government.

u Systems Integration and Legacy Software: Not only the applications that are already deployed and providing services are to be moved to the cloud, but also integrate with

applications deployed in the cloud. The power of Information Technology comes in co-relating the data across applications and pass messages across different systems to provide faster services to the end users.

u Adult literacy rate: The adult literacy rate in Bangladesh is not enough. Most of the people have not enough knowledge of using computers, e-government or electronic service delivery. Literacy should be increased and awareness should be developed. Most of them are not literate enough but using mobile phone to communicate and even writing message to each other. So training and awareness program may develop the situation.

4. RESULTS AND ANALYSISICT is essential topic now in Bangladesh in respect of e-governance and digitization. About all middle class family and University level student is

using a PC. Another point of using latest featured mobile phone that is providing support almost of a computer. Mobile operator may be providing various supports like virtual bazaar, bill pay, train ticket buy, money transfer, alert, information, awareness etc. Daily newspapers and magazine may publish a special supplement containing latest news of ICT and improvement relating to ICT. IT fairs and workshops are needed to raise awareness of the people throughout the year of the country, districts, and even Upzilla. It may be mentioned that next generation of Bangladesh is going taking the lead in these IT efforts.

4.1 Computer and Network: First computer was introduced in 1964 with the installation of

Table 06: Percentage of households having ICT facilitiesDi

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an IBM 1620 computer at the Atomic Energy Commission of Bangladesh. In the late 1980s, the printing and publishing industry start using computers and played a pioneer role in the use of personal computers. Now different private

and public sectors organization use computers in their daily operation to improve performance, quality and save time. Financial organization like private sectors banks are more advanced in this respect.

They maintain a countrywide network to connect most of the branches and providing online service and ATM service. Public sector organization is using LAN and few using official applications to improve their performance.

4.2 Access to Information: With 45.3% functional literacy rate (BANBEIS, 2010) and majority of the population based in rural areas, the people of Bangladesh predominantly rely on traditional and relatively low-tech ICT options to have access to information. The size of user base for public AM radio and terrestrial TV in Bangladesh is comparable to its South Asian neighbors (except Nepal, which enjoys an exceptionally high radio listenership rate). Figure shows the comparative data for literacy, telephone and internet density and other traditional access among four South Asian countries.

In the ICT Development Index released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Bangladesh’s rank is still not encouraging. Out of 154 countries, rank of Bangladesh is 138, only above Nepal (ITU, 2010). On the other hand, public access to ICTs with and without Internet connectivity during

last one decade (2001-2010) mainly through private and not-profit initiative played an important role in reducing digital divide, although it was not adequately proportionate to the needs.

4.3 Internet

Internet was introduced in Bangladesh about in 1993 using e-mail service by dial-up connections offered by three Internet Service Provider (ISP) companies. During this time dialup connection was

the main source of internet and used mainly for email. Eudora and outlook express was used for mail transaction thorough ISP. First private ISP was providing internet and it was expensive. In 1996, Bangladesh tested the Internet (VSAT-based) for the first time. Inter connection was very expensive and limited access to the Internet for business and general users. Government of Bangladesh decided to reduce VSAT cost and opened the door for general users to access the Internet at a cheap rate. Now Bangladesh is connected with fiber optic submarine cable for adequate internet bandwidth at a very cheap rate. Day by day internet rate is going to be reduced and people access to internet also growing for various purposes.

4.4 Telecommunication Infrastructure

Bangladesh has countrywide telecom backbone network; both optical fiber and wireless. The mobile operators, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), Bangladesh Railway (BR), some PSTN operators and new entrant Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN)

Figure 07: Access to information of Asian countries

Figure-08: Internet Penetration of Asia in respect of Whole world.

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operators are the key players in developing backbone infrastructure in the country. All but the PSTN operators cumulatively have deployed almost 15,000 km optical fiber backbone covering 59 districts. Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) exercises monopoly control in developing the telecommunication infrastructure of the country. At present, there are 1028190 fixed-line telephone subscribers (BTRC website), 57,728 international circuits (BTRC website), and 13,26,159

nation-wide dialing circuits (BTRC website) in Bangladesh. BTCL has started to build a national structure for high speed Digital Data Network to connect the sixty-four district headquarters. In addition BTCL, most of the mobile operators and some of the ISPs have microwave (wireless) backbone throughout the country. The two wireless broadband (WiMAX) operators are also rolling out their backbone or share network infrastructure from

other operators. Bangladesh has already joined the fourteen nation SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable consortiums to install submarine optical fiber cable that will provide national broadband connectivity with Information Super Highway access, thus enabling all ISPs, both public and private, to have direct access globally.

The total number of Internet Subscribers has reached 31140.804 thousand (31140804) at the end of February 2012. (BTRC website). The total number of Mobile Phone subscribers has reached 89.457 million at the end of March 2012. (BTRC website)

4.5 IT Companies and E-commerce

Currently in Bangladesh, there are more than

Figure-09: Top Asian countries of Internet usage.

Figure 11: Top 20 Internet Countries and rest world.

Figure-10: Internet users in Asia and rest world.

Figure 12: Internet Penetration of Top 20 countries and rest world.

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1,000 hardware showrooms and nearly 8,000 IT institutions. Large organizations including financial institutes and Telecom companies also import a large number of servers for supporting their solutions and datacenters.

The structure of the PC/Server market is heavily controlled by the few importers where there are less than 10 large importers who import bulk of these items. The retail market, on the other hand, is very fragmented with thousands of small entrepreneurs with small retail outlets (these also work as maintenance set ups) all over the country (in Dhaka alone there are over 2,000 such outlets). There is a strong supply chain structure across importers and retailers.

More than one hundred companies are involved in software development. Sixteen percent of

these firms export their product; ten percent are completely export-oriented. Forty percent sell their software in local markets and forty-eight percent sell their product in both domestic and foreign markets.

Bangladeshi businessmen have already introduced e-commerce, in a limited manner, in Business to Consumer format. Wireless Application Protocol service is also available in Bangladesh allowing for use of the Internet through mobile phones.

This has introduced e-commerce to a wide area in Bangladesh. Thus far, there is no law to protect the interest of cyber consumers, though IT professionals and private entrepreneurs are demanding a law that treats different types of software and programs as intellectual property and provides proper legal actions in case of violation.

Expansion of e-commerce in Bangladesh is dependent on the adoption and enforcement of these

laws. Certifying Authorities is a great improvement in the e-commerce field.

4.6 IT Education

Bangladesh currently has 26 public and 56 private universities. In 2011, post-graduation degree in ICT is offered by 25 public universities and 46 private universities. There are also some local and foreign IT institutions that offer different types of certificate and diploma courses. National and multinational firms engaged in IT business manage most of those institutions. The government of Bangladesh has already introduced computer-related courses in secondary school and the higher secondary level so that students can become adept at using computers and IT. This effort to boost the IT revolution has had a positive impact on IT culture in Bangladesh. Details are as follows.

The numbers of graduates in the last 5 years are

as follows:

4.7 Commercial and financial institutions

Commercial and financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies, and private business concerns are also using various means of ICT. Every day, more websites about Bangladesh are being uploaded on the web. Side-by-side voluntary and service-providing organizations are opening up a web entity every day. All users primarily rely on computers for word processing, e-mail correspondence, accounting, and Internet browsing. Rates of using computers for maintaining database and payroll, for personal e-mail by employees, and for software application are not negligible either. Most Bangladeshi banks, both public and private, such as Bank Asia Limited (www.bankasia-bd.com), BASIC Bank Limited (www.basicbanklimited.com), BRAC Bank Limited (www.bracbank.com), Dhaka Bank Limited (www.dhakabank.com.bd), Dutch-

Table-09: Mobile phone used by households.

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Bangla Bank Limited (www.dutchbanglabank.com), Eastern Bank Limited (www.ebl-bd.com), EXIM Bank Limited (www.eximbankbd.com), Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd (www.islamibankbd.com) have websites containing different types of statistical information. All banks are now computerized, at least at the head office level. Private Banks are more computerized than public banks. At present, people can pay their utility bills with their credit/debit cards at any bank in Bangladesh. Some banks provide on-line features that allow customers to check balances and deposits.

4.8 Printing, Publications and Multi-media Sector

Bangladeshi professional have produced various types of kids, entertainment and educational CDs. Information stored in these CDs range from the

history of the country, its independence and war of liberation, cartoons, fairy-tales for kids. A number of digital magazines are published every month in Bangladesh in CD-ROM format. On-line versions of all most major newspapers and magazines are also now available. More than forty-five IT magazines and periodicals already exist. Most of these are published both in paper and CD-ROM format; some also publish a web version. Some organization is working to produce product prospectus, leaflet and other documents of some international band of different world organization.

4.9 Outsourcing

There are so many individual and organization is working for outsourcing on-line. It is good opportunity for the country to earn foreign money. Some young people is working from different districts and involving new generation.

a. Government Agencies

Overall government offices have computes, LAN and internet. Some offices and officers using computer as showpiece, Some are using as a type machine, some are using multimedia device for audio, video, games, somewhere using as internet device for official or personal. Very few offices are using computers, LAN and internet for official productivity. Very few or rare one have their core business related application. About 60% to 70%

offices have official email system. But 10% to 20% officials using emails.

Bangladesh has one official government portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd) where all government ministries and divisions website link is given for easy access. Some very essential government websites such as Ministry of Finance (www.mof.gov.bd), Ministry of Public Administration (www.mopa.gov.bd), Ministry of Agriculture (www.moa.gov.bd), Ministry of Education (www.moedu.gov.bd), Ministry of Education (www.moedu.gov.bd), BANBEIS - Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (www.banbeis.gov.bd). Cabinet Division (www.cabinet.gov.bd), Bangladesh

Table 10: Number of Graduates in Public and Private Universities.

Table 11: ICT Graduate in last 5 years.

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Bank (www.bangladesh-bank.org). So 95% percent government organization have website. Some are providing basic information, some are broadcasting advance information and very few are providing manipulation data.

Most of the website data are not updated regularly, even some mistakes is there and most of them not updating latest information of the organization.

4.11 Internet Infrastructure

Bangladesh has one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the South Asian region (6%). 94% of the active internet connection is through mobile phone providers. The 101 national and 138 zonal Internet Service Providers (ISP) alongside two WiMax service providers account for the rest. (DBSP, 2010).

4.11.1 Gateways and Exchanges

Bangladesh Telephone and Telegraph Board (BTTB), the state incumbent and regulator before the inception of BTRC (and BTTB eventual break up to three different entities) used to solely control the international voice and data traffic in Bangladesh before the implementation of the International Long Distance Telecommunication Services Policy, 2007 (ILDTS Policy, 2007).

According the experts, the idea was to partially liberalize the international voice and data traffic segment for the local operators with the introduction of a new network topology. Under this plan, the Interconnection Exchanges (ICX) is responsible for managing all the local voice traffic, whereas the International Gateways (IGW) deals with the outgoing and incoming international calls. Country’s data traffic is managed through International Internet Gateways or IIGs.

Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd. (BTCL), the state PSTN operator (after the BTTB breakup) got the permission to also operate as IGW, ICX, and IIG, thus distorting the level playing field

for other operators in those markets. In addition, the regulator permitted 3 IGW, 4 ICX, and one more IIG operators. But in practice, this semi-liberalization process was not effective in decreasing service prices for the Access Network Service (ANS) providers (as pricing negotiation with international entities by IGW and IIGs are closely monitored and controlled by the GoB). With the new ILDTS policy of 2010, the regulators officially wanted to promote more competition. However, the provision that empowered GoB to decide on the numbers of IGW, ICX, and IIG licensees virtually eliminated the opportunity for the market to decide on the basis of supply and demand of such service providers, and also in ensuring cost effective solutions (for the general consumers) for interconnection and bandwidth price negotiations

(both international and local). In addition, the GoB explicitly prohibited the participation of foreign investment in this segment through the latest ILDTS policy.

4.11.2 Availability, Usage, and Quality

In terms of information infrastructure, there is already a network of 15,000 km optical fiber, which covers 59 of the 64 districts in Bangladesh. Bangladesh

Telecommunications Company Ltd. (BTCL, the incumbent PSTN operator), Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), Bangladesh Railway, and the mobile operators are the primary developers of this fiber backbone. BTCL and GP (leasing Bangladesh Railway’s) own the largest, active fiber backbone in the country. PGCB’s one is underutilized and the other mobile operators either share fiber networks of the incumbents or have built their own.

The country is connected with the international information superhighway through a single undersea cable (SEA-ME-WE-4). Its landing station is in Cox’s Bazar (at the South-Eastern part of Bangladesh). Till recently, access to this landing station, and the cable’s routing to the POPs were solely controlled by BTCL (from where IGWs and IIGs can access). The regulator determines the price of bandwidth access. But the carrying cost for the bandwidth (from center to the other parts of the country) and

Figure 13: Graphical presentation of data

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other backhaul costs are determined by BTCL and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd. Or BSCCL, which are not market driven and one of the core reasons, the private operators are not getting benefit of low price access to bandwidth. The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) is actively considering connecting with an international terrestrial cable through private sector, in addition to its SEA-ME-WE-4 undersea cable (BTRC, 2011).

4.12 Applications and Services

A range of services catered towards the general population have increased rapidly in recent years, both in public as well as private domains. In education sector, the GoB is using telecommunication to strengthen its knowledge network for teacher’s training, educational administration, and distance education.

Public examination and admission test results are increasingly disseminated among people using web and SMS based systems. In order to ensure equitable public access to information (online and offline), the GoB is investing on developing information centers (commonly known as Union Parishad Information Service Center or UISC) at union level in Bangladesh. Each UISC is managed by a local entrepreneur, selected jointly by the union’s top public administrative officer (UNO) and the elected chairperson of that union. Lack of electricity, poor connectivity, scarcity of localized contents and services, and most importantly, the absence of effective local entrepreneurs are some of the key challenges identified by thee experts in the UISC domain.

v 5. SUMMARY OF FINDINGSSome steps to follow to proceed in the e-governance race. In the primary level all department and activities should be personal computer dependent and should be interconnected. In the next level should have a LAN, Internet connection, own mail system and own domain website.

In the final stage, interdepartmental activities should be integrated and intradepartmental activities should be accessible and available for other. In respect of Bangladesh, some change is going on but not in the level. Some ministries or department are working in the first stage and some are at second stage. But none are in the last stage.

Exploration of this mater and indication of some pin points has been presented in the project work.

5.1 General observation:

Data collected from the ministries led to finding of the following information and observation.

Computer and printer: According to collected data all ministries and division have computers and printers. Actually all required officers and staffs are not getting computers and printers. Very few organizations have fully equipped with computers, printer and scanner.

LAN: Overall ministries and divisions have LAN facilities and similarly not all at same level. About 90 percent are using LAN only for internet purpose. Even not for file and printer sharing. Ministry of Cabinet operated a project to connect inter-ministries have improved LAN environment much more. This project also has provided LAN installation for required ministries.

Internet: Very few ministries have dedicated internet line with sufficient bandwidth. Most of them have no sufficient arrangement for secure internet connection. There is no monitoring, bandwidth control, restriction and policy for internet use. Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) has been providing internet facilities through inter-ministries connectivity and many ministries are using this facility for internet. Internet may use for official email and data access of public interest. But it is rare in Bangladesh.

Office Email: In the government sector, official email is a government official identity of an officer. In respect of communication it is very important. It is one of the primary steps of e-governance or digitization. So all official should have an official email and should be widely used for communication. According to collected data 70% to 80% offices have official email. From them more than 90% email system managed by ISP, Vendor or third party. So it very tough to manage, add, subtract and edit. Similarly email is web based access and difficult to use.

Office Email usage: Government officers using email and rate is average good. But they are very much interested to use personal email like Yahoo and Google. Office email usages rate is very low. We need awareness and implementation of change management to change this tendency. Similarly policy should be defined from the central top management.

Secure ID: Secured id is used to access control, resource usage control, proper monitoring,

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system control and security. It reduces unauthorized access and misusages. It is essential for an organization. According to collected data secured id is used in the 10% organizations.

Share Printer: This is resource sharing to reduce extra cost of resources. For simple job no need individual printer and one floor or one section may use central printer by using LAN.

Application or central application: A software package or database application that deals with core business of an organization and it is an appropriate use of Information Technology. Similarly central database application deals with all sections or divisions functionality in one application. Very few organizations developed that kind of application.

Data from whole application or data from parts of application may be related with public interest. Data of public interest should come to a point of web access so that general people may get the necessary data easily.

Data Backup: We may take data backup by various media. But professional data backup media is tape. Main source of data backup is application data. Most of the cases there is no application no backup. We may take email backup. There is 70% Official email and 5% email server hosted to the user premises. So there is no email backup.

Virus Protection: Antivirus solution is very important for a system. We get 70% organization having antivirus solution. But all are not updated and about all are individual PC solutions. About 5% have central solution and about 20% regularly updated.

ICT documentation: Government offices are very poor in the ICT documentation. Lack of documentation sometimes raise great problem specially vendor has done something or old employee done something but no record there what and how they have done this. Documentation makes easy next update or improvement in the absence of someone.

Website: About 100% offices has own website. Websites 50% is not providing appropriate data and necessary document. Some are not properly designed and colored. Every ministry and division has a domain name and it is selected by individual office. Most of the cases these are maintained by vendor or any third party. In respect of websites security measurement is very weak.

Website update: 50% websites are updated regularly. Most of them are not providing accurate information and documents of public interest.

Website data manipulation: It is also an advance feature of IT adoption of an organization. One organization has database application and internally lots of data manipulation is there. Some data may have access of general people and have manipulation capacity from the respective organization website. As a result various people may get the data according to their requirement.

Data Center: A data center is a centralized repository, either physical or virtual, for the storage, management, and dissemination of data and information organized around a particular body of knowledge or a particular business.

It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression) and security devices. In that sense, data center may be synonymous with network operations center (NOC), a restricted access area containing automated systems that constantly monitor server activity, Web traffic, and network performance.

Only 20% organization have data center and even all are not fully organized and secured. Some organization like Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh computer Council (BCC), Bangladesh Election Commission and Finance Division have organized data center.

IT supports: IT support is available in the 30% offices. Other offices are managing support by calling vendor as on the basis of necessity. IT development and support is very poor in the government offices. Another major problem is available IT support people is not appropriate for the existing support and improvement of the existing situation. It is also a factor of IT field not to developed in a level because lack of appropriate IT people in appropriate position.

E-calendar: It is an advanced feature of IT adoption. Maintain appointment in a central calendar of server and shared with others on necessity basis.

Common shared appointment or Meeting call used a central calendar of server that will aware everyone about his appointment. It also provides options like accept, deny or proposed other time of meeting. Finally this appointment will give you an alarm just before 15 or 30 minutes of the meeting.

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Security and protection: Security measurement is very poor and very few organization using firewall for internal and external purpose. About all offices are using internet. But there is no sufficient security system for data and network protection. Sometimes all networks become infected by virus, warms and Trojans. It is also lack of protection.

5.2 Comparatively advanced organizations

Finance Division: Finance Division (FD) deal with Account and Budget of Government. Finance Division directly deal with Budget which consists of 21 Budget sections dealing with 50 ministries (MTBF) and their divisions and sections budgeting. Controller General of Accounts (CGA) office deals with accounts of 6 DCA, 58 DAO and 49 CAO. Finance Division maintaining total connectivity and intranet. FD has one central datacenter and one disaster recovery site at CGA. One central application named Integrated Budget and Accounting System (IBAS) is now working in the finance division that is maintaining and controlling total accounts and budget.

There is one central own mail system using by FD, CGA, 49 CAO, 6 DCA and 58 DAO for government communication, circulars and notices. 49 CAO, 6 DCA and 58 DAO each has one email address, FD and CGA officers have individual official email addresses. It is the largest network in the government sector of Bangladesh and using central application and email system in the whole country. It is also an example of official email usage of the government sector.

Examination conduct and Result publishing: Main function of Education Board (EB) is to provide support for SSC and HSC examination. This support covers making schedule, taking exam, check script and publishing result. EB is doing a great deal of identity of script, script mark tracking, result manipulation and publishing by using ICT. It is now very easy to publish the result of the examination and in proper time. Similarly Department of primary and mass education, Bangladesh National University is providing the exam result in website. They also provide result through mobile massaging system. It is also very helpful for people.

Public University admission test is a huge work dealing as it providing the prescribe form, collect the form, taking exam and publishing result. Now collecting form and result is very easy from the respective website.

Ministry of Public Administration: This Establishment is providing web based PDIS database for all Admin cadre officers and others cadre senior officers. It is online and very helpful for officers. Whenever necessary they may collect their Personal Data from this database by providing own ID and Password. It should be updated with full cadre officers informations.

Roads and Highway: Roads and Highway is providing some database service and manipulated data for their stakeholder through their website. The e-Government initiative of Road and Highways Department (RHD) involved the launch of a website that provides a variety of information, data and notices to users. Website users include the private sector, related government offices, ordinary citizens, and donor agencies. The website features the following services: Contractor database, Tender database, Schedule of rates database, Project Monitoring System.

National Board of Revenue (NBR): The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is the central authority for tax administration in Bangladesh. Administratively, it is under the Internal Resources Division (IRD) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF). NBR is responsible for formulation and continuous re-appraisal of tax-policies and tax-laws in Bangladesh. The main responsibility of NBR is to mobilize domestic resources through collection of import duties and taxes, VAT and income tax for the government

The main function of this department is to earn revenue on behalf of the government ofBangladesh. It facilitates the trade community through services such as Counter Bailing. It provides facilitation to the government for negotiation of bilateral treaty. And it also provides support to the Ministry of Finance in preparing the annual budget for the government of Bangladesh. The NBR is one of the most advanced users of ICTs in the government, with several sophisticated software applications managing their routine internal work. Some of the software applications used in the Customs Department are: ASYCUDA++ (Automated System for Customs Data), BOND, DADO, VALUATION, and CIMS (Customer Information Management System). Some of the software applications used in the Tax Department are TAN System, TCAN (Tax Collection Account No), and CCS (Challan Collection System). Some of the software applications

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used in theTax Department are VIS (VAT Information System) and VMIS (VAT Management Information System). A majority of the employees at NBR have basic computer literacy and ICT training programs at NBR

is a regular process. NBR also has a website that generally updated every 3 months. The purpose of this website is to provide Tariff search engine, Baggage rule, SRO, Budget speech, and any other notifications and announcements to the user.

Since Customs functions at the gateway for import and export of goods, it plays a critical role in the import-export trade chain. In order to make customs procedures more transparent and to achieve more trade facilitation, a number of measures have been taken in past few years. With the introduction of ASYCUDA++ and Direct Traders Input (DTI) automation in customs clearance has begun. Recently, a full automation scheme is on way of implementation in collaboration with the Chittagong Chamber and the Task Force. Once the full automation is completed the importers and exporters will be able to access customs server from their offices or homes and will be able to submit their customs declaration online.

E-Tender: Dhaka University and Bangladesh Bank started e-tendaring system. Very soon CPTU is going to start e-procurement system and initially it will be introduced to some government organization on pilot basis. Later it will be implemented to total government procurement system. It will reduce tendering hassle like corruption, monopoly, partiality and misuse of policy of the institutes specially government sectors. In this process tender provider will provide all necessary information. They will also provide required product information and price details. This will increase fairness and transperancy of the system.

Election Commission (EC): EC has advanced in the process of automation of the Voter list of the whole country. Overall voter list is now computer based and being updated regularly. They are collecting data and update from the 64 district by direct connectivity and data is stored in the central Datacenter. One part of the project is National ID card. It is a great achievement in the process of the digitization and automation of the Bangladesh. It is now ongoing process and still in the immature stage. Still it is not used for dynamic purpose and not being used by online (limited use). It is now

providing National ID card from the datacenter. ID card are being used for various purposes like Passport, driving license, identity, crime detection and other facilities. But there are possibilities of the fraud as it is offline process.

We are expecting National ID card project will be mature with sufficient correction and accuracy. It will be available online (limited data) for authorizing agency so that they may be this database facility for others purpose. For example, still passport authority need police verification for accurate identity that is much time consuming and hassle. If passport authority has limited permission in the National ID card database, they can easily cross check the identity for passport that will save time and provide fast delivery. Similarly police, driving license authority, mobile operator, other government agency may use this database to provide prompt service delivery,

BCC Data Center: Bangladesh Computer Council organized and established a huge capacity data center. It may become central government repository for data. To use this data center it is needed to develop more infrastructures. It should be maintained properly and connected with secretariat inter connectivity with high capacity bandwidth so that ministries and divisions may use this data center for data stored and necessary transaction.

Stock Market: Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) and Central Depository Bangladesh Limited (CDBL) maintaining total share market of Bangladesh. They are providing and facilitating highest service for client by using ICT. DSE provide support for end users as well as broker houses.

End user may easily visit the market status in real time and even buy/sell price. Broker houses have access for direct buy and sell of the shares. CDBL is connected with DSE and Broker houses to maintain financial transaction. Overall they are providing excellent services for the country. Hope very soon BO accounts holder will get direct buy and sell facility from user end.

Union ICT Center: It is a very good initiative to reach the root level and facilitate support for very lower end users. Village is a very small unit and Union consists of some villages. Now every union has ICT center to help village people to use ICT services and get benefited from ICT. At a time it is necessary to ensure what benefit they will get from the center and easy access for general people.

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Railway Ticket: One of the government sector started earlier ticket selling automation system from Dhaka to Chittagong and Sylhet. It was started to be full automated and online among the stations to manage the blank site and maximize the selling. Sometimes it happens that one station has more passengers than their allotted seats and whereas other station cannot sell half of the allotted seats. According to demand and situation sometimes it is necessary to manage the seats and maximize the benefit. So ticketing system should have central database. All stations should have real time connectivity and live access facility to central database. So that stations may generate report and observe how many seats are occupied or remain blank. As a result next station may sell rest of the seats of previous stations.

Actually it is not real time live system to manage the seats and fill up the blank seats. Every stations is working as a standalone system and once is a while they synchronize with the central database. A ticket seller may check the report of other stations but it is time consuming and tough. It is something like dialup system.

Now rail ticket is selling in the railway stations. For easy access, more than one advance ticket counter should be present in the different key point of Dhaka city. Now different mobile operators selling rail tickets from various service points but it is now easy and affordable. .

Passport Office: Passport office is providing Machine Readable Passport (MRP). It is easy and straight forward process for people. Once it was most corrupted sector and had possibility of duplicate passport. There is no scope to fraud people for money and no scope of duplicate passport. MRP is a fully most digitized system and data stored in a central server. Details information, Instant picture and finger print of individual is also included in the database. Passport office plays a vital role for the country. Special Branch of Police provides good support for investigation of individual. They also maintain a database of report and it helps passport client.

Bangladesh Police: There was no effective mechanism to verify past crime records of a criminal or a suspect, since records were kept in different offices around the country and there was no integrated system that puts all those records together and makes them accessible from any location. There was also no systematic way of recording information about criminals/suspects and

crimes, that could help identify interrelationships among criminals and help analyze the nature of crime in certain areas. The process of manual verification of fingerprints was also cumbersome, lengthy and prone to human errors. Information exchange and dissemination among different police stations was also minimal.

Bangladesh Police also developed in the IT sector. They have own mail system, criminal database, remote monitoring, digitally verifying fingerprints instantly, digitally storing warrants, Special Branch has own database. Also they have different office connectivity and may share data. Police have a very rich website.

Digitized Land Management: Land disputes lead to many criminal offences in Bangladesh. The land ownership system is very complex in Bangladesh. The country has 9 million hectares of cultivable land. Moreover, inland is shrinking due to river erosion each year. The cropland is also shrinking due to human settlement. Land grabbers and land agents are constantly exploiting the mass people in a variety of ways. They prepare fake papers to deceive the poor and marginal people with the help of a section of dishonest land administration employees, often with muscle power. River erosion, population explosion, mismanagement of land administration, political nepotism, investment in unproductive segment has deteriorated the land system in the country.

Land related data entry is going on. Survey office is maintaining a database in-house. We hope, it will be published for citizen’s use very soon. Develop customized application software for Imaging, Archiving, Retrieving and Printing of Khatian and Mouza Maps. Digital storage of images of all CS, SA & RS ‘Khatian’ records and respective CS & RS mouza maps for 3 Upazillas, namely Manikganj, Singair and Saturia. Total Khatians of those Upazillas are about 2,720 volumes containing about 2.72 lakh ‘Khatian’ records and 550 Mouza maps.

Hajj Office under Ministry of Religious Affairs: The Ministry of Religious Affairs has launched a website in 2002 to provide some information-based services to the pilgrims, their relatives and friends, agents and related government officials. The interactive website can be used for searching information about individual pilgrims, including current location and status, send and receive

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messages from individual pilgrims, for accessing various information regarding rules and regulations etc. Citizens no longer have to visit a government office to access information on the flight schedules, wellbeing, or other

particulars of individual pilgrims.

Bangladesh Bank: Bangladesh Bank began to computerize its functions ahead of most other government institutions. Today it is one of the most fully computerized public institutions in the country. The following processes have been automated: export receipts; import payments; invisible receipts; invisible payments; scheduled bank advances; scheduled bank deposits; scheduled bank bills; scheduled bank debits; co-operative bank advances; co-operative bank assets/ liabilities; summary statements; central accounts of Bangladesh; loans and grants; exchange rates; monetary survey; broad money survey; salary bill of employees of Bangladesh Bank; Bangladesh Bank employees provident fund; press communiqué liquidity position, assets/ liabilities; export form matching; wage earners’ remittance; secret test key development of National Credit and Commerce Bank Ltd.; secret test key development of National Bank Ltd.; and secret test key development of EXIM Bank Ltd.

Bangladesh Bank has also established a dynamic, information-rich website that contains information about important macro-economic indexes and other relevant financial information. The website is updated regularly. Bangladesh Bank is using check clearing house to clear checks of all banks by using automation. Clearing house provide very fast and accurate transaction of internal banks.

Board of Investment: The Board of Investment (BOI) is the principal private investment promotion and facilitation agency of Bangladesh. BOI’s present services could be categorized broadly under the following tasks: 1) Investment Promotion through publications and other means; 2) Investment Facilitation through various services for investors, such as registration, permits, infrastructure etc.; 3) policy advocacy through suggestions to the government. The BOI has one of the most sophisticated e-Government software applications in the government, which includes service tracking system that gives the most recent status of different registration processes. Many of its officers and staff are well-trained for basic computer usage.

BANBEIS under Ministry of Primary and Mass

Education: The Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS), the statistical wing of the Ministry of Education, has created a geographic information system (GIS) map-based software that provides information on density of academic institutions in particular regions, individual institution-level data, and other useful educational statistics. This information system is being used for various policy-making purposes regarding identification of needs and more equitable distribution of resources.

Bangladesh Supreme Court: Supreme Court deals lots of cases of different type. Client may try to know the case information. Supreme Court has developed a database system that contains all cases history. Now anyone may get information of cases by SMS or going to the website by providing case type number and years. It is now hassle free and very much convenience for general people. Citizens can easily get access to cause lists and Easy access to daily important orders from the court

Bangladesh Post Office (BPO): The postal service in Bangladesh reaches citizens in remote corners where private courier and telephony services are not available. Wide-range network (10,000 post offices) and affordability are the primary characteristics of public postal services in Bangladesh.

The post offices all over the country can be used effectively in delivering information and services to the rural citizens and thus reducing the digital divide. In terms of domestic money transfer, the recently inaugurated mobile money order and postal cash card service have made remittances to the rural area even easier.

6. RECOMMENDATIONSAt present Bangladesh trying to adopt ICT in all activities of government sectors specially those who delivering service to the people and maintaining coordination between government organizations.

There are some lacking of the factors necessary to establish e-government. Although national leaders seem to possess the political will and commitment to adopt ICT-friendly measures to advance the IT sector and establish e-government, there are still some obstacles to overcome. These are identified and given below in respect to recommendation.I. Lack of cooperation and coordination between

government agencies and the absence of a national ICT Cell or managing Committee or central body that will provide direction to plan,

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design, implement, take major ICT decisions and accelerate ICT growth in Bangladesh. Similarly monitoring the progress and leakage, fulfillment requirement, proper working environment, finding obstacle and resolves, collect feedback are essential steps to move forward. This will include IT Specialists of different field as well as IT knowledgeable Administrative part. According to IBAS report (Finance Division) there are lots of project going from development fund and revenue. But project output and achievement is not satisfactory because of lack of proper decision and monitoring.

II. To provide appropriate training in the proper level is important job for e-governance. In case of e-governance top to bottom officers should have sufficient knowledge and practical concept of IT. It will encourage them to implement and use IT in the practical field. It is essential to provide them training and knowledge based sharing. Knowledge up to a particular level should be compulsory for all officers and working staff. In the practical field they are gathering knowledge for their carrier and PATC providing training to learn public administration and other issues. Similarly IT should be included as an essential subject what is necessary for them. Similarly various organizations and countries providing local and foreign training or course especially for civil service people. All level offices are going to participate for different subject but government should encourage or guide them for IT training and education which will be helpful for e-governance. It is very easy job for government but result will be tremendous helpful for e-governance. Similarly other staffs should have necessary IT training to adapt and provide preliminary support.

III. Officers those who are taking good initiative and doing very worthy something for organization or country is not encouraged or evaluated or rewarded for his contribution. It is only possible if he is a member of particular party or group or relatives or anyhow related someone. This is an open secret, great problem in the organization of Bangladesh but it is not confessed. For anything wrong we are ready to criticize. Sometime it is called grouping or internal politics. It is one important obstacle in the way of advancement and initiatives. But for e-governance implementation, it is essential to make priority based list of officers who is advanced in the IT implementation of

government activities. They should be appointed for IT or e-governance related project and implementation.

IV. Proper IT professional is not available and proper job is not done in proper way. IT manpower and support is related with IT sustainability. Sometimes appropriate IT personnel are not appointed and even not available in the government policy. What type of people needed for the government offices now? Are these existing posts sufficient for present situation? Nobody is taking of these but people is recruiting for the IT field. IT appointment going on for the following positions like Assistant Programmer, Programmer, System Analyst, Senior System Analyst, and System Manager. In rare occassigis Assistant Maintenance Engineer, Maintenance Engineer are qppointed. There is no post related with system and network that is essential for IT system, setup, service and support. System and Network related personnel are more essential than programming or development related personnel in the government organization. On the other hand, sometimes proper IT people are not coming in the government organization because of some problem like corrupted recruitment system and lack of hierarchy or career pate for IT people.

V. Sufficient infrastructure to support e-governance initiatives does not exist in government departments. The required connectivity network and communication equipment is either nonexistent in government departments or if exists it does not serve any tangible purpose as far the requirement of e-governance project is concerned. Different government offices including some ministries still have a largely inadequate number of working computers. Inter-offices connectivity is not planned and installed. LAN is not planed and installed properly. Installed LAN does not cover all computer and printer points. Government offices are not maintaining servers that is necessary. Routing and switching is not planned properly. Most of the cases these are dependent on vendor support. The number of offices having their computers connected to the internet is increasing but not adequate at all. Proper security and system is not maintained for internet connectivity. It is also true that a number of government offices have computers that remain almost completely unused due to lack of integrated planning.

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It is found that very important government offices are suffering from frequent power failure where people are waiting for services for hours. It is necessary to identify government sectors and offices to provide special power line for

continuous power on priority basis.VI. It is true that there has been an effort to introduce

e-governance in a limited range in the ministries by supplying computers, networking, and internet. But this provides little encouragement in the ICT growth of Bangladesh. Deficiency of thinking to provide technical support and appropriate IT professionals as well as unsustainability lead to failure of the target in the government sector. In the government sector IT support and maintenance is very poor.

VII. The ministries and divisions are trying to provide current information of government activities electronically on the web. Now a day’s 95% government organization or individual agencies are maintaining web site. But most of the websites are not regularly updating information and data. One of the major problem government organization is not maintaining website by own and even they are not enough careful about the website security and update. It is being maintainee by vendors or others by contact basis. Domain name is a unique name to identity of an organization and it should have standard format that is known to all. Domain name is used for respective websites and email addresses of the organization. There is no unique format of domain name of government organizations. On the other hand, there are dissimilarities in the main ministry domain name and respective division’s domain name. Different domain name is being used by different divisions of this ministry individually. Sub-domain concept is very helpful in this regard. It is also very useful for email identification. Another major problem is ownership or control of the domain, hosting and update.

VIII. Government procurement system and hiring of experts is systematic steps and time consuming system. Because of more systematic most of the time it is not fair and transparent. So required goods and quality peoples are not coming in the government system. Sometimes it is going to worst instead of better system.

IX. Internet access is too expensive in Bangladesh compared to developed countries. In Bangladesh, the lowest cost to gain Internet

access is 1000/- taka per month through broadband, using modem, WiMAX system, and mobile telecom operator. Installation of necessary telecommunication facilities for internet connection is also at the finishing stage and the country is still not under the full BTCL telecommunication network. Comparatively BTCL providing good network infrastructure and connectivity but support especially user end support is very poor. Rest of the area is covering by mobile network.

X. The tendency of both ruling and opposition parties to politicize everything in Bangladesh has had an adverse effect on the desired growth of ICT initiatives at both the public and private level. As political power changes hands between the two major parties in Bangladesh, the bitter rivalry between the BNP and AL often results in the abandonment of policies pursued by the previous government. This feature of the country’s political culture has stymied efforts to promote the IT sector in Bangladesh.

CONCLUSIONBangladesh has joined the race toward adopting e-government. This study examines that effort by addressing the status of ICT in Bangladesh. It analyzes the initiatives of the Bangladesh government, existing situation of Bangladesh, lack of initiatives, commitment of political leadership, and the enthusiasm of private entrepreneurs to introduce e-government in Bangladesh. It concludes that e-government preparation in Bangladesh is still in its primary stages and has not fulfilled its potential due to technical, infrastructural and political obstacles. A coordinated effort of political leadership, bureaucrats, and private entrepreneurs could facilitate the desired development in the ICT sector and accelerate the presence of e-government in Bangladesh.

Although all of the confusion and frustration associated with ICT initiatives in Bangladesh, e-government is becoming a fact in the daily lives of the citizens of the country. Perhaps progress is slow and there is confusion about the means to achieve this, but there is no doubt about the goal of attaining e-government. A coordinated effort by political leaders, bureaucrats, and private entrepreneurs is critical to facilitate the growth of the ICT sector and the socioeconomic development of Bangladesh. A country’s social, political, and economic composition correlates closely with its e-government program development. Key factors such as the status of a country’s telecommunications infrastructure, the strength of its human capital, the political will and

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commitment of its national leadership and shifting administrative priorities influence how decision makers, policy planners and public sector managers at approach, develop, and implement e-government programs.

Bangladesh is at the primary stage of the e-governance. Ministries are not in a point whatever necessary except few ministries. Even it is not at the expected level. It is found that other than ministries like some divisions and directorat are more improved and advanced than ministries. Domain name should have unique format of all ministries and division or directorate should use sub-domain of the respective ministry. Now a day e-governance is essential criteria for a countries developtment. Still we are working with manual system and file moving from one table to another table. Just to move one table to another table takes sometimes months. In absence of e-governance a country is like a lame man who is always trying to survive with his troubled arms. Day by day e-governance is knocking the door of the country to transform all old manual activities to new automation system. E-governance is a demand of time that will provide people prompt, easy and transparent services. E-governance will also lead to improvement and progress of a nation very significantly. So if it possible to implement full e-governance that will help to reduce poverty and corruption. This will help Bangladesh to improve much more is future.

REFERENCES:1. E-GOVERNANCE AND BEST PRACTICES. http://www.nisg.org 2. e-Governance: Conceptual Framework, http://arc.gov.in/11threp/ARC_11th_report.htm chap-23. Introducing E-Government in Bangladesh: Problems and ProspectsJournal article by Sadik Hasan; International Social Science Review, Vol. 78, 20034. SICT’S STEPS TOWARDS GOOD GOVERNANCE THROUGH ICTS, September 2005.5. ICT policy related concept paper, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance.(2010) 6. E-governance in India: its impacts on relations among citizens, politicians and public servants. M. Shamsul Haque7. Country Paper on Household ICT Access and Individual ICT Usage in Bangladesh; Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Bangladesh.(2010)8. SICT’S STEPS TOWARDS GOOD

GOVERNANCE THROUGH ICTS, July 2006, Support to ICT Task Force Program Project. (July 2006).9. 9th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Meeting (WTIM-11), Mauritius, 7 - 9 December 2011.10. Journey Towards A Digital Bangladesh, June, 2011, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance11. e-Government Initiatives in Bangladesh A Sample Survey 2008, Support to ICT Task Force Program Project.(2008)12. Telecom Regulatory and Policy Environment in Bangladesh. Results and Analysis of the 2011 TRE Survey, Faheem Hussain, Ph.D. 13. E-Governance: Bangladesh Perspective, K.A.M. Morshed 14. http://bangladeshictpolicy.bytesforall.net/ 01/04/200715. Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh, Tarique Mosaddique Barkatullah.16. SICT’S STEPS TOWARDS GOOD GOVERNANCE THROUGH ICTS SASM Taifur, Project Director17. Support to ICT Task Force Program Project (SICT), Mridul Chowdhury Consultant Support to ICT Task Force Program Project (SICT)18. E-Governance: Bangladesh Perspective By K.A.M. Morshed19. http://bangladeshictpolicy.bytesforall.net/ 01/04/200720. SICT’S STEPS TOWARDS GOOD GOVERNANCE THROUGH ICTS, September 200521. SICT’S STEPS TOWARDS GOOD GOVERNANCE THROUGH ICTS SASM Taifur, Project Director Support to ICT Task Force Program Project (SICT) and Mridul Chowdhury Consultant Support to ICT Task Force Program Project (SICT), July 200622. Directive 95/46/EC of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, Official Journal of the European Communities L 281, 23/11/1995, pp. 31-50, http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31995L0046:EN:HTML23. Directive 2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, Official Journal of the European Communities L 167, 22/06/2001, pp. 10-9,

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24. CAPACITY BUILDING FOR E-GOVERNANCE IN INDIA, S.R.Das & R.Chandrashekhar25. Global e-Government: 198 Countries Ranked, by Dr. M. Aminul Islam, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, National University

26. E-government and the applications of technology to government services, Clay G. Wescott1, Asian Development Bank27. Vikas Kanungo ([email protected])(e-Governance Consultant).28. Information Technology Audit of eSeva – an e-Governance initiative by Government www.icisa.cag.gov.in29. e-Governance Initiatives in Bangladesh: An Analysis of Strategy formulation for re-inventing Good Governance, Department of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University30. Why E Governance Projects Fail, Dr Ashutosh Sharma.31. DSIR Annual Report 2007-2008. 32. E-governance in Developing Countries, Michiel Backus, IICD Research Brief - No 1, March 200133. e-Government in the Philippines: Benchmarking Against Global Best Practices by Emmanuel C. Lallana, PhD, Patricia J. Pascual, Edwin S. Soriano34. Bangladesh Telecoms Sector Challenges & Opportunities, November 2010 by Ifty Islam, Asian Tiger Capit1al Research 35. A Strategic Framework for E-government Adoption in Public Sector Organizations. Zakareya Ebrahim, Zahir Irani, Sarmad Al Shawi, Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2004. 36. Foundations of ICTs in Development: The Onion-Ring Model by Richard Heeks, October 2005, eDevelopment Briefing No. 4, Development

Informatics Group, University of Manchester 37. Measuring the progress of e-government implementation at a national level: an interpretive case study by Rashid Aldosari & Malcolm King, Scientific Journal of Administrative Development Vol.5 I.A.D. 200738. e-Government evaluation: a framework and case study. Government Information Quarterly, Gupta, M.P., Jana, D. 2003. Vol. 20: 366-387. Gichoya, D. 2005. ‘Factors affecting the successful39. A NOMOLOGICAL NETWORK OF E-GOVERNMENT EVALUATION, Sofiane Sahraoui & Zahir Irani , European and Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems 2008 40. A BEST PRACTICES REVIEW Local E-Government, office of the legislative auditor, STATE OF MINNESOTA, REPORT # 02-0841. Enterprise Architecture for e-Government, IDA eGovernment News, March 2004, p 7-12, By Dr John Gøtze42. Making Sense of E-government Implementation in Jordan: A Qualitative Investigation, By Raed Kareem Kanaan, Faculty of Information Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom, April 200943. An overview over the worldwide development of e-government, Teiu, Codrin-Marius, Al.I.Cuza University, University of Rostock44. AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH FOR E-GOVERNMENT TRANSFORMATION, Ali M. Al-Khouri, Emirates Identity Authority, Abu Dhabi, UAE.45. E-GOVERNMENT– ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT RESEARCH AND SOME PROPOSALS FOR FUTURE DIRECTIONS, ULRICA LÖFSTEDTDept. of Information Technology and Media, Mid Sweden University46. PROBLEMS WHEN IMPLEMENTING

IT Consultant (Network & System), DMTBF Project. Finance Division, Ministry of Finance

Engr. Giash Uddin

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Inauguration of CTO Forum Bangladesh held on 6th October’12

Sponsored by GPITCTO F

ORUM

EVEN

TS

Hasanul Haq Inu, MPMinister, Ministry of

Information

Mostafa Faruque Mohammed, MP Minister,

Ministry of ICT

Md. Nazrul Islam Khan, Secretary, Ministry of ICT

Mohammed Nurul Amin, Chairman, Association of

Bankers Bangladesh

Tapan Kanti Sarkar President, CTO Forum

Bangladesh

A.K.M. Fahim Mashroor President, BASIS

Dr. Jnanendra N. Biswas, ED, Bangladesh

Computer Council

Md. Faizullah Khan President, BCS

Md. Aktaruzzam Manju President, ISPAB

Raihan Shamsi CEO, GPIT


CTO FORUM EVENTS

Distinguish guest with New EC Member of CTO Forum


Seminar on “Enterprise ICT Security”Jointly organized with Kaspersky Lab Bangladesh

held at BRAC INN, Dhaka

Arch. Yeafesh Osman, State MinisterMinistry of Science and

Technology

Syed Masodul Bari Secretary General,

CTO Forum Bangladesh


Dr. Atiur Rahman Governor, Bangladesh

Bank


Bangladesh

Ms. Suk Ling GunDirector, Corporate Sales,

Kaspersky Lab, APAC

Mr. Prabeer Sarkar, CEO, Officextracts was addressing the Seminar.

CTO FORUM EVENTS


Workshop on “e-Banking Security:Challenges and Solutions”

Held at Local City Hotel, Dhaka

Dasgupta Asim KumarExecutive Director, Bangladesh Bank

Nawed IqbalVice President, CTO Forum Bangladesh

Md. Nazmul Hoque Consultant, Ministry of

Finance

Abul Kashem Md. Shirin, Member, CTO

Forum Bangladesh

Dr. Ijazul HaqueTreasurer, CTO Forum

Bangladesh

Mohammed Nurul AminChairman, ABB and MD &

CEO, NCC Bank Ltd

Debdulal RoyJoint Secretary General, CTO Forum Bangladesh


Bangladesh

[Left to Right] Md. Nurul Islam Mozumder, Bisnu Chandra Saha, Md. Abul Kashem Khan, Kazi Kamal Uddin Ahmed, Dr. Ijazul Haque, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad H. Kafi, Tapan Kanti Sarkar, Abul Kashem Md. Shirin, Debdulal Roy, Md. Nazmul Haque, Hasan Tanvir, Nawed Iqbal, Dasgupta Asim Kumar, Gopal Chandra Guha Roy, Mohammed Nurul Amin,

Md. Rafiul Islam, Md. Mohiuddin Dewan and Syed Masodul Bari.

CTO FORUM EVENTS


Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, NDC, Secretary,

Ministry of Information

Dr. Atiur Rahman Governor, Bangladesh

Bank


Bangladesh

Nawed IqbalVice President, CTO Forum Bangladesh

Mohammed Nurul Amin, Chairman, ABB and MD & CEO, NCC Bank Ltd

Vaidyanathan Iyer Business Unit Head, IBM Security Solutions, IBM

Shahzaman Mozumder Bir Protik, CEO, TISL

Seminar on “IT Security in today’s Global Banking”

Jointly organized with IBM and TISL held at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka

CTO FORUM EVENTS


CTO FORUM EVENTS


Seminar on “Private Clouding: EnterpriseCTO’s Perspective”held at Local City Hotel, Dhaka

Ed FranklinVirtustream, USA

Mohammad Zaman

Virtustream, USA


Bangladesh

[Left to Right] Ed Franklin, Virtustream, Forkan Bin Quasem, Ex-Secretary General of BASIS, Tapan Kanti Sarkar, President, CTO Forum Bangladesh, Mahbub Zaman, Ex-President of

BASIS and Mohammad Zaman of Virtustream were present in the seminar.

CTO FORUM EVENTS


Seminar on “Data Center Design: Private Virtual Cloud”

Jointly organized with Shark Ltd. held at Hotel Purbani, Dhaka

Shafquat HaiderDirector, FBCCI

Dr. Jnanendra N. Biswas, Executive Director, Bangladesh Computer Council

Mohammed Nurul Amin, Chairman, ABB &

MD, NCC Bank Ltd.

Tapan Kanti SarkarPresident, CTO Forum

Md. Nazmul HoqueConsultant, Ministry of

Finance

Petr BašusTotal Solutions, Czech

Republic

Gaurav SethiExtreme Networks,

India

Joseph B. Ulysses Chairman, Shark Ltd.

[Left to right] Shamsur Rahman Chowdhury, Md. Nurul Islam Mozumder, Petr Bašus, Md. Rafiul Islam, Joshph B. Ulysses, Syed Masodul Bari, Debdulal Roy, Kazi Kamal Uddin Ahmed, Hasan Tanvir, Dr.

Jnanendra N. Biswas, Taher Ahmed Chowdhury, Tapan Kanti Sarkar, Saiful Momin, Gaurav Sethi, H.M. Abul Kalam Azad, Ahmed Nawaz and Reazul Islam

CTO FORUM EVENTS


Seminar on “Faster Collaboration! SmarterDecision! Better Business for the Industry”

Jointly organized with AVAYA Inc. held at The Westin, Dhaka

Prof. Dr. M. Kaykobad Department of Computer

Science and Engineering, BUET


Ms. Nazneen Sultana Deputy Governor, Bangladesh Bank

Sanjay Ahuja Avaya

Tapan Kanti SarkarPresident, CTO Forum

CTO FORUM EVENTS


“Innovation Forum- Public PrivatePartnership on e-Service Delivery”

Jointly Organized with A2I (Access to Information)at Karabi Hall, Prime Minister’s Office

CTO Forum Bangladesh Members with A2I Officials. [Right to Left] Mohammad Samdad Tanveer, Debdulal Roy, Dr. Ijazul Haque, Manik Mahmud, Tapan Kanti Sarkar, Md. Mohiuddin Dewan, Gopal Chandra Guha Roy, Syed Masodul

Bari, Md. Shah Alam Patwary, Md. Abul Kashem Khan, Mohammad Ali, Anir Chowdhury and Quazi Mortuza Ali.

Molla Waheeduzzaman Senior Secretary,

Prime Minister’s Office

Kabir Bin Anwar Director General (Admin), Prime

Minister’s Office

K A M MorshedAssistant Country Director, UNDP –

Bangladesh

Naimuzzaman MuktaA2I

CTO FORUM EVENTS

CTO MAGAZINE, VOL. 01, ISSUE. 02, January 2013

Cto magazine volume1 issue2

Documents

Transcript of Cto magazine volume1 issue2