TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 11

Part OtherDepts

Subsection 2

Management and Operational Reports

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

■ INTRODUCTION

1 The electronic infrastructure of the Commission was put in place as soon as office space became available. Equipment was procured within extremely tight deadlines (the whole network had to be functional within weeks) and was achieved before substantial organisational structures were in place.

2 Potential vendors of computer hardware and software supplies were shortlisted. Companies selected were required to have: a national presence; a proven track record; a reputation for delivery; the technical capacity to implement the proposed solutions; cost-effectiveness and a commitment to affirmative action. Vendors who met the criteria were asked to put together proposals for the system, including costs and time frames. These proposals, followed by face-to-face discussions with likely candidates, were used to make the final appointments, which were ratified by the Commission.

3 The Commission appointed DCE Networking to supply the hardware, Zervos (Pty) Ltd to install and support the network, Microsoft to supply the software for office administration and Oracle Corporation to supply software for the database.

■ NETWORK CONFIGURATION

4 Each of the four regional offices had a local-area network (LAN), consisting of Compaq Prolinea workstations that ran Microsoft Windows 95 and were connected together by a 10-Base T Ethernet network. Each workstation was loaded with a copy of Microsoft Office, providing staff members with a word-processor, a spread- sheet and e-mail facilities. A computer officer in each of the Commission’s four regional offices provided training and support.

5 At the centre of each LAN was a Compaq Proliant file server running Microsoft NT. The file server provided centralised file storage and hosted the regional copy of the Commission’s database.

6 The LANs in each of the four regional offices were connected together to create the Commission’s wide-area network (WAN). Each office was connected to its two nearest neighbours by means of a 64KB Diginet line, leased from Telkom. These lines carried the inter-office e-mail and shared the data between the regional copies of the database, using the X21 transport protocol.

7 For security reasons, there was no direct connection between the WAN and the Internet. Use of the Internet in the four regional offices was through a free-standing computer with no network connection. See diagram 1.1 below.