Across the globe, governments are changing the way they do business. As the move from administrative operations to service operations accelerates, so do government requirements for improvements in IT systems.

e-Government networks form the core of government IT systems. These networks face ongoing challenges with network interconnection, information security, data resource sharing, and application collaboration. A layered ICT platform is needed to distribute multiple intelligent applications and deliver smart services, meeting the needs of government and its citizens.

As the world’s leading supplier of ICT solutions, Huawei offers the e-Government Network Platform Solution to help governments transform the way they do business. This solution provides a comprehensive application support platform that meets government requirements for smart networks, security, cloud data centers, and collaborative office support.

Requirements and Challenges

Governments have always looked for ways to build service-oriented networks that feature openness, integration, high efficiency, transparency, eco-friendly design, and security for public services. Advanced information technologies now make this development possible. Government IT systems, especially e-Government delivery models, have made considerable progress in the past decades reshaping the process of government. Government networks, however, still face challenges in these areas:

Network interconnection

e-Government networks suffer from nonstandard network development, independent systems, and decentralized network design and development, leading to labor-intensive network maintenance and low operations efficiency. In one typical example, a high-level government organization includes 38 central government departments with more than 80 private government networks. If these networks were developed in a unified manner, the government could have saved an estimated US$8 billion to US$ 16 billion in construction costs.

Information security

Government entities require more advanced and secure e-Government networks to protect data from growing security threats and risks. Threats include unauthorized access to resources, malicious damage, and data intercepts. Security risks include virus, cyber attacks, and key information leakages. Experts agree that the majority of government information leaks occur on networks, making information leakage control critical in government network design.

Data resource sharing

e-Government systems in place cannot easily support information sharing and service collaboration. These difficulties reduce operation efficiency and create information silos in the network. Because governments typically develop their network systems independently, cross-department service collaboration is especially difficult. In the preceding example, only 5% of the 80 e-Government private networks in place support cross-department collaboration. What’s more, the duplication of ICT systems results in low resource utilization and poor return on investment. A recent survey shows that network resources developed in the last decade may have utilization rates lower than 10%. The continuing development of cloud computing technologies offers coherent technical support for the centralized and unified development of data and application systems.

Application collaboration

Most ICT systems can provide services across government departments; however, cross-department application collaboration is needed to create new work efficiencies and lower administration costs. Governments also face escalating meeting and travel costs. Cross-department application collaboration and resource integration addresses these problems with new, efficient services.

Huawei Solution

Solution Overview

With more than twenty years of experience helping governments build service networks, Huawei has developed an e-Government network platform solution tailored for government organizations and services. The solution consists of the e-Government network deployment, enhanced security protection, e-Government cloud platform, and collaborative office platform.

The network deployment, which forms the core of the e-Government solution, supports data access and transmission in a multi-layer structure and provides upper-layer application interworking and service platform data processing. The solution satisfies the requirements for all-IP and high-bandwidth services, ensuring a quality user experience while lowering operation risks and improving system reliability.

The following figure illustrates the network solution architecture.

Figure 1:e-Government network platform architecture

The e-Government network platform includes the following features:

• Interconnected and unified e-Government network
• Comprehensive security protection system that covers cloud platforms, transmission networks, and terminals
• Integrated e-Government cloud platform that provides data sharing and application support services
• Collaboration platform for government departments and administrative services
• Centralized and unified network operation, system maintenance, and service management

The e-Government network system design is based on the national e-Government backbone transmission network developed by Huawei. The e-Government backbone transmission network uses the extranet to integrate and optimize existing private service networks through a unified national e-Government extranet platform, facilitating cross-department interworking and seamless migration from IPv4 to IPv6.

Huawei tailored the e-Government cloud solution to support seamless migration as well so that resources in existing data centers and newly added servers can be managed efficiently. The solution easily accommodates the information security and system management requirements of different departments and supports government administration, public services, and basic information and resource sharing.

The collaborative office platform solution bears multiple government services including administration, management, coordination, instant messaging, video conferencing, supervision, and decision-making services. This solution enables efficient administration, information and resource sharing, and office collaboration within a single platform.

Highlights

Unified:

The unified e-Government network enables government departments to work efficiently with unified communications, mobile connectivity, and broadband services.

Secure:

The comprehensive security protection system implements exceptionally reliable information protection throughout the network.

Integrated:

The integrated e-Government cloud platform facilitates cross-department data and information sharing, which facilitates decision-making and eliminates risks.

Efficient:

The collaborative office platform drastically improves office efficiency and meets the requirements for IT-based economic improvements within communities and government organizations.

Unified e-Government Network Solution

Huawei developed the unified e-Government extranet solution to provide unified network design, to integrate multiple private networks, and to enable centralized, cross-level administration services with the goal of ensuring that government entities at all levels benefit from reliable network access, secure information protection, and unified voice, video, and data services.

Figure 2:Unified e-Government network solution architecture

Huawei's unified e-Government network solution provides access, migration, and maintenance services for Wide Area Networks (WANs), Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), and campus networks in a multi-level management system with a simplified administration interface. The multi-level and cross-department collaboration platform allows government employees to access the e-Government network any where at any time and offers interactive services for the general public as well, delivering efficient and available network-based services around the clock.

The unified e-Government network solution consists of the following sub-solutions:

• e-Government extranet LAN solution
• e-Government extranet MAN solution
• e-Government extranet district-level network solution
• e-Government extranet town-level network solution
• e-Government campus network solution
• Municipal office building network solution
• District office building network solution
• Private network migration solution
• Office building hall network solution
• Multi-level government network maintenance solution
• Level-3 network security protection solution

Highlights

• Complete network coverage

Huawei uses AR G3 routers to cover town-level and district-level networks. The system supports site deployment using USB flash drives for convenient deployment, operation, and maintenance.




The AR G3 routers support wired and wireless access with reliable dual-link upstream transmission links.




The carrier-class MPLS VPNs ensure smooth and reliable network transmission throughout the network.



• Integrated campus network

The solution integrates a stack of high-performance aggregation switches and highly reliable, loop-free Ethernet technologies.




The system employs a plug-in firewall design to prevent malicious attacks and ensure network information security.




The AR G3 router serves both wired and wireless networks for full coverage with a single device.



• Layered and efficient network operation and maintenance with the eSight network management system.

The unified network management system matches the hierarchical structure of governments, enabling flexible OAM support.




Network configuration templates support layered distribution, ensuring the smooth data transmission of VPNs.

Comprehensive e-Government Security Solution

The security of networks, information, and data is vitally important to governments. Governments need a complete, comprehensive, and active security protection system to protect their networks from growing security threats, such as cyber attacks, junk mail, viruses, unauthorized resource access, and illegal port eavesdropping or listening.

Figure 3:Comprehensive e-Government security solution architecture

Huawei's e-Government security protection solution provides a comprehensive network security protection system to protect cloud platforms, transmission networks, and terminals from unauthorized access and cyber attacks. Government security audit and certification policies protect terminals, devices, networks, and data centers. This new solution from Huawei uses physical, logical, policy, application, and access isolation to protect systems, satisfying the level-3 standard for government security protection. The solution also offers visual network monitoring tools for important early detection and response.

The solution protects e-Government networks against existing and potential threats from the intranet and extranet with these sub-solutions:

• Website and web application security protection solution
• File security protection solution
• Unified security audit solution
• Data center security solution
• Cloud platform solution
• Unified egress solution
• Online activity management solution
• Network border security protection solution
• Terminal security management solution
• Mobile office security solution
• Identity authentication solution
• Unified security monitoring platform solution
• Level-3 network security protection solution

Highlights

• The unified network egress management function reduces the risks of information leakage at Internet egress points.
• The unified and secure network access platform provides visual traffic management tools to detect and manage network risks.
• The border isolation and access control functions fulfill the requirements for level-3 security protection in government networks.
• The multi-level security information collection function triggers the system to send security alerts and reports when detecting security events.

Integrated e-Government Cloud Solution

As cloud computing technologies develop and mature, more governments plan to apply cloud-based services to improve resource utilization and eliminate information silos in networks. Cloud services, however, bring additional requirements for resource integration, cross-system collaboration, security protection, and unified system operations management.

Figure 4:Integrated e-Government cloud solution architecture

The integrated e-Government cloud solution from Huawei helps government customers address these challenges with resource integration, information security, cross-system management, and unified system operation and management.

• Network operation and management personnel can manage equipment rooms, infrastructure, and virtual resources in a unified way.
• The system supports dynamic network capacity adaptation for cloud resources and integrated management for computing, exchange, and storage networks.
• Differentiated security policies and customized management interfaces satisfy customer requirements, enabling customers to perform self-service resource and security management.

The integrated e-Government cloud solution includes these main components: modularized equipment room, e-Government cloud network, Galax virtual service platform, ManageOne unified O&M data center platform, cloud security protection system, and cloud data encryption service module.

The e-Government cloud solution consists of the following sub-solutions:

• National, provincial, and municipal cloud data center solutions
• Private cloud data center solution
• Cloud data center disaster backup solution
• Unified operation and maintenance solution for the cloud data center
• Cloud secure desktop solution
• Cloud security protection solution

Highlights

• Departments can perform rights-based and domain-based service management, preventing unauthorized access or operations.
• Government customers can use the differentiated Virtual Private Network (VPN) policies to ensure secure virtual resource utilization.
• The system supports unified management for multiple data centers with centralized management and control for L1, L2, and L3 resources, which boosts system O&M efficiency by up to 50%.

Collaborative e-Government Office Solution

Government organizations typically comprise multiple levels in complex structures, generating frequent internal communications, excessive approval processes, and massive file transmission. Traditional office application and meeting systems are not designed to meet government efficiency requirements that new IT developments can now support with ICT-based collaborative office support platforms.

Figure 5:Collaborative e-Government office solution architecture

The e-Government collaborative office platform solution uses advanced computing and communications technologies to support multiple administration applications, such as unified communications, video conference, secure desktop, office automation, and hotline. An IT-based, paper-free office that features digital resources, network data transmission, and statistics-based decision making can make huge improvements in government administration efficiency.

The collaborative office solution comprises the collaborative office, government information security, and unified communications platforms, which provide advanced features for security, mobility, and collaboration.

• The eSpace unified communications solution enables efficient office information collection and processing, quick data transmission, and statistics-based decision making, which facilitates service and information collaboration.
• The cloud desktop solution is secure and flexible, and meets government requirements for system security protection and terminal access control at the department level.
• The optimized remote video conference solution features high definition (HD), system integration, easy maintenance, and high security and reliability, which improves office efficiency and lowers conference costs.

The e-Government collaborative office solution consists of the following sub-solutions:

• Collaborative office service platform solution
• Video conference solution
• Unified communications solution
• Hotline service solution
• BYOD mobile office solution

Highlights

• Network video optimization technologies ensure that the system provides sufficient bandwidth resources and QoS for client services on request.
• Software Development Kits (SDKs) allow third-party vendors to integrate products with Huawei's network system, which offers flexible user options for video conference, voice communication, and data interaction applications.
• Encrypted signaling and media streams ensure complete information security.
• The multi-layer address book and Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) cascading multi-level network structure matches the hierarchical organization of governments, enabling the appropriate allocation of resources and user access controls for multi-site calls.

Conclusion

With increasing global competition, governments now place top priority on these features in e-Government networks: sustainable economic growth, smart and cost-effective social services and development, and simplified, efficient network administration. Governments recognize that an efficient and cost-effective e-Government network platform supports the development of innovative, service-oriented administrations. Huawei looks forward to cooperating with government customers and business partners to help the world progress towards the integration and development of smart government.