Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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Innovation with Open Source

Murali Sagi PSMDirector, Information Management and Corporate Services

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Presentation Outline:

Role of the Commission

Critical business applications

Why open source software?

Lessons learned

Key success factors

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Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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Role of the Commission: Provide ongoing education for judicial

officers

Assist courts achieve consistent sentences

Examine complaints against judicial officers

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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Critical Business Applications:

Judicial Information Research System

Case Management System

Offence Code Management System

XML Publishing System

Network Infrastructure

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Judicial Information Research System Over a 1000 users Web based application since 1994 Over 450,000 legal documents Over 500,000 sentencing statistics

Software Linux/Apache/Postgresql/PHP with a custom

search engine written in-house

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Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Operates in NSW District Court, Drug Courts and currently being implemented in a large government department for fine enforcement

First implemented in 2002

Relational Database of 208 tables

170,000 lines of PHP code

Tested for case load of 2.5 million cases and 45 million financial transactions

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Case Management System

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Client/Web Browser

Apache/PHP server

Postgresql DB server

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Case Management System Architecture

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Sector wide application used by Courts, Police, DPP, Corrective Services, Legal Aid and others

Operates on Open Source Software since June 2006

Relational Database of 50 tables 50,000 lines of code (J2EE) 61,000 separate Offence Codes

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Offence Code Management System

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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Offence Code Management System Architecture

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Used to prepare Bench Books, Legislation and Case Summaries

Single Source

- All documents stores as XML

- Can convert to HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF

- Uses XSL Style sheets for different outputs Software

- XML Mind XML Editor with DocBook DTD

- CVS – version control system10

XML Publishing System

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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XML Publishing System Architecture

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Authentication:

Single Sign-on via LDAP/Samba

User Information stored in Open LDAP Tree

Email Server: Postfix SMTP daemon Courier POP3/IMAP4 access IMP WebMail access

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Network Infrastructure

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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Linux Servers:

WWW/FTP/Email Server

Print/Proxy/DNS Firewall/Intrusion Detection

Samba Domain Server/CVS/File Server

Database and Application

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Choice

Value

Quality

Standards

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Why open Source Software?

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Steep learning curve

Require broad skill sets

Availability of support

Choice of vendors and hardware

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Lessons Learned

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Willingness to take risk

Right mix of experienced and new workforce

Creation of a learning and prototyping environment

Agile Development Methodology and Extreme programming

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Key Success Factors

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

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Using open source software in a business environment is challenging but if you use it appropriately it will deliver enormous benefits.

The Commission could not have achieved its outstanding success with technology without the flexibility and tools for innovation offered by open source software.

Conclusion

Judicial Commission of New South Wales

Questions

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