MISA March 08 final · MUNICIPALITIES in the MISA/ASIM Canada community now have a new channel for...

Fredericton E-nergizes Its CommunityCity’s award-winning community network brings new business opportunities and now, international stature

Also in this Issue: Networks: Extending the EnterprisePage

MISA/ASIM Canada municipalities gain new one-stop procurement site 5Municipalities access worldwide IT security resources through MISA Ontario 10Mobile networks and converging technologies encourage municipal creativity 16City of Nanaimo extends its marketing reach everywhere through Google Earth 20

A woman uses her laptop in a Fredericton park, reaching the Internet for free through Fred-eZone.

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National Professional Journal of MISA/ASIM Canada

Municipal Interface

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Journal of MISA/ASIM Canada

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MUNICIPAL Interface MARCH 2008

NewsMISA news across Canada 5

• National licensing agreements go live; update on MRMv2; associate-member luncheons; project survey in Ontario; more municipalities join national ERP users group; ISF resources available in Ontario

Municipal news 30• Municipalities invited to Ontario information-management

conference; two senior IT appointments announced; federal program facilitates broadband deployments

ColumnsPresident’s column – Keeping In Touch 4Roy Wiseman – Governance Issues 33

Report From RIMQMunicipal workers are vulnerable to cyber attacks 25

FeaturesNetwork makes Fredericton a Smart Community 13Mobile networks encourage municipal creativity 16Nanaimo gains worldwide notice via Google Earth 20IT departments labour under ‘cost centre’ image 22Rural Alberta county applies innovation to census 27

Advertisers Index Page

AGL Inc. 36

Agresso 6

CDW Canada 7

Com-Tech Learning Solutions 34

Datamex/NetClarity 32

Digital Boundary Group 17

ESRI Canada 31

Global DL 9

Mid-Range Computer Group 11

Ontario Government/IM Conference 29

Packet Works Division of Packet-Tel 14

Panasonic Canada 19

RIVA Online 26

TELUS 12

Teranet 2

THE POSITIONING of the information-technology departmentwithin a municipality is a primary concern to those whosupport and manage the departments. Of course, thisgreat interest in the governance of IT is neither new norunique: in all spheres of activity, it’s human nature to wantto highlight the uniqueness and importance of one’s missionwithin an institution, whether in the private or public sector.

In the municipal realm, there is no longer any doubtthat the top priority of managers and citizens is public safety.After this, who would question that the finance departmentis central to all decisions made in a city? The humanresources department also has its place: negotiations andwork relations, agreements, salary policies and so on.Many would argue that elections are won or lost on thebasis of issues concerning libraries, recreation, roadworks, culture and more. That’s likely very true! Maybeeven snow clearing in Québec this year!

But what about IT? Of course we’re important. Weknow that. But very important? Strategic? How strategic?

I can say that in Québec my colleagues at Réseau del’informatique municipale du Québec (RIMQ) don’t thinkwe’re strategic enough.

Not Enough CareIn 2006, RIMQ produced a paper on the omnipresence of IT in municipal departments. What stood out from theanalysis was that the increased use of IT in our organiza-tions wasn’t getting a fair return in terms of the care takenby our cities to plan and manage IT.

Our organizations’ multiple missions, the often tremen-dous sharing of influence and decisions, and the continued“technological” perception of our contribution to municipalperformance by our directors comprise a cocktail of expla-nations for the more or less strategic role we play. Wehave therefore decided to kick our anaylsis up anothernotch this year.

RIMQ will produce a paper on the place of IT in themunicipalities. We are obviously not trying to create a newthought process in this already highly documented topic.

We simply want to apply this study to our own context.We want to gather enough facts and demonstrations to raiseour managers’ awareness and enhance their management

model with the idea that IT people can (and do!) do morethan just provide them with useful and important systems.

IT professionals contribute to improving the city’s perfor-mance: business plans, process re-engineering, documenta-tion, document management, business continuity, projectmanagement, architectures, clearly defined roles andresponsibilities, recognized and strict practices, demonstrat-ed commitments, risk analyses, coherence, convergence,collaboration, and common and shared goals.

The list could go on and on. You know all that. But isthis embodied in our organizations? We know the answer– not well enough. But how do we get the message acrosswhere it needs to be heard and understood?

Basic QuestionsWe’ll try to answer a few basic questions:

• Is there a correlation between the position and importanceof the IT manager in the organization and its performance?

• Is this the cause or the consequence of performance?

• Is the public sector very different from the private sector?

• Is Québec different from the other provinces or theUnited States?

• What factors contribute to improving the strategic roleof IT in organizations? People, leaders, vision, afavourable culture?

We know from the get-go that, with the few means atour disposal, our little study won’t spark a new debate orput an end to the current one among our members. But webelieve that we’ll be able to add a bit of weight to ourdeep conviction when convincing managers that municipal-ities have everything to gain in considering the strategicaspect of IT in their governance and granting this businessunit the appropriate importance in their hierarchy.

I invite you to forward me one or two ideas, suggestionsor references (be concise!) on how to better position ITmanagement in your municipality at the following address:[email protected]. I’ll share our findings with you at the endof the year.

Merci !

dmalo@ville. montréal.qc.ca �

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The Place of ITIn Municipalities

Keeping in Touch

By Daniel MaloPresident, RIMQ

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MISA News Across Canada


MUNICIPALITIES in the MISA/ASIMCanada community now have a newchannel for purchasing goods and services – a one-stop Web page thatcontains special offers from vendorsthat are uniform across the country.

The special-offers page appears onthe Web site of MISA/ASIM Canada,www.misa-asim.ca, as well as sitespublished by member associations.

Publication of the special-offerspage, which initially contains offersfrom three companies, marks the firsttime that municipalities across Canadahave had equitably priced access tothe same products and services.

“Municipal governments need to achieve greater efficiencies by collaborating to apply technologies to improve their processes, includingprocurement,” said Kevin Peacock,president of MISA/ASIM Canada andbranch manager, corporate informationservices for the City of Saskatoon.

“The innovative companies thathave joined us to date in this initiativealso recognize the fairness of offeringstandard prices to municipalities in allregions through national licensing andprocurement agreements.”

Contracts with the three vendors –TELUS, Adobe Systems Canada andChalk Media Ltd. – were initially nego-tiated by MISA BC. They have nowbeen extended nationally and areavailable to any municipality that is amember of any of the five associationswithin MISA/ASIM Canada.

TELUS has simultaneously establishedits own Web site, www.telus.com/misa,linked to the MISA/ASIM Canada siteand describing its special offers indetail. In doing so it has become thefirst company ever to present a Website devoted to products and servicesoffered uniformly to Canadian munici-palities.

“Municipalities, large or small, can benefit from access to a singleresource offering solutions, productsand packages designed specifically to address the needs of MISA/ASIMCanada members and municipalemployees,” said Mike Martin, vicepresident public sector marketing for TELUS.

Technology ResourcesThe TELUS site offers a variety of busi-ness solutions including bundled offers,term extensions and value-added ser-vices. Also available are resources toprovide guidance on best practices fortechnology for the public sector, includ-ing white papers, case studies andresearch, along with advanced noticeof new products and events such asconferences and webinars.

Ottawa-based Adobe SystemsCanada is offering a standard 12-per-cent discount pricing on Adobe prod-ucts to municipalities that are membersof MISA/ASIM Canada associations.The pricing can be obtained by usingMISA BC’s CLP membership number orthe municipality’s own affiliate CLPmembership number if it has one.

Adobe’s CLP programs aredescribed at www.adobe.com/abouta-dobe/openoptions/clp.html. Munici-palities wishing to order Adobe prod-ucts through the MISA/ASIM Canadaspecial offer can contact SoftchoiceCorp. or any other Adobe authorizedsoftware reseller to ensure enrolment.

Chalk Media Ltd. of Vancouver isparticipating in the MISA/ASIMCanada special-offers programthrough an “eUniversity” portal established on MISA BC’s Web site,www.misa.on.ca.

The portal provides access to morethan 1,300 MindLeaders off-the-shelfcourses targeting IT personnel and endusers, available at uniformly discountedprices to authorized municipalities.Course-authoring software is alsoavailable for municipalities to producetheir own courses. The agreement withChalk also permits MISA BC to hostvendor-supplied courses on the portal.

Any municipality within the mem-bership of MISA/ASIM Canada asso-ciations wishing to make use of theseWeb-based training courses is askedto contact Colin Redwood of theCorporation of Delta, Chair of MISABC’s Education Committee, at [email protected].

Peacock said MISA/ASIM Canadais in talks with other companies andexpects to see more offers posted onthe national special-offers page soon. �

MISA/ASIM Canada Municipalities GainAccess to Money-Saving National Offers


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MISA/ASIM News Across Canada

WHAT BEGAN as a project to give municipalities a commonlanguage for organizing their service delivery has nowbecome part of a vision to align government services at alllevels across the country.

The Municipal Reference Model, Version 2 Project nowunder development by MISA/ASIM Canada is envisionedto become a foundation for a pan-Canadian referencemodel that would enable all governments to describe andmap their services in a coordinated way.

This could mean that companies that have expressedinterest in helping to build the MRMv2 might find that theproject has much broader scope.

MISA/ASIM Canada has invited private-sector partici-pation in establishing a set of modelling tools and a Web-based service to enable municipalities to collaboratewith each other and with other levels of government indescribing and analyzing their programs and services.That would mean that services could be aligned amongjurisdictions, something not possible today because munici-palities do not use common terms.

In the fall of 2007, MISA/ASIM Canada and theTreasury Board of Canada Secretariat made a joint proposal to the interjurisdictional Joint Councils to developa pan-Canadian reference model to be called theCanadian Government Reference Model (CGRM).

The Joint Councils gave their approval at a meeting inVictoria in February to proceed with the CGRM project, forwhich $50,000 has been allocated. It is understood thatthe CGRM may be built on the infrastructure acquiredthrough the MRMv2 Project, so the two projects are linkedand some of the $50,000 may be used to further theMRMv2 Project.

MISA Ontario, which is managing the MRMv2 Projecton behalf of MISA/ASIM Canada, invited the private sector last fall to submit proposals for implementing the project as a Web-based collaborative service.

Four proposals have been received, from: IBM Canada,two consortia called Fuseforward and Swift Fox, and atraining solution proposed by Nexient. These are beingevaluated by the MRMv2 Project team and its SteeringCommittee, led by Roy Wiseman, CIO of the Region of Peel.

Ten Ontario municipalities are represented on the SteeringCommittee along with the cities of Edmonton and Saskatoon.

Meanwhile Wiseman has been appointed co-chair ofthe Services Mapping Subcommittee of the Joint Councils,together with Gary Doucet, chief architect of the federalTreasury Board. This committee is directing a work plan fordevelopment of the CGRM and has begun meetings toengage the provinces more actively in the CGRM work.

The tentative work-plan schedule calls for implementationof the MRMv2 service by the end of 2008, with initialimplementation of the CGRM to follow early in 2009. �

Municipal Reference Model Version 2 ProjectBecoming Part of Interjurisdictional Vision


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ONTARIO MUNICIPALITIES are tendingto allocate their IT spending in 2008to upgrade and expand their existingcore applications and services beforeinvesting in new services, a survey ofMISA Ontario municipalities hasrevealed.

The survey findings, presented toattendees at the Associate MembersLuncheon on February 22, also revealthat municipalities will be devoting themajority of their IT project resourcesin 2008 to large projects typicallyaffecting the entire enterprise andrequiring multi-department collaboration.

The survey was undertaken inJanuary, using the iSurvey tool onMISA Ontario’s recently upgraded Website, www.misa.on.ca, to determinemunicipal priorities in implementinginformation and communications tech-nologies during the coming year.

Ralph Blauel, president of MISAOntario and director of technologyservices for Halton Region, saidresults of the survey, combined withanecdotal evidence, indicate munici-palities are tending to be conservativein their spending priorities in 2008.

The most significant new investmentswill be targeted for information management, specifically documentmanagement.

The most frequently cited types ofmunicipal projects in 2008 are:1. Municipal line-of-business applica-

tions such as tax collection andworkflow

2. Computer network/telecommunications

3. Computer systems includingfinancial, billing, HR and payroll

4. Document management systems

5. Strategic planning6. Server networking and

storage7. Intel servers/desktops/

notebooks8. Customer service/CRM9. Content management systems.

These nine categories covered 68per cent of all the project types reported. Survey responses werereceived from 52 municipalities,including 22 that identified themselvesfor publication. Detailed results arepublished in the Associate MembersInformation Zone in the MembersOnly section of the MISA Ontario site.

Of the 137 individual projectscited by respondents, 67 per cent

were large projects requiring 51 ormore working days for completion.

The two associate-member repre-sentatives on the MISA OntarioExecutive, Rob Corazzola of SAPCanada and Frank Abate of TrustTechnology Group told delegates thatthe Executive is planning annual surveys of this nature and hopes topublish information about municipalintentions looking three to five yearsinto the future. �

Survey PointsTo ConservativeSpending PlansIn Ontario

Patti McNabb of the County of Grey, standing atright, tells guests at the MISA Ontario AssociateMembers Luncheon what to look forward to at theannual conference in June.

Chapters Thank Associate MembersMISA CHAPTERS in British Columbiaand Ontario treated representatives oftheir associate members to lunch inFebruary to express appreciation fortheir support.

The BC chapter’s VendorAppreciation Luncheon welcomed 46associate-member reps to the PanPacific Hotel in Vancouver on February19. The event featured a presentationon the MISA West 2008 FallConference, to be held in theVancouver Island Conference Centre in Nanaimo on September 23-26.

Andy Cheng of Bell Canada, thevendor representative on the MISA BC

Executive, reported “very positive”response to the presentation by confer-ence chair Per Kristensen, chief technology officer of Nanaimo.

MISA Ontario’s event attractedmore than 100 guests to the NorthYork Memorial Hall in Toronto onFebruary 22.

Fred Snelling of the City ofHamilton and Patti McNabb of theCounty of Grey joined forces for apresentation on the MISA OntarioAnnual Conference and Trade Show,to be held June 8-11 at the BlueMountain Resorts near Collingwood. �

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A GROUP OF MUNICIPALITIES hasbegun an unprecedented series ofmeetings to share information withvendors of enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems as part of anational collaborative project.

The ERP Municipal Users' SpecialInterest Group, endorsed by MISA/ASIM Canada, represents about 15members of MISA Ontario and MISABC who are working collectively tofind the best ways of managing andacquiring ERP-related technologies in future.

This is the first time that municipalitiesin various parts of Canada have orga-

nized for the purpose of conductingresearch and coordinating strategiesin connection with a specific type ofmunicipal information technology.

A task force of several members ofthe users’ group has been consultingwith Canadian executives from SAP,Oracle and Microsoft as part ofpreparations to issue a market-wideRFI in late spring.

Each of the three companiesintends to hold a day-long consultationsession with the special-interest groupbefore the RFI is issued. Group mem-bers are preparing summaries of theirmunicipalities’ plans for ERP-related

technologies covering the next threeyears and will ask the vendors howthey could support those plans.

“The purpose is knowledge transfer,communication and dialogue aboutwhat we need and what the vendorscan provide,” Louis Shallal, chiefinformation technology officer of YorkRegion and founder of the users’group, told Municipal Interface.

The group plans a presentation atthe MISA Ontario annual conferencein June and is discussing a similarpresentation to the fall conference ofthe Municipal Finance Officers’Association of Ontario. �

Municipalities, ERP Vendors Open Dialogue


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By Brian WhitelawCity of London, Ontario

ALL MUNICIPAL MEMBERS within MISAOntario now have an opportunity tostrengthen their information-technologysecurity policies and practices bygaining access to the world’s largestonline collection of IT security resources.

Policy templates, best-practicedescriptions, research reports,advanced methodologies, softwaretools, a Standard of Good Practiceand more are available from theInformation Security Forum at anytime to representatives of membermunicipalities who complete a registration form.

The resources are useful to anysize of municipality. All ISF resources,including policy templates, can bedownloaded by members and adaptedfor their own purposes, with their ownbranding, without need to acknowl-edge ISF as the source.

Register for AccessThe resources are accessible on asecure extranet at www.securityfo-rum.org. To gain access, a municipalemployee must fill out a registrationform and send it by e-mail or post toan administrator at ISF’s head officein London, England.

The registration form can bedownloaded from the Members Onlysection of www.misa.on.ca. Eachmember municipality must have a pri-mary contact responsible for ensuringthat the access rights are allocatedand used appropriately.

The ISF is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to delivering best practices and tools forinformation security. It was establishedin 1989 as the European SecurityForum but later expanded its missionand membership base in the 1990s.

It has a membership in the hun-dreds, including Fortune 500 compa-nies and other high-prestige organiza-tions throughout the world. The ISFruns training sessions for the tools itcreates, as well as workshops wheremembers can network and share bestpractices.

It should be noted that these sessionsare free, although you must pay yourown travel and hotel expenses.Breakfast and lunch have been provided at any sessions I haveattended, so the costs to attend areextremely low compared with othertraining organizations.

The ISF produces reports and whitepapers based on these workshops. Italso has local chapters and holds alarge annual security conference.

The ISF is run by the members forthe members. It has a council and anexecutive responsible for governance,and a strict code of conduct.

How is it that a small municipalityin Ontario can be part of this world-wide organization? Well, MISAOntario is a member of the ISF.

Through the efforts of ClaireMcKay, manager of technology infrastructure with the Region of Peel,MISA Ontario became an ISF memberin February 2007. An ISF SpecialInterest Group of 33 municipalitiesvolunteered to pay for the first year of

membership and received access toISF resources.

That access is now extended toevery Ontario member municipality.The cost of ISF membership is beingshared by all members as a result ofa vote at the Annual General Meetingin June 2007, at which member representatives agreed unanimouslyto a fee increase in exchange forincreased member benefits.

Risk AnalysisExamples of what is availableinclude: IRAM (Information RiskAnalysis Methodology), a collectionof tools and best practices for riskanalysis; reports including InformationSecurity Policy Lifecycle andGuidelines, Best Practices forInformation Security, AligningBusiness Continuity with InformationSecurity; and many more usefulpapers and publications.

Municipalities can save significanttime and effort by taking some of theISF policies, procedures and publica-tions and adapting them for their ownneeds, rather than starting from thebeginning themselves.

For any administration or member-ship requirements for the ISF, pleasecontact Claire McKay [email protected]. Fortechnical or other questions, you cancontact the author.

Brian Whitelaw is manager of information services in the TechnologyServices Division of the City of London. He can be reached [email protected]. �

World-Leading Resources for IT SecurityNow Available Across MISA Ontario

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Community Network Helps MakeFredericton a Top Intelligent City


your organization, or your business wants to connect two or more facili-ties together, or connect to each other, perhaps we should talk.”

And there it was: you could see people getting it. By the time I gotback to the office, I already had two voicemails from folks wanting tobe part of Phase 1.

That was almost 10 years ago. Since then the fibre network hascontinued to grow. We have been extending the fibre backbone with a Motorola canopy (point to multi-point) wireless network.

Pretty much every year, existing or new members ask us to extendtheir reach to another area of the city. Each time they do, the FrederictonCommunity Network is extended – and for all members.

Then the call came – “Hey, we need Internet!!!”So e-Novations became an ISP.

Wi-Fi NetworkCool thing is, the community networking model (the people kind)worked here too. The City of Fredericton pooled its Internet needsalong with 25 other Fredericton Community Network organizations,and e-Novations brokered the wholesale provisioning of big future-sized pipes to the Internet.

And that’s when we came up with Fred-eZone. By now you have allheard of Fredericton’s free Wi-Fi network, right?

The only way this is possible is because it is built on a self-sustainingnetwork model. It’s free because it is built on a network (the wires andwireless) on behalf of a network (a community of people).

Community Network members have paid for the infrastructure andrelated services already. If there is unused capacity, why not give itaway as Fred-eZone?

Wi-Fi radios connect to the Community Network infrastructure forbackhaul. If the Internet capacity is not all used up, surely Fred-eZonecan offer it to residents and visitors as free Wi-Fi.

By Maurice GallantCity of Fredericton, New Brunswick

NETWORKS? THE TRICK may be in the networking!

Fredericton found this out over the past fewyears – that people are the most importantpart of its Community Network. Here’s how it all started.

It wasn’t very long ago that I rememberslamming the phone down in frustration.

“What do you mean, I can’t get a high--speed connection from City Hall to the PublicWorks Depot until next year?” And . . . “I have to pay how much?”

Remember those days, folks? I sure do. Itwas the late 1990s in Fredericton. and ourcommunity of 50,000 was a broadband“have not.”

But I needed to get these sites connected,right? What’s a guy to do? Beg? Plead?There’s got to be a better way. Hmmmm.

Well, we’ve come a long way, baby!Today Fredericton is probably the most networked community this side of Shanghai.

After exhausting every other possibility we decided to announce the build of a shortstring of fibre to extend our municipal networkand the creation of a not-for-profit, City-ownedtelco to manage that part of our business.Operating as a co-op, the company is callede-Novations and is classified as a data localexchange carrier, or DLEC.

When we created e-Novations it alsooccurred to us that if we had these needs andfrustrations, we were probably not alone. Sowe invited the community to our performingarts theater and announced that the City ofFredericton was going to install a fibre runfrom City Hall to the Public Works Depot.

At first we got blank stares. Then weadded, “If it so happens that your company,

Fredericton has already begun marketing itself as an intelligent community, a designation made possible by its fibre and wireless infrastructure.

Networks: Extending the Enterprise



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Our community has been building on this infrastructureever since, and it’s a recipe that seems to work pretty well.In January, Fredericton was named among the world’s TopSeven Intelligent Communities for 2008!

The designation was announced by the IntelligentCommunity Forum (ICF), a New-York-based think tank thatevery year selects one community from among its topseven to be the Intelligent Community of the Year. We willlearn May 16 during the annual Building the BroadbandEconomy summit in New York whether Fredericton will bechosen to succeed Waterloo, Ontario.

Now as many of you already know, developing andrunning a growing, organic data network can get crazysometimes. Over time our little network has become pretty complex.

To make matters even more challenging, expectationsare extremely high. Not long ago we were giving our staffinstructions on how to use dial-up when they were working

out of the office. It was understood that this was a less thanperfect solution.

“It should work,” I remember telling my boss at thetime. Can you imagine getting away with that today?

Not only do people need to connect, they need to doso with a bare minimum of special setup, they need accessto everything they have at work, and they will not put upwith the connection being slow!

Satisfying ChallengeI guess you could say we asked for it. Why else would weoperate a network that spans all corners of our city andserves as ISP to Fredericton’s top organizations? Havingset the bar so high forces us to keep up. What’s more, staff find the challenge motivating and satisfying.

To mitigate the risk of downtime caused by possible outage of our wholesale Internet provider, we now offerour Community Network members two diverse routes to the Internet!

To meet the expectation of the Fredericton CommunityNetwork membership, e-Novations tries to be a partner,helping members get to the top of their game. A state-of-the-art intrusion detection system from Q1 Labs (a communitynetwork member) helps keep the bad guys at bay.

New Paketeer gear now lets us offer dynamic bandwidthallocation, traffic shaping and QOS at the request of ourcustomers. While this would have been considered a luxuryonly a few years ago, now such tools are absolutely essen-tial. Today’s users need the ability to manage quality of service for VOIP applications and the capability of limitingthe use of certain type of downloads (movies) and peer-to-peer traffic (bittorrent).

As it turns out, our approach has proven to be quite positive.

Billboards advertise Fredericton’s ubiquitous Wi-Fi services.


First of all, it is important to realize that e-Novationscontinues to offer business solutions not available throughother carriers. Second and equally important is that, each timewe find an innovative way to meet the special requirementsof a Community Network member, this innovation becomesavailable to all members including the City of Fredericton.

Even better, most of the time we are able to share thecost of the innovation across a number of our members,thus reducing the costs.

Last but not least, this project has positioned the City ofFredericton as a partner in building a smart, dynamic andintelligent community. So much so that the ICF has recog-nized us for what we call our “World Class Smarts.”

In Fredericton, we have found that the key to gettingthings done is working together. While we are proud ofour digital network, the most important part of the FrederictonCommunity Network will always be the people.

Maurice Gallant is CIO and assistant director, CorporateServices, City of Fredericton and president of e-Novations.He can be reached at [email protected]. �


Above, a woman uses her PDA device in a town square nearFredericton’s City Hall.

At right, Maurice Gallant, who is secretary of MISA Atlantic, posesat far right with the team that made the successful submission to theISF to obtain Fredericton’s designation as one of the top IntelligentCommunities of 2008.

Below right, a crew installs fibre-optic cable for e-Novations.

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16

By Philippe JettéBell Mobility

This article is based on a presentation to the MISA BC FallConference in Penticton in September 2007.

WHEN BUSINESSES CONSIDER any technology implementa-tion, they evaluate the project against certain basic criteria:what benefits will this new implementation deliver, howmuch will it cost, how soon will it be in operation, andhow quickly will we see a return on the investment? Whilemunicipalities ask the same questions, they face additionalchallenges in the form of rigorous budgetary constraintsand a large and diverse user community.

Indeed, a recent study from Government Insights foundcost reduction is the number one priority for municipalities,with 23 per cent of respondents selecting it from among alist of 12 issues.

When it comes to improving networks, however, techno-logical advances are making it possible to extend thecapabilities of the enterprise while saving money at thesame time.

Speeding Data TransmissionThat was the situation in York Region, Ontario. It operatesa total of 700 travel signal locations across its 1,176square kilometres north of Toronto. Of these, 130 trafficlight and pedestrian crossing locations were centrally managed through a network of leased phone lines, whichlinked on-site 1200-baud modems to a central office.

While the management system worked, it had twodownsides. First, the leased lines were expensive, and second, the data transmission was slow and the type ofinformation that could be relayed was limited.

The Region decided it needed more traffic-routing capa-bility while also reducing its costs. The solution is an initiativewith Bell Mobility that is seeing the leased-line connectionsreplaced with modern wireless high-speed modems linkedto Bell's core digital network.

Following a successful pilot, the newly installed wirelessmodems are delivering improved real-time management oftraffic conditions, including the ability to make timing androute adjustments instantly as conditions change. This capa-bility will enable the Region to move toward an adaptivesignal-control system that will coordinate and adjust the lengthof traffic-signal phases based on real-time traffic conditions.

This improvement comes with a substantial cost saving:the new network connectivity reduced the monthly per-locationfee by more than 80 per cent, resulting in significant savingsover the course of a year. In turn, these savings can beinvested in deploying additional productivity solutions that will deliver both new efficiencies and improved municipal services.

Real-World PotentialThis situation -- in which functionality increases while costsdrop -- is becoming common today. It arises from a communityof networks, applications and devices that together enablemunicipalities to explore creative solutions, knowing thetechnology required to make those ideas work is available,reliable and even inexpensive.

Technologies are combining in ways that deliver morethan the sum of their parts. For example, two staples of themunicipal office environment -- desktop PCs and mobilehandsets -- are evolving and converging.

Handsets are adopting computing functions, such as theability to run customer-relationship-management, inventoryor database applications, while computers are becomingrich communication devices. Both of these developments

Philippe Jetté

Modern Mobile NetworksEncourage CreativityIn Extending the ReachOf Municipal Services


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are fairly new and, along with the high-speed communica-tions networks now available, combine to provide a platformon which to build advanced services.

So with network operators providing enabling technologiesto municipalities that, in turn, can deliver new services totheir citizens, creative solutions are set to increase bothfunctionality and efficiency.

One straightforward example is seamless network connectivity in which a device – and therefore its user –can move from one environment to another, always main-taining connectivity to the network and the Internet.

This means, for instance, that building inspectors canbegin the work day in the office, connected to the munici-pality's network. When they are ready to begin theirrounds, the inspectors undock their laptops, the computersconnect automatically to a high-speed cellular network –and employees are connected and productive all the time.

Truly Mobile WorkersWhile mobile workers are nothing new for municipalities(inspectors and maintenance crews are perhaps the bestexamples), the industry is now moving into a second phaseof mobility, one in which workers are productive outside ofthe office for the entire day.

Instead of having workers return at 3:00 pm each after-noon to complete the paperwork on their day's activities, theycan remain at their job sites by filling out electronic forms.

Instead of travelling back to the office for team meetings,employees can stay in the field and employ either video- or


Converging technologiesmean new opportunities



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voice-conferencing to collaboratewith colleagues.

Similarly, mobile employeescan check inventory supplies,order a part, track a shipment,or conduct almost any other formerly desk-bound businessprocess.

This means that a maintenanceworker who needs to replace a pump in a public pool canquery the parts tracking systemusing a handheld computer andlocate a city truck in the areathat has that part on board.

Using a GPS-based mappingapplication, the worker canmeet the truck, retrieve thepump, install it, then remove thatpart from the inventory systemand complete the maintenancelog on the pool – all withoutreturning to the office or a central depot.

Simply keeping mobile workers out of the office forgreater parts of the day is one of the quickest and mostdirect routes to a solid return on investment for municipalities.

Public SafetyIn addition to ROI, increased mobility can also make citizens safer by keeping police out on patrol for morehours of the day.

A large Canadian police force, for example, implementeda complete solution for in-car access to information systemsand electronic ticketing. Officers have in-cruiser mobileaccess to information on traffic flow, drug and contrabandmovement, and police policies and procedures. In addition,driver's licence information is scanned directly into mobilecomputers, and tickets can be created electronically andprinted from within each car.

In Ontario, the Hamilton Police Services recently imple-mented a similar system and, following its pilot project,then deputy chief Tom Marlor said, “If an officer has toleave a beat to go back to the station and complete areport, that can be a drive of 30 minutes, so that creates a large hole in our coverage.

“On top of the time spent driving, when an officer wantsinformation from a file he or she had to give a record number to someone in the records office at the station whowould go to a file cabinet, pull the record, photocopy it,

give it to the officer, and then re-file the paper. On top ofthat there would sometimes be mis-files. So you have allthese staff hours wasted.”

The goal of these new systems, he said, is to improvethe safety of the municipality's citizens.

“If we can get our response time reduced to anabsolute minimum, then there is a greater chance of protecting public safety, and there’s also a greater chanceof making an apprehension.”

The Mobile OpportunityBecause of this community of networks, applications anddevices, it is not overly bold to state that municipalities canopen their minds to imagine advanced systems that deliverbetter access or services for citizens or create internal efficiencies for service delivery.

These systems can be built quickly and inexpensivelyand can deliver significant returns in short order.

The convergence of devices, networks and applicationsis an opportunity for municipalities to become creative andinnovative when it comes to service delivery.

If you can imagine it, mobile operators are able to helpyou build it!

Philippe Jetté is vice president, Wireless Data Solutions, Bell Mobility and can be reached at [email protected]. �

Philippe Jetté addresses delegates to the MISA BC 2007 Fall Conference in Penticton on the subject of convergence of mobile technologies.



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By Guillermo FerreroCity of Nanaimo, BC

VISITORS TO GOOGLE EARTH can inspect almost everysquare centimetre of the City of Nanaimo.

Citizens who visit http://earth.google.com and down-load the free software can zoom in on satellite imagery ofcity landmarks, arriving ferries and even local bus routes,viewing them as if they are flying overhead. Tourists anddevelopers – in fact any of the more than 250 millionusers of Google Earth – can find what they need, one click at a time.

Michael Jones, chief technical officer at Google Earth,based at the headquarters of Google Inc. in MountainView, California, says the City of Nanaimo is the world’smost active supplier of geographic data to Google.

How is it that a city on Vancouver Island with a popula-tion of just 80,000 gets this type of recognition? Primarilyit’s due to the efforts of a forward-looking organizationand talented staff.

The City of Nanaimo has been gathering GIS data fortwo decades and has spent the past few years sharing thisdata with external organizations like Google Earth thatcan make excellent use of data visualization.

While electronic geographical data collection isn’t anew concept, massive data-delivery tools like Google Earthor Google Maps are. They have changed the way we lookat the world.

Time has proved that the value of massive data distributionis here and growing rapidly. In Nanaimo you can now seewhere businesses are located by industry, decide whereyou will purchase your new house, or see a virtual tour ofthe city.

Although Google created the tools, the power to makeapplications more valuable for users stays with local governments. Local governments possess more geographicdata about their cities than anyone else in the world -- andGoogle wants it.

NanaimoExtends ItsInformationNetworkWorldwideBy SharingGIS DataWithGoogleEarth Site This screen shot from Google Earth shows an overview of the City of Nanaimo on

Vancouver Island from its harbour to its suburbs approaching the mountains. Nanaimo provides more data to Google Earth than any other city.


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Getting StartedA few years back the senior information technology teamfaced the question of whether sharing publicly availablecity data with external organizations would have value forour residents.

Great support from senior management visionaries andtalented staff like Jason Birch, the City’s senior systems analyst, made this project a reality. The City decided tostart an experimental project making layers of geographi-cal information, which are already available via CityMap(Nanaimo’s public Mapguide Web mapping tool), available in KML.

KML is an XML-based language for describing three-dimensional geospatial data and is on track to become anopen standard through the Open Geospatial Consortium.

The City of Nanaimo has chosen three initial layers – its cadastral base, a virtual downtown and business data –to show off the power of 3D visualization when applied tolocal data.

The possibilities are certainly not restricted to theseexamples, though local governments can expose any infor-mation they have already collected relatively easily. Mostmajor GIS packages now include the capability to exportdata into KML format, either natively or through free orlow-cost extensions.

In addition, larger data sets such as a parcel map canbe easily published through KML Web services using opensource tools like MapGuide Open Source or GeoServer,proprietary tools like ArcGIS Server, or as easily as writingPHP, .Net or Java code that runs directly against a spatial-ly-enabled database like Oracle, PostGIS or MySQL.

Once you have published your data to KML, GoogleEarth takes care of the rest, enabling you to visualize thatdata in an environment people are familiar with.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to findingapplications for this technology. Organizations could useKML and Google Maps to visualize fire and rescue incidents,or amenities for their parks. If you have the data, Googlewill display it using their amazing tools.

Using OrthophotographyOrthophotography is another layer of information the Cityof Nanaimo decided to contribute to Google. When youzoom into Google Earth or maps to see more details abouta particular city, you’ll find that some cities, including theCity of Nanaimo, have contributed photography that displaysa higher quality image.

The City of Nanaimo shared its 10 cm orthophotos withGoogle so users can explore our city with the same detail

we get with our internal tools. Although called “satellite”images by Google, when it comes down to the street level, you’re looking at aerial photos provided by ourEngineering Department.

Last year’s fires in Southern California showed howimportant public access to geospatial information can be intimes of crisis. In this case, news agencies stepped up andcreated their own KML layers in Google Maps but, if localgovernment and disaster-response organizations had dataavailable in open formats such as KML and GeoRSS, publicdemand for information could have been met with lesseffort and more accuracy.

It’s a Win Win!It is part of our mandate to provide better services to ourresidents. Taking advantage of these new easy-to-use technologies helps tourism, businesses and our residentsand has the potential to help in times of crisis. It’s a win-win situation!

Sharing data and putting stored data to imaginative usewill take application development to the next level. TheCity of Nanaimo continues researching these technologiesproviding not only local users but the entire world withmore and more online Web-based services.

Guillermo Ferrero, [email protected], is manager of businessapplications at the City of Nanaimo and treasurer of MISABC. Nanaimo will be host of the 2008 MISA BC FallConference, September 23-26. �


These 3D buildings are GIS data that has been draped on top of the Google Earth imagery and elevation model.

By Louis ShallalYork Region, Ontario

A FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE faces municipal CIOs today: how to changethe vision of IT from a cost centre to an opportunity centre.

This is a complex issue, the solution to which lies in the leadership ofthe CIO, the general buy-in by municipal senior management of theCIO’s plans and vision, and overall growth in skills of staff as theybecome knowledge workers.

Core and Overhead ServicesI contend that IT should never be viewed as a profit centre because its raison d'etre is to enable the business of the municipality through its support function. To address the fundamental issue, two concepts of municipal service delivery need to be described – core and overhead services.

Those municipal services generally delivered by operating depart-ments are referred to as core services, as opposed to those servicesthat are delivered by support departments, which are usually referredto as overhead. It has been a longstanding practice to refer to theseoverhead services as "cost centres" in support of the core services, andtraditionally it has been the practice to refer to these cost centres as thecost of doing business for the municipality.

Included in the core services are those delivered directly to residentsand businesses by departments such as Roads, Health Services, SocialServices, Planning, Zoning and Emergency Services.

Overhead services, on the other hand, generally refer to HumanResources, Financial Services, Legal Services, Clerk and bylaw servicesand IT. My contention is that IT in particular should be viewed not as acost centre but an "opportunity centre."

Views of Information TechnologyWe must start first with an appropriate definition of what IT is. A generalmisconception exists in non-IT fields that IT is mainly about the PC onclients’ desks and the associated help-desk services. On the contrary, ITis also about network computing, information architecture, applicationdevelopment and customization, data centre management, businessand geographic information systems management, as well as applica-tions, records and document management, telecommunication and ahost of other functions and activities.

While not intended to be comprehensive, these examples illustratethat IT is much broader in scope than conventional wisdom may hold.

A further complication of the IT definition is the degree to which staffin core services use IT versus those in the support or overhead areas.

Slowly but surely, more and more IT servicesare being developed in a decentralized fashion.In the near future, most of the operatingdepartments’ staff will have significant IT skillsand tools to make them self-sufficient from thecore corporate central function generallyreferred to as IT.

This trend is inescapable. Most officeemployees have access to a desktop, laptopor a PDA device, which implies that sooner orlater there will be a total independence of theIT client (end user) from corporate IT staff.

Granted, there will always be a gradationof the abilities of different people to use tech-nology, but the minimum bar in the use oftechnology continues to rise, particularly asmore Gen X tech-savvy employees enter thelabour force and rise through the ranks.

This will create greater decentralization ofthe IT function into the operating departments,as well as convergence and absorption of theIT function by the business function. While Irealize, of course, the inevitable overlap andconvergence of the IT function in the years tocome, I also believe that other forces at playwill modify this conclusion.

IT Skills Raise the BarWhy do I say this? Because as technologyand innovation continue at an exhilarating pace,more and more specializations will surface.This has been the case in other fields of humanknowledge. As a result of these rapid changesin technology, there will be a greater need foreven more specialization in both the IT depart-ment and the business functional areas.

In effect, the bar on the minimum technicalknowledge requirements will be raised asemployers will demand more from municipalknowledge workers in the future. My contentionis simply that raising the skills bar is a funda-mental prerequisite to greater knowledgeworkers’ involvement and participation in theworkforce. IT skills in particular will be one ofthose essential factors in raising the bar.

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IT Departments ChallengedTo Overcome ‘Cost Centre’ Image

Let me get back to my original point with respect to ITas a cost centre and add a third complexity to the equation.

IT costs are generally described as either operatingcosts or capital costs. Central corporate IT costs may beviewed as “discrete and traceable” capital and operatingcosts. This is not the case with IT costs in the operatingdepartments.

The non-corporate operating and capital costs are muchharder to estimate. In fact, they are more often than nothidden as part of projects and the program-delivery func-tion of the operating core departments.

Furthermore, costs for staffin the core functional areasperforming IT type of work areextremely difficult to quantify.Aside from the complexity ofassigning IT-related operatingcosts, assigning or identifyingIT capital costs is even harder.This is because they are invari-ably built-in or included as acomponent of the overall pro-grams and projects deliveredby the operating departments.

From an enterprise perspec-tive, tracing the total cost ofownership of IT is extremely difficult and it could easily bedouble or more of that of the corporate IT centre.

Does it matter that we ask the question, “What is thetotal IT cost in a subject municipality”? My answer? Yes, it does.

Budgets Influence PerceptionFrom my personal experience, I’ve noted as I’ve comparedthe numbers I see in different budgets from various munici-palities that the cost centre for IT varies from as low as halfof one per cent of the municipal total cost to as much asfive per cent of the total cost.

The municipal total cost I’m talking about is closelyrelated to the combined annual operating and capital budget. Some progressive municipalities may push theenvelope even further and devote as much as seven percent of their total municipal budget to IT-related expendi-tures in a "broader" definition.

While I would love to have the data to support myhypothesis, I believe that those municipalities that devote alarger percentage cost to IT would be more likely to treat ITas an opportunity centre than those that devote a muchsmaller percentage cost to IT.

The latter municipalities therefore are much more likely toview IT as simply a cost centre or the cost of doing business.As I will discuss, the percentage of total budget devoted toIT is not the only measure of importance or the opportunitythat IT provides to a municipal organization.

The role and reporting relationship of the CIO as wellas the overall engagement of the staff of the municipality inIT in adopting technology are two additional effective indi-cators and contributors to IT adding value and maximizingthe total value of ownership.

IT as an Opportunity CentreSo, when does the IT shop change from a cost centre to anopportunity centre?

As I said at the beginning, I believe the answer lies inthe leadership of the CIO, the general buy-in by municipalsenior management of the CIO’s plans and vision, andoverall growth in skills of staff as they become knowledgeworkers.

Ideas and innovations are the main fuel needed to lightthe opportunity centre fires. Leadership of line managementof the core departments brings the innovations to fruition,and senior management commitment and support givesthem wings.

Very few municipalities would have all of these ingredi-ents. In fact, the main challenge for the municipal CIO is tocultivate these attributes in the municipal organization.

While IT as an opportunity centre would provide signifi-cant dividends to the organization, it can also bring a highdegree of risks and uncertainty typically associated with ITprojects and more generally with innovation.

It’s apropos to refer to progressive IT centres as leadingedge as opposed to bleeding edge. Municipal CIOs whohave mastered running their IT shop as an opportunity centre would base their investment in innovation on solidbusiness cases rather than the desire to be first or for self-promotion.

In the IT world in particular, the path to failure is pavedwith dreams and good intentions. I have seen a number ofsuch failures in a number of municipalities who have investedsignificant sums of money without business cases and withminimal probability of success.

On the other hand, I have also witnessed many projectsin different municipalities that adopted a comprehensiveand systematic approach to their IT investment decisions.The IP telephony project in Hamilton was an excellentexample of successful investment that capitalized on newtechnology and used a solid business case.

The Role of the Municipal CIO Three factors determine the effectiveness of a CIO in amunicipal setting. First, the CIO’s reporting relationship tosenior management; second, the span of influence the CIOexercises; and third, the impact of the CIO's decisions onthe organization.

The bread and butter of the IT shop is the help deskand the network that supports the delivery of the IT functionacross the organization. This is what keeping the lights on

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Louis Shallal

is all about. I firmly believe that, without this bread-and-butterfunction, a central IT shop in a municipality would not exist.

On the other hand, the proliferation of the IT shop toencompass numerous functions in a municipality in a centralized fashion has dramatic effect on the ability of the operating areas to generate innovative ideas andapplications.

I have long been a proponent of the hybrid servicedelivery model of the IT function. This is characterized by acentral corporate IT shop charged with the bread-and-butteroperations, and the policy and control function supportingand enabling a decentralized service-delivery function inthe operating departments.

I believe the operating departments must have centresof expertise and excellence that serve the core businessfunction of each department with staff that report directly tothe central corporate function, but these staff are “embedded”in the operating departments and functionally report tomanagement in the operating departments. This conceptmerits a separate discussion in another article perhaps.

Reporting ModelsThere are basically two organizational reporting modelsfor the CIO. 1) The CIO or the municipal IT director reports to the

general manager of corporate services or the chieffinancial officer.

This appears to be the standard practice nowadays inmany municipalities in Canada and particularly in Ontario.

Many think tanks have stated that such a reporting rela-tionship renders the IT function to a back-office applicationand tends to provide only a support service to the linedepartment in which it is located. In such situations andparticularly because of the likelihood that the general managermay not be IT savvy, the IT director is often called to seniormanagement to explain technology-specific initiatives.

Nevertheless, rarely in this reporting structure does theCIO/director of IT have an ability to influence the deliveryof core business functions and services. Furthermore, in thismodel, most of the efforts at standardizing IT functions andservices generally do not meet with any significant success.2) The CIO/IT director is part of the senior manage-

ment team.

In this model, the CIO exercises significant influence onhow IT standards and policies are adhered to and play arole in maximizing the value of technology investmentthroughout the organization.

The drawback most of the time comes from a perceptionthat the CIO is exercising an unwelcome control over theway that the line department heads want to run their func-

tional or core service organizations. Once again, basedon my experience, I would recommend a protocol wherebythe CIO would be part of the senior management whendecisions encompassing or affecting IT are discussed at thediscretion of the CAO.

This would ensure that the CIO restricts his or her influenceto only those aspects that other senior management membersfeel are appropriately under the advisement of the CIO.Furthermore, this would ensure that the CIO would notrequire an interpretation of senior management direction,as would be the case if the CIO was to report to one of thesupport departments such as Corporate Services.

Supplementing the above role, I believe that the CIOshould report to the city manager/CAO office directly ontechnology strategy development (every three years or so)and on its update (annually), while at the same time headthe IT function reporting to the department head of the sup-port department (corporate services or CFO) for functionalreporting purposes.

I realize this model is not as clearly defined and delin-eated as perhaps many believe it should be, but with gradualand appropriate cooperation and coordination, this modelwould work best especially in mid-sized to large municipalities.

In fact, I believe such a reporting model is complemen-tary and a prerequisite reporting model if the municipalorganization is to have IT centres of expertise embedded inthe operating departments.

Finding the Right BalanceThe greatest dilemma the CIO in a municipality faces isfinding the appropriate balance between providing thesupport services the organization needs and influencingthe overall corporate mission and mandate by addingvalue – not just support – to the organization.

I have highlighted those aspects that would minimizethe CIO dilemma and also prescribed a middle-of-the-roadmodel that brings in an organization structure to align thecorporate IT function with the mandate of the individualoperating department.

To state the obvious, while organization structures aremeant to bring order from chaos, nothing substitutes forhuman skills and personal attributes. Indeed, these dictateto a much greater extent the success or failure of any ITservice delivery model and in turn the success or failure ofthe municipal CIO.

Let the debate continue.

Louis Shallal is chief information technology officer at YorkRegion, a past Executive member of MISA Ontario and afounder of MISA/ASIM Canada. He can be reached [email protected]. �

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Editors’ note: This article is contributed by Réseau de l’Informatique Municipale du Québec (RIMQ). Itdescribes how municipal employees are vulnerable tocyber attacks when they surf the Web and explainswhy it is now common for municipalities to filter thesites that employees can browse.

Dans l’bon vieux temps…Avec toutes les menaces que comporte le cyberespace,

c'est-à-dire « Internet » dans son sens large, il est devenuimpensable pour une organisation de n’appliquer aucun filtre sur les sites Internet que ses employés peuvent visiter,que cette organisation soit petite ou très grande. Ce filtrageest réalisé au moyen d’un logiciel et permet à l’organisationun meilleur contrôle de son utilisation d’Internet.

Avantages du filtrage Internet WebIl y a de nombreux avantages pour les organisations à filtrerleur accès Internet. En voici quelques-uns généralementreconnus comme étant les plus profitables:• Réduction du risque d’atteinte à la réputation de

l’organisation, car de nombreux sites à risques sont bloqués;

• Réduction du « flânage » sur Internet par l’interdictionde sites web inappropriés à l’organisation. Certainsanalystes estiment que 30 à 40% de l’utilisationd’Internet en entreprise n’est pas reliée au travail;

• Protection contre les sites web illégaux;• Protection accrue contre les logiciels malveillants par le

blocage des sites de distribution et les pages infectées.Des études récentes démontrent qu’environ 10% dessites Internet comportent des logiciels malveillants;

• Diminution potentielle des coûts d’utilisation Internet due à une utilisation réduite (ou plus efficace) de l’accès Internet;

• Utilisation optimale de la bande-passante pour lesbesoins d’affaires;

• Rapports d’utilisation disponibles en tout temps afin de faire un suivi efficace de l’activité des employés sur Internet;

• Protection accrue contre l’hameçonnage (« phishing »),les sites permettant aux pirates de demander aux util-isateurs des informations sensibles, comme les fauxsites bancaires, peuvent désormais être bloqués.

Différents types de filtrage WebPréalablement, la direction de l’organisation doit statuersur une politique de filtrage qui explicitera notamment àquelles catégories de sites les employés peuvent accéder.Le logiciel de filtrage doit ensuite être alimenté de cesinformations. Contrairement aux croyances populaires, iln’y a pas que les sites pornographiques qui devraient êtrebloqués au travail, il devrait en être de même pour les sitesprésentant un danger pour les actifs informationnels, lessites de piratage, etc. Ce filtrage peut être réalisé de différentes manières :• Filtrage par adresse Internet: ce type de filtrage est le

plus répandu dans les organisations. À chaque visited’un site web, le filtre vérifie la catégorie du site webdemandé, valide la catégorie avec la politique enautorisant ou en refusant l’accès au site. Son efficacitéest sujette à une fréquence élevée de mise à jour del’engin de filtrage pour que celui-ci reconnaisse les nouveaux sites qui se créent sur Internet. En général,plus le fournisseur du logiciel est gros, plus il y a declients et plus le filtrage sera efficace.

• Filtrage par contenu : le logiciel installé analyse le con-tenu du site web (et non la catégorie) avant l’affichageà l’utilisateur et détermine si l’utilisateur devrait y avoiraccès d’après la politique. Les critères de filtrages sontpropres à chaque solution technologique.

• Filtrage de menaces : complémentaire aux autres typesde filtrage, celui-ci est très souvent implanté comme filtrage supplémentaire. La plupart du temps, ce filtreest transparent pour l’utilisateur, sauf dans le cas où lefiltre détecte un logiciel malveillant (virus, logiciel espion,etc.) téléchargé par l’utilisateur (volontairement ouinvolontairement). Dans ces cas, il est commun de voirle site web s’afficher quand même, mais après que lefiltre ait retiré la portion de code du logiciel malveillant.

Forme d’un logiciel de filtrage WebDans la plupart des cas, la solution de filtrage est implantéeentre le réseau de l’organisation et le modem d’accèsInternet. En général, le logiciel de filtrage prend la formed’un équipement contenant un système d’exploitation propreau fournisseur de la solution (« appliance »); c’est la solutionla plus simple mais généralement la moins personnalisable.Par contre, dans les grandes organisations, le logiciel defiltrage peut aussi être installé directement sur un ou des

Le filtrage Internet Web: à ne pas négliger!

Report from RIMQPar Michel NantelVille de Montréal


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serveurs dédiés, dépendamment des besoins et de l’architecture requise par la solution. Dans les très petitesorganisations, des logiciels de filtrage peuvent être installéssur les postes de travail, et ce, bien que cette configurationne soit pas recommandée.

Coûts du filtrage WebBien qu’il existe des solutions gratuites, celles-ci ne sontgénéralement pas assez efficaces et demandent une personnalisation constante. Afin de bénéficier d’un filtragepertinent et utile, une solution commerciale doit être privilégiée à une solution gratuite.

Dans les solutions commerciales, le fournisseur ahabituellement un système de catégorisation de site éprouvéet un centre de surveillance avec des analystes qui catégorisent en temps réel les nouveaux sites Internet, ceque ne permet pas un logiciel gratuit. Sur le marché, onretrouve notamment ces fournisseurs de filtrage web:Websense, Surfcontrol, SonicWall, Bluecoat, Barracuda,ContentKeeper, etc.

Les solutions commerciales offrent pour la plupart dulogiciel/matériel initial à acheter. L’organisation doit

ensuite se procurer une licence d’utilisation d’après le nombred’utilisateurs d’Internet à filtrer. Le coût de revient par utilisateur est relativement bas, soit rarement plus d’unevingtaine de dollars par utilisateur par année. Il est importantégalement d’évaluer les différentes solutions car tandis quecertains fournisseurs offrent des fonctions supplémentairesà l’aide de modules optionnels payants, d’autres l’offrentgratuitement. Inévitablement, un produit de qualité reviendraplus cher, mais pourrait éviter bien des tracas à votreorganisation!

ConclusionBien que l’implantation d’un logiciel de filtrage puissedemander des efforts initiaux élevés et nécessiter l’aided’un spécialiste, les avantages pour l’organisation se fontressentir presque instantanément. Les gains réalisésdépassent en quelques mois, voire quelques semaines, les coûts d’acquisition et d’implantation.

Michel Nantel est Conseiller en sécurité informatique Divisiontechnologies – Direction des systèmes d'information, Ville deMontréal. �

By Therese MorrisMountain View County, Alberta

WOULD YOUR MUNICIPALITY benefit from more provincialgrant funds? Mountain View County in rural Alberta explainshow its new census resulted in more accurate populationdata – and more money for essential programs.

Located about 80 km north of Calgary, this rural municipality encompasses a market area of 8,000 square kilometres and is home to 5,300 residences.

According to the new 2007 census, it has a populationof 12,570 with another 18,000 residents living in the fiveurban centres within the County – Olds, Didsbury, Carstairs,Cremona and Sundre.

In “Sure Crop Country,” agriculture is the backbone,with 1,800 farms and ranches spanning 3,800 squarekilometres. Given the close proximity to Calgary andAirdrie, development has increased over the past fiveyears, challenging our ability to provide funding to socialprograms, maintain and build infrastructure, and keep upwith current growth.

Since provincial grants are based on population, accuratepopulation counts are essential, and many felt that the federal2006 census did not capture the true picture of this growth.As a result, we conducted a 2007 census, using ArcGIS v. 9.1 software from Environmental Systems ResearchInstitute (ESRI).

The primary goal of our 2007 census was to determinean accurate population for Mountain View County and itsage groups for community-planning purposes. The sec-ondary goal was to be able to see the demographics ofthis population. We suspected that the majority of thepopulation was on our western fringe, but we wanted thenumbers to speak for themselves.

ChallengesThe biggest challenge was the short time frame for thisproject. Preparations didn’t get under way until May2007 – and the data needed to be submitted by affidavit toAlberta Municipal Affairs by September 1, 2007.

We selected June 11, 2007, as our “Census Day.”This gave us one month to run ads in local papers informingcitizens that enumerators would be coming to their doorsand that we were hiring enumerators. It also gave us time

to create enumeration areas, prepare enumerator packagesand maps, and input data into our system.

From June 11 to July 15, enumerators were out collectingresident information and, from July 15 to August 31, datawas input and time scheduled to ensure that a packagewould be ready for submission to Alberta Municipal Affairs.

Data TypesTwo types of data were used in this project including ourexisting GIS/hardcopy data and new soft-copy dataacquired during the census.Existing Data – See Figure 1. a) GIS data – existing data sets that were used included

road data, rural addressing data and the Countyboundary. The road data comprised line data capturedby GPS in 2004 and maintained in-house on a monthlybasis. The rural addressing data is a point data set thatuses a point to represent each house within the Countyand assigns a civic/street address to each home. Thisdata was created for emergency services purposes in2004 and is locally maintained. The County boundaryis a polygon data set that encompasses the entireCounty, excluding towns.

b) Hard-copy data – this comes from federal census enu-meration hard-copy maps that outlined enumerationareas used in the 2006 federal census. These were

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Rural County Manages CensusUsing Integration and Innovation


Figure 1 – This map of Mountain View County shows road data and uses a point to represent each of the 5,300 residences. This data was created for emergency-service purposes in 2004 and maintained monthly.

downloaded from the Statistics Canada Web site in thehope that we could use these same boundaries for ourenumeration areas.New soft-copy data – data from enumerators was inputinto a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and integrated withour existing rural addressing data.

Short PreparationWith enumeration starting on June 11, we had one monthto prepare for this massive project. Enumeration areas,maps, forms and training had to occur within the firstmonth of the project.

Enumeration Areas – See Figure 2.Because the federal enumeration areas were too large anddid not incorporate local knowledge, we needed to reducethe size of these areas and minimize the travel distance foreach enumerator.

By using our rural addressing data, we were also ableto give each enumerator a fairly equal number of residencesto visit. Along with this data and these parameters, highwaysand major connector roads were used to split the County(using the County boundary GIS layer) into enumeration areas.

Using highways and major connectors meant that theboundary of each area would be well defined, and itwould also eliminate the need to cross over these busyroads, thus increasing safety.

Enumeration MapsMaps were created for each enumeration area that includedall roads with applicable township, range road or highwaylabels. All rural address points were included to show enumerators where houses were located. Each enumeratorreceived two copies to use for navigational purposes, aswell as to record where they had been on a daily basis.

Enumeration FormsWhile we were hoping to collect very comprehensive infor-mation from people, our intent was to be less invasive thanthe federal census – we didn’t want people to feel that wewere asking for too much personal information. In the endwe limited our questions to the number of residents andtheir ages, which we broke down as follows:• Ages 0-5, preschool-aged children• Ages 6-17, school-aged children• Ages 18-24, post-secondary-aged adults• Ages 25-54, majority of work force• Ages 55-64, work force close to retirement• Ages 65+, retired residents.

We exported our rural address GIS data to create aspreadsheet with owner name, rural address, legal landdescription, rural address signage status and age information.Using this spreadsheet, we created a mail-merge documentfor the enumeration forms so we could easily include therural address and legal land description on the form.

In conjunction with the census we also wanted to determine the compliance of rural address signage by residents. Enumerators were directed to use a check marknext to the rural address if the residents had their ruraladdress sign posted.

This data was then input into this spreadsheet and, viaGIS, was used to connect the census data to our ruraladdressing data, creating a new demographics database.

Callback SheetsEnumerators could leave behind a brightly colored callbacksheet for residents who were not home during the initialvisit, giving them the option of calling in their information.

Enumerator TrainingEnumerators were provided with a one-hour training sessionto make them familiar with the rural addressing system andhow to fill out enumerator forms.

Results Confirm SuspicionsThe outcome of this massive project confirmed our suspicions– the federal 2006 Census statistics were low.

The final numbers from our 2007 census succeeded inadding 179 people to our population statistics, translatinginto approximately $179, 000 in provincial grant funds forour municipality. This additional funding can now be usedto provide increased support for social programs, whichare also calculated on a per-capita basis.

Although our primary goal was to acquire our populationcounts, the use of GIS has permitted us to go far beyondour original goals.

We have used this integrated data set to determine thepopulation in each electoral division, recreation area andhealth region.

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Figure 2 – Enumeration areas were created using major roads and rivers as boundaries. Enumerators used the maps to record their progress.

In fact, this process also means we must align our electoral divisions before the next municipal election in2010 because of the population variance between some of these divisions.

One unexpected benefit of this project was the ability toupdate our rural addressing database that enables us toprovide emergency services (9-1-1) with our most up-to-dateinformation on each residence. One of the more excitingproducts includes spatial joins with other data sets for thecreation of population density maps (See Figure 3).

Money Well Spent!The consensus of our administration was that the censuswas money well spent. For an investment of not quite$48,000, we acquired valuable population statistics that willprovide immediate benefits to our social programs and enablelong-range planning in areas where population dictates.

As a result of this success, we are planning on conductinga census every two to three years, not only for the addi-tional provincial grants but the valuable demographic datait provides.

For experienced GIS users, this project exemplifiessome very basic, out-of-the-box GIS operations. It’s also

an excellent example of how imagination is the only limitation to GIS.Therese Morris is GIS coordinator for Mountain View County andcan be reached at [email protected]. �

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Figure 3 – Mountain View County’s use of GIS technologies for its2007 census produced benefits beyond its initial goals, such as thecreation of population-density maps to help plan service delivery.

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THE GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO willhold an information-management conference in April of potential interestto municipal IT departments.

“Managing Information in aModern OPS: The Future Is Now” will be held April 24-25 at the MetroToronto Convention Centre.

Cost for the two days is less than$300. Delegates from municipal members of MISA Ontario are offereda 10-per-cent discount.

MISA member municipalities arealso invited to submit ideas for presen-tations to the conference. For informationabout presentations please contactconference organizer Dustin Rivers,[email protected].

Host for the event is the Office ofthe Chief Information and PrivacyOfficer in the Ontario Ministry ofGovernment Services. Verney ConferenceManagement is managing the eventand handling registration at www.verney.ca/opsim2008.

Education streams will include:

• Enterprise IM

• IM Strategy and Planning

• IM Standards and Practices

• Privacy and Security

• The Changing IM Workspace.

This conference follows a one-dayevent called “Managing Information ina Modern OPS: Connecting IMCommunities,” held in May 2007. �

Municipal News Across Canada

Ontario Government Invites MunicipalitiesTo Information-Management Conference

LITTLE SHUSWAP LAKE in BritishColumbia, Sauble Beach in Ontarioand St-Augustin in Quebec are amongthe rural communities that are scheduledto finally get fast Internet service incoming years.

The Canadian Radio-television andTelecommunications Commission yes-terday approved in January individualplans by the biggest phone companiesto bring broadband service to about350 areas throughout BC, Alberta,Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario. Theywill use about half of a $650-milliondeferral account collected between2002 and 2006 by overcharging customers in cities.

Some of the funds will be used toimprove communications services forpeople with disabilities, including avideo service that would let peoplecommunicate via sign languagethrough a third person.

But phone customers in urban areaswill also get some money back, about$300 million, says Len Katz, vice-chairman of telecommunications at the CRTC.

Bell, Manitoba Telecom ServicesInc., Telus Corp. and SaskatchewanTelecommunications have until 2011 to complete the broadband rollout. TheCRTC has instructed them to use thelowest-cost technology. Globe and Mail �

Daniel Malo, president of RIMQ,has been appointed informationsystems director and CIO of theCity of Montreal, effectiveFebruary 25. He was previouslythe IT director in the CorporateServices department.Adam Hughes is the new ITdirector for the Region of Peel,Ontario, effective February 19. He was formerly with the CBCand spent eight years in varioussenior IT positions with theGovernment of Canada.

Rural Towns in Five ProvincesTo Receive Faster Internet Service&People

Appointments


MOST MUNICIPALITIES are, by now, at least familiar with theconcept of 3-1-1 as a single number for municipal services.A number of Canadian municipalities have already imple-mented 3-1-1 services, and several others are actively planning implementations within the next one or two years.

We are all familiar with the rationale for 3-1-1: a signif-icant cause of dissatisfaction with government service isdifficulty in accessing the service in the first place – findingthe right level or government (and then the right departmentor unit within that government) that provides the service.

The idea behind 3-1-1 is that, instead of expecting ourclients to understand our organizations and know whichone of our departments to call, we simply ask them to call3-1-1 for any municipal service, and we will do the rest.

3-1-1 Organizational ImplicationsThose not familiar with 3-1-1 may assume that the initialcall taker simply passes the call on to the appropriatedepartment, after which the process proceeds as it mighthave before 3-1-1. Those who have studied or implemented3-1-1, however, understand that the concept goes much further and can transform how service is provided.

Since an additional factor in customer satisfactionrelates to how many times a call is transferred before it isresolved, most 3-1-1 call centres establish targets for first-tiercall resolution – percentage of calls that can be successfullyresolved by the initial 3-1-1 call taker, without ever havingto hand them off to the service delivery departments.

One might assume that most municipal calls requirespecialized knowledge, but analysis of actual calls to ourvarious call centres reflects the normal 80:20 rule (Pareto’sLaw). A relatively high percentage of calls are related to asmall number of topics that can be addressed by suitablytrained call takers with the answers at their fingertips.

In addition, many calls may relate to service requeststhat must be assigned to appropriate staff for resolution –and where such assignments can be done as easily by anagent in a central call centre (with access to the right systems and information) as by one within the direct service department.

In comparison with previous models, 3-1-1 service canalso be transformational in other ways. (To be precise,

the same benefits can be achieved through call centre consolidation, regardless of whether the number is 3-1-1 or something else.)

Before 3-1-1, municipalities frequently had multiple callcentres with inconsistent service standards (or no servicestandards at all), as well as multiple systems to track callsand to log and assign service requests. While such systemsmay have served the needs of individual departments, theymade it difficult or impossible for the municipality to havean overall view of its calls, service requests and performancein responding to those calls and requests.

With 3-1-1, there is a compelling case for a single system to track all calls and associated service requests,rather than separate systems in each department. This has,in turn, driven the renewed interest in municipal customer/citizen relationship-management (CRM) systems.

Similarly, a single call centre implies a single set of service standards and customer experience (which should,in fact, be applied to “second tier” call centres in directservice departments, which deal with the 20-to-30 per centof calls that need to be transferred to those with moredetailed knowledge.) The service standards and customerexperience should not be radically different after any such hand-off.

(The “customer experience” relates to such seeminglytrivial matters including whether to provide “music on hold”– a decision that has previously been left to individualdepartments resulting in widely different choices – and, in many cases, inadequate understanding of fine points,such as copyright.)

Service StandardsFinally, a single system implies that service standards areestablished and more easily tracked – not only for call taking (at both first and second tiers) but for resolution ofassigned tickets (service requests). If a department is notmeeting established standards for resolution of servicerequests, this will be visible through the central system.And where such service standards have not been clearlyestablished, it will be necessary to develop them.

In other words, 3-1-1 is essentially a centralizing phenomenon, providing greater central visibility over service and service provision that would formerly have rested entirely in the direct service departments.

3-1-1: The Futureof the Help Desk?

Governance IssuesBy Roy Wiseman

Chief Information OfficerRegional Municipality of Peel, Ontario

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Governance Issues

3-1-1 for Internal ServicesIt is not my purpose here to argue for the value of 3-1-1 inimproving service to municipal residents. Rather, I pose thefollowing question. If a single number (3-1-1) is such agood idea for simplifying access and improving service forour external services (those provided to our residents), whyshouldn’t the same concept be applied to internal services?

Instead of having separate numbers for each internalservice (IT, property management, printing and copying,mail and courier, and even payroll or benefits), would itmake sense to have a single number (and single servicedesk) for all services provided to individual employees – sothat I can call the same number to get my computer fixed,get the temperature adjusted, arrange for a courier delivery,or check on or change my benefits coverage?

When I first suggest this concept to many internal service

providers including those in IT, their initial reaction is frequently remarkably similar to what many of us heardfrom direct service departments when they first heard about3-1-1 – that a central call centre could not possibly have thedetailed understanding of their services required to providean effective response to the diverse calls that they receive.

If our experience with external callers is any guide,however, we can already predict that a high percentage ofcalls will, again, be on a relatively small number of repeattopics, which suitably trained and supported agents in acentral call centre should be able to address.

In this regard, most of us will acknowledge that none of the agents within our IT Service Desk can possibly beexpert (or even very proficient) in the broad range of technologies that we support.

They are, in fact, unlikely to be proficient in even ourmost widely used software (for example, Word, Excel,PowerPoint) since the nature of their job implies that theyare unlikely to be regular users of these products.

Instead, they primarily address a small number of frequently occurring situations (and we provide them withscripts and guides for these situations), while handing offthe remainder of the calls to “second tier” IT analysts orothers for resolution.

One-Stop Call TakingIf this reflects our current reality, could your IT service-deskstaff be trained to take calls related to other services? And,if IT people could be trained to take non-IT calls, could non-IT people be trained to take IT calls?

Could this function be extracted from the IT organizationand incorporated as part of a central function that supportsmultiple internal services, just as 3-1-1 has generally beenextracted from the direct service departments?

Finally, and most importantly, would this result in betterservice for our internal clients?

While no decisions along these lines have yet beenmade at the Region of Peel, we are at least consideringthis option as part of our new Employee and BusinessServices department “service model.”

I would be interested to hear from other municipalitiesor organizations that have considered, are considering, orhave implemented such a model for internal services.

[email protected] �


National and Member Executives

National OfficersPRESIDENT Kevin Peacock, City of Saskatoon306-975-3047 [email protected]

VICE PRESIDENT Daya Pillay, Halifax Regional Municipality902-490-6550 (fax 490-4525) [email protected]

TREASURER Garry Bezruki, City of Waterloo519-747-8726 (fax 747-8727)[email protected]

SECRETARY Gerry Matte, Municipality of Saanich250-475-5403 [email protected]

www.misa-asim.ca

MISA AtlanticPRESIDENT David Muise, Halifax Regional Municipality902-490-4000 [email protected]

TREASURER Daya Pillay, Halifax Regional Municipality902-490-6550 (fax 490-4525) [email protected]

SECRETARY Maurice Gallant, City of Fredericton506-460-2041 [email protected]

MISA BCPRESIDENT David Hennigan, The Capital Regional District250-360-3141 [email protected]

VICE PRESIDENT Alan Cameron, City of Richmond604-276-4096 [email protected]

TREASURER Guillermo Ferrero, City of Nanaimo250-755-4486 [email protected]

SECRETARY Linda Kreutz, Greater Vancouver Regional District604-436-6974 [email protected]

http://misa.bc.ca

MISA OntarioPRESIDENT Ralph Blauel, Region of Halton905-825-6000, x 7997 (fax 825-6057)[email protected]

VICE PRESIDENT Garry Bezruki, City of Waterloo519-747-8726 (fax 747-8727)[email protected]

TREASURER David Laneville, City of Timmins705-360-2605 (fax 705-360-2686) [email protected]

SECRETARY Karl Drysdale, City of London519-661-2500 x 4945 (fax 661-5985)[email protected]

www.misa.on.ca

MISA PrairiesPRESIDENT Georganne Dupont, City of Airdrie403-948-8871 [email protected]

VICE PRESIDENT Chris Fisher, City of Regina306-77-7193 [email protected]

TREASURER Andre Tessier, City of Cold Lake780-594-4494 [email protected]

MEMBERSHIP Natalia Madden, County of Grande Prairie780-532-9722 [email protected]

www.misaprairies.ca

Réseau del’InformatiqueMunicipale duQuébec (RIMQ)PRESIDENT Daniel Malo, Ville de Montreal540-280-6544 [email protected]

VICE PRESIDENT Gaston Huot, Villes de Boucherville, Brossard, Saint-Bruno et [email protected]

SECRETARY-TREASURER Michel Hurteau, Ville de Sorel-Tracy450-780-5714 [email protected]

www.rimq.com

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