How IT in St. Petersburg bridges the gap between city administration and residents
We have repeatedly introduced you to the IT infrastructure of various organizations, ranging from online stores to large research centers and even hospitals. But the time has come to raise the stakes and look behind the scenes much more relevant for the mere mortal (and especially Russian) sphere of human activity. The one that most of you prefer not to think about once again, but sometimes you have to. So, today we are happy to tell you how high technologies are applied in the field of public services, make life easier, save time and even nerves.
To use the services that the state provides us in the field of medicine, education, utilities, etc., each of us has to, regardless of where we live. The trouble is that the number of documents that we need to issue from time to time, is growing steadily, and you can get confused in all this bureaucratic fuss literally out of the blue. Sometimes it seems that the employees of the passport offices and registries themselves do not know what is needed to prepare a particular document, so visiting a state institution is equivalent to a local catastrophe.
Not surprisingly, alternative directions have recently begun to emerge in the public services market. The matter in this case is about such a single point of entry into this world of references and documents - an information and software complex that helps quickly (as far as possible) and without super efforts to use the services provided by the state. Such complexes are now being introduced everywhere, and therefore it is doubly interesting how the work is implemented in them. As an illustration, we take the so-called multifunctional centers providing state and municipal services (MFC) in St. Petersburg .
MFC began to appear in St. Petersburg in 2009 after the administrative reform. If it is interesting, then their activity is regulated by the Law 210-FZ “On the organization of the provision of state and municipal services” dated July 27, 2010 . It must be admitted that the northern capital has become one of the leaders in the country in terms of the number of MFCs, and all thanks to the active work of the administration of the governor. Today, St. Petersburg centers provide about 260 public services in social, housing, municipal and other areas. In a word, through them you can get, for example, a child allowance, a health insurance policy, get an extract from the Federal Register of Foreign Affairs, register the right for real estate and even replace a passport.
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It is hardly worth explaining in detail why such centers are needed. Who wants to run in different instances, stand in line, repeatedly ask for leave from work, not knowing for sure, will they manage to get into the necessary office today and get the necessary certificate? You can study the list of services that the MFC is ready to provide in detail on the corresponding portal, there are also lists of all the necessary documents. All services are conveniently grouped by spheres, subjects (for individuals and legal entities), and, importantly, by situations. Having found the service he needs, the user can also familiarize himself with the options for solving the problem - for example, contact the MFC directly or give preference to electronic paperwork. The user's actions are accompanied by a detailed description of his actions and their sequence.
The principle of "single window" speeds up and simplifies the standard procedure for obtaining services (no need to run to the passport office, then to the tax office, then to the housing office - everything is fixed in one place). All that is required of the designer is to prepare the basic package of documents specified in the description and contact a specialist of the Center. Well, or no one to contact, and arrange everything through the Internet, appearing in the institution only at the last stage.
There is one more important point: whatever one may say, and this approach minimizes the communication between the applicant and the official. And the point is not in misanthropy, as one might think, but in the fact that receiving a bribe in such conditions does not have too many chances. It is not that the MFC contributed to the complete eradication of corruption in the sphere of public services, but still make the problem less acute.
At the very beginning of the creation of the project, of course, had its own difficulties. To begin with, at the time of opening the first centers in St. Petersburg, the MFC existed only in several regions of the Russian Federation. The experience and achievements were practically absent, we had to start everything from scratch and move forward by trial and error. It was also not so easy to hire and train the staff, because the MFC specialist is obliged to understand all the 260 services that the center provides to the public. But every cloud has a silver lining, and over the past few years a new profession has emerged in Russia - a specialist of the “one-stop shop” service, requiring high qualification, responsibility and attentiveness.
Not without technical difficulties. It was necessary to find suitable premises, reliable communication channels, choose equipment on which it was necessary to set up and maintain in the future all the work of the information complex. And here we are not without pride in a hurry to report that after a careful study of possible options, the choice fell in favor of Dell equipment. Our technical support was pleased to advise MFC specialists on the proposed equipment, and they, in turn, liked our warranty conditions. For example, in case of a non-standard situation, the center’s technicians could independently intervene in the work of the servers, without waiting for the arrival of Dell engineers. And the guarantee in such cases continued to operate.
As for the practical implementation of the IT infrastructure, then the choice was made in favor of Microsoft. Starting from Active Directory, web-services, all basic services of institutions, Exchange, and ending directly by the portal on SharePoint. If we talk about hardware, then at each MFC there is at least one Dell PowerEdge R710 server designed for the main service and production database. In addition, for the needs of the office itself is used PowerEdge R610 . On it, as well as the PowerVault MD1200 data storage array connected to it, all changes to the profiles are recorded. A global catalog of AD, a print server is immediately deployed, backups of methodical recommendations are stored, etc. This approach allows you to avoid critical failures in case of loss of communication with the head office - the main services involved in the work continue to work at the expense of local servers. In this regard, the system is maximally sharpened for backup and round-the-clock availability.
All working information is centrally stored in a single repository that includes the Powervault MD1200 racks, from which it is subsequently copied to the central office for analysis and processing. With this implementation, almost 100% secure storage of working data is provided. All operations related to setting up resources, including system deployment, software updates, hardware configuration, and diagnostics on server hardware at remote sites, are performed using Dell OpenManage. This allows you to track all changes in the equipment, plan maintenance and warranty work, and at the same time save on maintenance.
The MFC is now working in an enhanced mode: it did not take long for the Petrograd to assess the convenience of such a system. For example, in 2013 alone, the services of the centers were used more than 2 million times, and this was largely due to the possibility of registering property rights and related transactions through them. It is ridiculous to say, but queues even began to appear in the MFC, for the sake of which they were created to fight. They are going to eliminate them by opening new centers in addition to the already existing forty. The plans of the city administration until the end of next year to open about 1000 windows of receiving / issuing documents and reduce the waiting time in the queue to 15 minutes. At the same time, the document processing mechanism in electronic form will be refined in such a way that most services can be obtained without almost getting up from behind a computer.
Well, let's see what comes of it. But, in any case, a start has been made, and we are pleased to have to do with making our life a little bit more comfortable.
To use the services that the state provides us in the field of medicine, education, utilities, etc., each of us has to, regardless of where we live. The trouble is that the number of documents that we need to issue from time to time, is growing steadily, and you can get confused in all this bureaucratic fuss literally out of the blue. Sometimes it seems that the employees of the passport offices and registries themselves do not know what is needed to prepare a particular document, so visiting a state institution is equivalent to a local catastrophe.
Not surprisingly, alternative directions have recently begun to emerge in the public services market. The matter in this case is about such a single point of entry into this world of references and documents - an information and software complex that helps quickly (as far as possible) and without super efforts to use the services provided by the state. Such complexes are now being introduced everywhere, and therefore it is doubly interesting how the work is implemented in them. As an illustration, we take the so-called multifunctional centers providing state and municipal services (MFC) in St. Petersburg .
MFC began to appear in St. Petersburg in 2009 after the administrative reform. If it is interesting, then their activity is regulated by the Law 210-FZ “On the organization of the provision of state and municipal services” dated July 27, 2010 . It must be admitted that the northern capital has become one of the leaders in the country in terms of the number of MFCs, and all thanks to the active work of the administration of the governor. Today, St. Petersburg centers provide about 260 public services in social, housing, municipal and other areas. In a word, through them you can get, for example, a child allowance, a health insurance policy, get an extract from the Federal Register of Foreign Affairs, register the right for real estate and even replace a passport.
')
It is hardly worth explaining in detail why such centers are needed. Who wants to run in different instances, stand in line, repeatedly ask for leave from work, not knowing for sure, will they manage to get into the necessary office today and get the necessary certificate? You can study the list of services that the MFC is ready to provide in detail on the corresponding portal, there are also lists of all the necessary documents. All services are conveniently grouped by spheres, subjects (for individuals and legal entities), and, importantly, by situations. Having found the service he needs, the user can also familiarize himself with the options for solving the problem - for example, contact the MFC directly or give preference to electronic paperwork. The user's actions are accompanied by a detailed description of his actions and their sequence.
The principle of "single window" speeds up and simplifies the standard procedure for obtaining services (no need to run to the passport office, then to the tax office, then to the housing office - everything is fixed in one place). All that is required of the designer is to prepare the basic package of documents specified in the description and contact a specialist of the Center. Well, or no one to contact, and arrange everything through the Internet, appearing in the institution only at the last stage.
There is one more important point: whatever one may say, and this approach minimizes the communication between the applicant and the official. And the point is not in misanthropy, as one might think, but in the fact that receiving a bribe in such conditions does not have too many chances. It is not that the MFC contributed to the complete eradication of corruption in the sphere of public services, but still make the problem less acute.
At the very beginning of the creation of the project, of course, had its own difficulties. To begin with, at the time of opening the first centers in St. Petersburg, the MFC existed only in several regions of the Russian Federation. The experience and achievements were practically absent, we had to start everything from scratch and move forward by trial and error. It was also not so easy to hire and train the staff, because the MFC specialist is obliged to understand all the 260 services that the center provides to the public. But every cloud has a silver lining, and over the past few years a new profession has emerged in Russia - a specialist of the “one-stop shop” service, requiring high qualification, responsibility and attentiveness.
Not without technical difficulties. It was necessary to find suitable premises, reliable communication channels, choose equipment on which it was necessary to set up and maintain in the future all the work of the information complex. And here we are not without pride in a hurry to report that after a careful study of possible options, the choice fell in favor of Dell equipment. Our technical support was pleased to advise MFC specialists on the proposed equipment, and they, in turn, liked our warranty conditions. For example, in case of a non-standard situation, the center’s technicians could independently intervene in the work of the servers, without waiting for the arrival of Dell engineers. And the guarantee in such cases continued to operate.
As for the practical implementation of the IT infrastructure, then the choice was made in favor of Microsoft. Starting from Active Directory, web-services, all basic services of institutions, Exchange, and ending directly by the portal on SharePoint. If we talk about hardware, then at each MFC there is at least one Dell PowerEdge R710 server designed for the main service and production database. In addition, for the needs of the office itself is used PowerEdge R610 . On it, as well as the PowerVault MD1200 data storage array connected to it, all changes to the profiles are recorded. A global catalog of AD, a print server is immediately deployed, backups of methodical recommendations are stored, etc. This approach allows you to avoid critical failures in case of loss of communication with the head office - the main services involved in the work continue to work at the expense of local servers. In this regard, the system is maximally sharpened for backup and round-the-clock availability.
All working information is centrally stored in a single repository that includes the Powervault MD1200 racks, from which it is subsequently copied to the central office for analysis and processing. With this implementation, almost 100% secure storage of working data is provided. All operations related to setting up resources, including system deployment, software updates, hardware configuration, and diagnostics on server hardware at remote sites, are performed using Dell OpenManage. This allows you to track all changes in the equipment, plan maintenance and warranty work, and at the same time save on maintenance.
The MFC is now working in an enhanced mode: it did not take long for the Petrograd to assess the convenience of such a system. For example, in 2013 alone, the services of the centers were used more than 2 million times, and this was largely due to the possibility of registering property rights and related transactions through them. It is ridiculous to say, but queues even began to appear in the MFC, for the sake of which they were created to fight. They are going to eliminate them by opening new centers in addition to the already existing forty. The plans of the city administration until the end of next year to open about 1000 windows of receiving / issuing documents and reduce the waiting time in the queue to 15 minutes. At the same time, the document processing mechanism in electronic form will be refined in such a way that most services can be obtained without almost getting up from behind a computer.
Well, let's see what comes of it. But, in any case, a start has been made, and we are pleased to have to do with making our life a little bit more comfortable.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/225799/
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