2 page Case Study - Posted 2/24/2009

Views: 451

Rate This Evidence:

State of California Department of Technology Services

State of California Continues to Deliver Value to Citizens with State Portal Services

The California Department of Technology Services (DTS) is implementing a cost-effective new solution to address the content management needs of its customers. Built using Windows Server® 2008 and Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008, this solution will enable the department to lower its total cost of ownership and has greater potential for adoption, productivity, and efficiency for DTS staff and customers. The DTS also takes advantage of Internet Explorer® 8 and Microsoft Silverlight™ in the quest to deliver increased access to content.

Business Needs

The California Department of Technology Services (DTS) Web Services Section needed to replace an aging content management system (CMS) that was running on old hardware with expired service contracts. The system was cumbersome, difficult to use, and costly to maintain (from a hardware infrastructure and software platform perspective).

DTS Web Services staff members spent the majority of their time manually posting content updates for approximately 30 customers, supporting the California Web site template and the state’s Webmaster User Group. Managing its ever-growing state Web sites became an increasing challenge for the DTS. Manual publishing restricted content updates to limited business hours and prevented staff from having the time to implement innovative features on state Web sites.

To address these issues, the DTS decided to explore other alternatives to reduce cost, increase productivity related to Web publishing, and enhance customer service.

Solution

After evaluating many off-the-shelf products, the DTS decided to adapt a CMS originally developed by the Department of Social Services. The system has several key features, including:

• Complete freedom and access to view and modify the source code.
• Current software platform (ASP .NET).
• Tools that enable the DTS to rely on a wide pool of resources at a reasonable cost.
• Ability to control the layout of a site using XSL templates.
• Flexibility for Web designers to use design tools of their choice.
• Ease-of-use for developers (add the requisite XSL tags for dynamic usage at run time).
• Ability to “compile” a site to pure .htm content or pages, which can be hosted in any Web server environment.
• Lower total cost of ownership, as the solution was created in-house.

Our URSUS content management system is going to enable us to be more efficient, providing increased value and focus on creating and providing more Web services to the State of California. Dane Wilson Project Manager, Department of Technology Services, Web Services Section

The staff replaced the authentication and authorization mechanism (customized version of the Membership Provider class for ASP .NET applications), and took advantage of the new capabilities in the Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5. In-house design and graphic artists updated the user interface to reflect the state’s Web design standards for a common look-and-feel and to improve workflow.

Rebranded as URSUS, named in honor of California’s state mammal, Ursus californicus (the California Grizzly Bear), the department is using a redundant, scalable, multitier architecture on the Windows Server® 2008 operating system, with Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 data management software on the back end. Editors log in to the authoring tier, which is accessed through a Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server. After an editor modifies the site, they publish their pages, which are compiled to pure XHTML-compliant .htm files. The files are then pushed out to the front-end Web servers. Assets uploaded through the authoring tier are stored in a path shared with the front-end servers to minimize file replication.

While creating the new CMS, the DTS also implemented several enhancements to the CA.gov portal home Web site (www.ca.gov) to take advantage of the browser features introduced in the Internet Explorer® 8 Internet browser, such as Web Slices and Accelerators. Web Slices allow individuals to subscribe to portions of the Web site and, with a single click in the favorites bar, view latest updates. Accelerators simplify the steps to search, map, send, translate, or share content from a Web page with one click.

The DTS also wanted a richer media experience for visitors to the state portal, so it implemented the Microsoft Silverlight™ 2.0 browser plug-in. The Silverlight implementation can be seen by clicking the “Governor’s Latest Video” button in the “Highlights” section of the site’s home page.

These enhancements have been demonstrated to the state’s Webmaster User Group and posted to the Webtools resource site (www.webtools.ca.gov). They will also be available to DTS customers using the new CMS.

Benefits

Some of the key benefits of the overall solution include:

• Minimal cost in acquiring and maintaining the CMS.
• Greater productivity and efficiency for internal staff and their customers (state agencies).
• Freedom for state agencies to author and maintain their own content, using authoring tools that allow nondevelopers to use it with ease.
• Ability to deploy the content site in any Web environment.
• Better allocation and utilization of staff.
• Built on the .NET Framework, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008.
• Enhanced performance, scalability, and security (with 64-bit architecture and access to larger memory, and Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 modular architecture built inside Windows Server 2008).
• An infrastructure extremely familiar to the DTS systems and network administration teams, with the added flexibility of access to a wide pool of .NET developers and consultants.
• Compatible with the latest browsers, including Internet Explorer 8. Webslice is on the www.ca.gov home page, and a list of Accelerators is at www.ca.gov/accelerators.html.
• Easier and alternate access to the governor’s Silverlight-based videos (www.ca.gov/gov_latestvideo.html).