85pc of government data moved to Amazon cloud
A total of 85 per cent of government data has been transferred to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform, and the update of backup system has been completed, it has emerged.
This was announced by Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA) chief executive Mohammed Al Qaed in a statement yesterday highlighting the achievements of iGA in operations and governance during 2022.
Talking of IT Governance, Mr Al Qaed said that iGA reviewed around 3,714 government requests, through the National Committee for ICT Governance, with a completion rate of 3.7 days per request in 2022.
The committee has also updated the standards for purchasing computers and was able to reduce the cost of IT projects by 24pc through optimisation.
The operations and governance sector has also prepared and reviewed plans to activate and implement digital policies.
Agreements have been signed with Batelco, Amazon and Cisco, and seven initiatives have been launched to develop IT policies and standards, completing the review of 103 projects and purchases worth BD22 million to more than 50 government entities were cleared last year.
The official said the operation and governance team managed to raise the capacity of the single sign-on system (eKey), increasing users to more than 644,000, and the number of authentications verified through eKey reached 18m during 2022.
This is in addition to improving the system’s interface and adding encrypted personal identification number in eKey notifications sent to the users.
The eKey system has been linked with the SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) system to reinforce its security and respond quickly to any potential risks proactively, while also enhancing confidentiality and data privacy of users, Mr Al Qaed added.
He also highlighted the linking of the eKey system with self-service platforms (eKiosk), which enabled citizens and residents to upgrade their eKey account from basic to advanced level easily and save time.
More than 80 business continuity monitoring systems were provided last year, while 650 enhanced devices were installed for monitoring government network around the clock.
This contributed to more than 2,263 technical issues being resolved, with a 25pc improvement in performance of monitoring systems.
In addition, Mr Al Qaed highlighted the completion of the Recovery Centre Room equipment, adding Sijilat system to the monitoring system, and completing the upgrade of the government systems hosting room at iGA, in addition to providing support to more than 55 government entities.
As for government sector cloud infrastructure, the official mentioned that the load distribution system has been upgraded to raise the availability of systems, improve the performance and stability of applications, and complete the Microsoft cloud environment.
More than 300 websites have been connected to the Government Data Network, raising the speed of the Internet, and completing the update of the domain (.gov.bh) system framework as well as linking government data centres with Cisco technology to improve the speed of hosting systems.
This is in addition to the GCC network by linking the UAE and Kuwait system through Zajel network.
Referring to the sector’s achievements in the geospatial database (GIS), Mr Al Qaed said, with the participation of 75 government entities more than 260 geospatial maps were produced and 48 government systems were linked to the database in 2022.
Source: https://www.gdnonline.com/Details/1228835
