To ensure reusability, accountability and best value for the Isle of Man Government (IOMG), ICT projects and programmes will be expected to build or procure technology that use open standards. This is to ensure that the technology is able to communicate and integrate easily and effectively with existing components in the GTS Code Library or with existing technologies, processes and infrastructure throughout the IOMG organisation. Open standards give common framework and protocols to realise this.
To ensure compliance with this section of the Technical Code of Practice (TCOP), project or programme plans and designs must show how the technology being deployed is adherent to the Government Integration Standard (IOM3) which facilitates seamless integration with existing applications within the Government estate.
The Design Authority (DA) will be looking for potential opportunities to review and, where appropriate, push for the use of open standards and data to exploit current and future integration opportunities. The DA are mandated to ensure that ICT projects and programmes utilise technology and systems that are as interoperable as possible.
DA Delivery on Open Standards and Integration
The DA have created the Government Integration Standard – “IOM3”. The IOM3 standard will be the key rules and Integration standards utilised by IOMG on any ICT project or programme.
The Key deliverables for IOM3 are:
Standardised security rules for System Communication
Standardised Transactional Communication standards
Standardised Communication interfaces delivered through Restful Application Program Interfaces (API’s)
The IOM3 standard must be considered for all ICT projects and programmes. Whilst the benefits may not be immediate, adherence to these standard will ensure that possible future inter-system integration is achievable and therefore encourage reuse of existing data and function across the estate.
Further guidance can be found in the Open Standard Definition and Reference guide which is also a deliverable of this section.
Why use Open Standards
Open Standards offers a framework that enables and facilitates integration between new and existing systems, whilst being a key foundational component in the delivery and realisation of the Digital Strategy.
The DA in association with IOMG departments aim to leverage open standards that:
Have clear definitions that are understood by both internal and external suppliers
Do not provide a solution by referencing specific products or vendors
Promote digital transformation and inclusion through accessibility
Provide efficient services to internal and external parties
Through adherence to open standards, the DA aims to achieve:
Exchanging of data without being prescriptive regarding how it is achieved
Functional consistency across the organisation
Improvement of data clarity and consistency
Better inter-departmental communication and interaction
Seamless interaction between external parties and IOMG Services
Open Standards Principles
Open standards must adhere to the following principles in that they must:
Meet the needs of the user
Support flexibility and change
Be cost effective and sustainable
Give clarity relating to preferred system standards
Open Standards Benefits
The DA will mandate open standards so that ICT Projects and Programmes can benefit from:
Streamlining of existing functions and processes
Decrease in operational costs
Promotion of user driven functions
De-duplication of functions and data
To encourage Government to work holistically
Furthermore, from an IT systems management perspective, open standards can facilitate:
Better inter-system integration
Reuse of software components and data
Smarter system design and development
Removal of vendor dependency
Promotion of Integration
Promoting system integration as a project or programme item ensures that consideration has been given to how new technology works with any inflight or legacy solutions without limiting the IOMG’s ability to adapt to future demands or upgrade systems.
By promoting integration, a project and/or programme will benefit from:
A reduction in the risk to technology infrastructure as the integration stream of the project or programme working with the DA, will discover any possible compatibility gaps in the new technology
Reduce the chances of downtime on regular processes on upgrading or amending them
Promotion of systems and services that enforce the minimization of single points of failure
Reduce and lower long-term support costs
Furthermore, Integration also encourages the use of a micro-service architecture which offers the opportunity of de-duplication of concerns across the estate. This results in a reduced system functional and data footprint and lessens the risk of organic growth of a system leading to potential monoliths.
Seamlessly deploying new technology into the organisation
Due to the nature of the services The Isle of Man Governments technology and infrastructure provides, there will always have a small number of services and issues that are unique.
However, there will also be a large number of common elements to consider when introducing new technology into environments containing current or legacy systems, including:
Working together with GTS to take advantage of ICT processes, governance, service support and service delivery that are already well developed and maintained
Working with the DA to determine how the new technology will work with the current service management framework.
Identify clearly what skills and capabilities the Business entity needs to deliver, support and continuously improve the new technology that has been purchased or developed
To further optimize integration options the project/programme with the DA should consider:
Whether a continuous integration model can solve smaller issues iteratively (this is usually easier and cheaper than testing everything at the end of a programme)
Designing the system using any independently developed components that can easily work together available already - replacing monolithic designs with smaller micro-service products
Design and build a system architecture at the beginning of the project clearly describing the current and future system requirements as well as the hardware and software components
Promote the model of component-level testing with regular focus on whether integration is possible
Ensure that regular integration, load and stress testing are utilised during the project/programme to track progress and make sure the system remains robust
Map and track the interdependencies between the infrastructure and the services that the system will be running on it
Ensure that a flexible approach to the project and programme is taken so that processes can incorporate legacy and new infrastructure, including the use of cloud services where data classification allows
Have a clear technology lifespan declared as part of the project/programme covering all technologies (being aware of expiry and renewal timings)
Create a clear milestone roadmap showing an exit strategy or plan for retiring legacy systems
Optimised system integration is important for the overall performance of the enterprise and is a vital component for considering the organisation’s service management. This is expected to result in an opportunity for better change and release management processes such as continuous integration and containerisation.
Integration considerations for Procurement
Any new system developed or procured for IOM Government must be able to:
- expose functions as an API (REST) or Web Service (SOAP) to be consumed in a B2B capacity - preference is REST
- consume data via RESTful (XML/JSON) or Web Service calls (SOAP) calls - preference is RESTful