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GSWAN |
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Name of the project: Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN) Dept. under which the project was taken: Information Technology Department, GAD, GoG Project Description: Government of Gujarat implemented the state wide area network in the year 2001-02. The end-to-end IP based network was designed for the service convergence (Voice, video and Data) on the same backbone.
Selection of technology standards for the Gujarat ICT infrastructures became most crucial in the given situation. Government of Gujarat, with an emphasis on the state-of-the-art “Open Standard converged network, had succeeded in creating, operating and maintaining required State wide ICT infrastructures, unparallel any where in the country.
Project report was prepared for State wide area network after undertaking a detailed feasibility study. Inclusion of various offices and their location, traffic load and its characteristics, Security, LAN/WAN protocols, topology, bandwidth requirements and utilization, allocation of bandwidth ETC., were some of the critical components considered while designing the project document. Characteristics of Various climatic zones, coastal areas and identified disaster prone areas were also taken into consideration while finalizing the project specifications, as communication requirements varies from case to case basis.
Initial survey report included number of the Government/PSU/board/corporations offices in each District and Taluka. Based on this report need of Wide Area Services for each these unit located, in & out side of the secretariat was evaluated and a priority list was prepared indicating name and locations of such offices to be integrated initially, and to be integrated after third year of the operation.
Connectivity (band width) needs were defined on the basis of traffic estimated between various network nodes for initial phase and after third year. It was decided to connect SC-DC with 2 Mb link and DC-TC with 64 Kb. All horizontal offices at district were envisaged to 64 Kb links (if they were located out side district collector’s premises) be connected with district. Horizontal offices within the reach of LAN were directly interfaced with district center.
Adequate provisions were made for Dial-in lines for Remote Access Servers (RAS) located at each DC to facilitate GSWAN access to all Government offices not connected on Ethernet or leased line. Number of subscribers and the growth pattern were analyzed for arriving at various resources requirements on time scale. Assessment of Internet bandwidth, email service, web hosting resources, DBM resources, Security, accounting/billing, storage and backup requirements, virus protection etc... was carried out, keeping e-governance objectives and network availability criterion into consideration. Work was awarded on 1st march 2001 to the vendor for creation of GSWAN on BOOT (Built Operate Own and Transfer) basis for a period of 8 years. GSWAN was commissioned and accepted by Government of Gujarat on 26.12.2001.
NETWORK ARCHITECTURE & TOPOLOGY
The network topology as conceived and designed for GSWAN was based on a hub-and-spoke design philosophy, with three tiers in to it.
First tier - Secretariat Center (SC) at state capital, Gandhinagar, where from the highest office of Government functions in the state. Various departments and hundreds of subordinate offices located at the state capital are connected to SC horizontally through SCAN (Secretariat Campus Area Network). SCAN had about 7000 Ethernet I/O’s at Gandhinagar and all these I/Os are interconnected with GSWAN for information exchange. 300 GSWAN phone connections provided to various offices at Secretariat for direct voice communication to any GSWAN node in the state (at District or Taluka level).
Second Tier- Constitutes District Centers, or DC’s, located at district collector’s office and multiple district level other offices connected with DC horizontally. All 24 DCs, except Gandhinagar, connected on 2 Mbps (E1) leased lines with SC. Gandhinagar DC is a part of SCAN infrastructure. GoG evaluated several options to achieve cost effective, flexible and scalable connectivity for all horizontal offices and used Cat-5, OFC, JFC, wireless VSAT on case to case basis. Ten dialup PSTN lines terminated on remote access server (RAS) at DC enabling GSWAN access to all dialup users in Government. The dialup access is given to all those Government offices in district, Taluka, which are not considered for direct integration on Ethernet / leased / OFC / Wireless.
Third Tier - constitutes Talukas Centers, or TC’s, located at Taluka Mamlatdar’s office and Taluka Development Office provision are kept for connecting Taluka level other offices horizontally. All 225 Talukas are connected to DC. (211 on 64 Kb leased lines, and rest of 14 Talukas on Ethernet).
In each of the stations, there is a state-of-the-art Router, which terminates the Leased Line. These routers route IP packets intelligently throughout the network, and provide the Quality of Service (or QoS) features necessary to enable convergence of voice, video and data on to a single network infrastructure.
GSWAN Enhancement
As per original plan, and the network architecture, various GOG offices at DCs, had to be connected horizontally using 64 Kb/s leased circuits. In addition to this, at the Taluka level the current legacy architecture supports only one data connection and nine voice connections. Since 2001 when existing GSWAN started functioning, many GoG departments had progressively rolled out their applications which have been riding on existing GSWAN, which had also been expanded to cater to all these requirements by providing connectivity, through OFC / JFC / CAT-5 cabling and using Broad Band Wireless Radios. As such, as on date, more than 3000 GoG offices at DC and TC locations have been connected to GSWAN in the above manner.
Keeping the above in view and also requirement of many Departments seeking for additional large bandwidth to run their current and future applications, DST has already initiated the process for enhancement of existing GSWAN. Accordingly, it is necessary to increase the number of ports / elements of inter connections to aggregate higher level of bandwidth by forming clusters of nearby districts in the form of a inter connected RING / MESH and also for regulating and better management of the traffic flow. This has been conceptualized after taking note of progressively higher traffic flow during last two years. Considering the future traffic and the geographic locations and current scenario, GoG therefore incorporated six ring clusters architecture involving multiple districts.
After having several rounds of discussions with the Department of Information Technology; Government of India (DIT) SWAN team; that the enhancement of GSWAN infrastructure should make the best use of the legacy architecture and the existing networking components so that an optimal architecture for enhanced GSWAN emerges, keeping in view of the legacy network and the future requirements of 5-7 years.
Currently, Le
GSWAN Status
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Connecting 7
Districts on 8 Mbps and 18 Districts on 4 Mbps
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Connecting
225 Talukas
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Interconnecting more than 3000
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Facilitates
uninterrupted and easy IP based Video-conferencing between
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Over 17330
E-mail IDs created
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Over 222
Websites are hosted
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10Mbps
Internet Bandwidth terminated at GSWAN
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