Government Organization Benefits from Cohesive Wireless Connectivity

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the Government of India, a premier science and technology  organization, is responsible for the active promotion and implementation of Information and Communication Technology solutions in the government. The organization works to support information and communication

technology (ICT) applications in the government sector, specifically network backbone and e-governance support to central government, state governments, Union Territory (UT) administrations, districts, and other government bodies.

Business Challenge

NIC offers a wide range of ICT services including a nationwide communication network for decentralized planning, improvement in government services, and wider transparency of national and local governments.

The center assists the central and state governments in implementing IT projects that include:
(a) centrally sponsored initiatives and central sector initiatives,
(b) state sector and state-sponsored projects, and
(c) district administration–sponsored projects.

NIC helps ensure that the latest technology in all areas of IT is available to its users. Given its area of operations and the multiple stakeholders involved in each of its projects, NIC was looking to upgrade its core network
infrastructure. Due to the large number of mobile employees who needed to access the corporate network for operational and development purposes, providing connectivity on a wired network was impractical. Many BYOD mobile workers also wished to access the corporate network through their tablets, iPads, or smartphones.

Business Results
The Cisco® unified wireless architecture integrated with the existing Cisco Catalyst switching infrastructure and
provided a unified wired and wireless policy based on Cisco Identity Services Engine and management of Cisco Network Control System (NCS) at NIC. The wireless intrusion prevention solution helped mitigate the effects of wireless interference and prevent network attacks from denial of service, rogue access point, and spontaneous
wireless bridges.

The Cisco solution provided cohesive mobility for WLAN services, helped ensure centralized network management, and offered a set of troubleshooting tools as well. Security management through the Cisco Wireless Intrusion Prevention System (wIPS) helped address wireless security threats.

All of this, in turn, helped accelerate business collaboration and productivity, in addition to enabling easy management and provision of guest accounts. “The wireless solution has enabled the large population of our mobile employees to connect to the corporate network while on the move, through their device of choice, be it tablets, iPads, or smartphones,” says R. S. Mani, senior technical director, NIC.

Although the solution has been implemented recently, NIC is already witnessing an increase in employee collaboration and ease of working, which has, in turn, improved employee productivity. (Read More: Unified wireless architecture helps India’s National Informatics Centre accelerate collaboration and productivity.)

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