The Government of La Rioja improves its institutional communications network

The Government of La Rioja, through the Knowledge and Technology Agency, has launched the 'Connected' project’ to evolve the communications and computer network shared by all the centers or headquarters of the Rioja Executive with the aim of achieving a more agile administration in the provision of services to the citizen.

The Government of La Rioja has launched the 'Connected' project, What does it mean to improve communications within the Rioja Executive?, facilitate the mobility and flexibility of public employees by allowing secure access to the network from anywhere and optimize their usual work tools to grow in efficiency. Among the measures that will be implemented, the following stand out:, among others, the implementation of corporate IP telephony, the renovation of the IT park, the virtualization of work profiles to allow mobility or the implementation of WiFi services, Audio conferencing and video conferencing to improve the communication skills of 55 Government headquarters for the benefit of more than 3.000 public employees.

The Minister of Public Administration and Finance of the Riojan Government, Conception Wrinkle, has indicated that this project “will allow improving the efficiency in communications of public employees, will optimize the resources available to them and, therefore, “will result in a more effective and efficient Administration”. This project, which will be carried out over a period of four years, will favor the centralization of departmental ICT management with the advantages in savings and internal efficiency that this entails. The project is conceived by equalizing the annual expenditure that had been borne in the ICT infrastructure of the Government of La Rioja contemplated, but providing them with a series of significant improvements.

The evolution of the corporate network of the Government of La Rioja will be developed based on three key concepts: interrelationship, collaborative work and mobility. will affect 55 headquarters of the Government of La Rioja and this project will benefit more than 3.000 public employees. During the coming months, interventions will be carried out such as the renewal of physical infrastructure and the modification of the basic day-to-day tools of the Government headquarters and its users. (institutional communications network, corporate telephony, internet browsing, collaborative environment, file sharing, workstation, email, etc).

Planned actions:

• Improvement in the capacity of the institutional communications network. The 'Connected' project contemplates significant increases in the capacity of the network that connects the different headquarters of the Government of La Rioja. Increasing the capacity of existing channels will allow waiting times to be minimized, improve application performance and allow the implementation of new services.
• Centralization and security. The Agency will fully centralize the departmental ICT management of the entire corporate network, allowing savings and guaranteeing full interoperability. Besides, Security becomes a cornerstone in the service of the 'Connected' project, Therefore, new fault tolerance measures will be incorporated to increase the availability of the institutional network for users..
• Implementation of corporate IP telephony. The project will mean the evolution of the current traditional telephony to IP telephony, which will allow us to offer advanced communications services such as video, telepresence or unified communications. The implementation of IP telephony seeks to minimize communication times between everyone and gain efficiency in responding to citizens..
• Renewal of the Government's IT park. Under criteria of maximum use of existing resources, The 'Connected' project includes a progressive renewal of obsolete computer equipment, providing specific equipment according to the needs and profiles of the 3.000 benefited users. This renewal will affect workstations, the telephony, departmental laptops and servers.
• Mobility and flexibility. The Knowledge Agency continues to bet on 'virtualization' as a fundamental axis to continue offering ICT infrastructure as a service. In Connected, the current desktop and application virtualization tools will be completed. Thanks to it, User mobility possibilities will be optimized, allowing access to the resources they need from anywhere.
• WIFI. The main headquarters of the Government of La Rioja will be provided with internal WiFi services, which will allow wireless work and permanent connection to the network and its services through portable terminals.
• Video conference. Videoconference and audioconference rooms will be installed in the main headquarters of the Government of La Rioja, with the aim of increasing communication capacity and allowing savings in travel.