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With the old Government Common Core Network in urgent need of upgrade and modernisation four years ago, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development turned to Telkom and its VPN Supreme for a host of benefits, including significant cost savings and enhanced efficiency. During this time, the IP-based VPN grew to accommodate more converged services, as dictated by DOJ&CD’s requirements – most recently, video remand.

 As with its counterparts around the world, the South African legal system has for centuries relied extensively on paper and manual processes. Laws, statutes and court judgments are all on paper and stored in libraries, where they are often inaccessible to ordinary citizens. The courts and prison administration systems are vast and complex, generating massive volumes of paperwork from connected, yet disparate sources – the police service, courts and correctional services.

This is a lot to integrate in a country where distances are great. When the decision was taken to upgrade the network, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) alone employed 14 000 people in 560 buildings across South Africa. In such circumstances, it comes as no surprise that technology has a vital role to play in enabling service delivery.

Mission: Moving on from GCCN With the old Government Common Core Network (GCCN) no longer able to handle the unique requirements of the DOJ&CD, it was decided in 2005 to migrate and modernise the network. The rollout of the new network slots in with the Department’s e-Justice programme, which is focused on establishing a more equitable, accessible and efficient justice system in South Africa. “The e-Justice programme is expected to reform and modernise the administration and delivery of justice,” comments Thabo Sakasa, DOJ&CD director of IT Infrastructure and Software Assets.

“This will be achieved through the reengineering of work processes and the strengthening of strategic planning and management capacity, along with organisational development and human resource incentives. Technology’s role is prominent.”

The new network needed to bring everything together, connecting national and provincial offices, high courts and magistrates’ courts, labour courts and family courts. The basic IT infrastructure had to be rolled out by 2006 to 2007.

In addition, the Department required that, within the same timeframe, all sites countrywide be given standardised hardware, and that all specialised software services be in place.

A supreme solution

To meet all these requirements, the DOJ&CD, with the endorsement of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), chose Telkom’s VPN Supreme solution, which would give the Department a fully converged, proactively managed WAN with Quality of Service-guaranteed VOIP and video, centralised infrastructure as well as remote access.

The Cisco-Powered Network-certified solution is based on a carrier-class broadband IP network, which allowed for phased delivery of converged solutions over the four years to follow. This included the above as well as video remand, mobility solutions, a disaster recovery site and much more, Sakasa says.

“This approach minimised pressure to perform forklift upgrades or network integration changes. The results included significant savings, particularly for those functions that have high intra-office telephony traffic,” he adds. The VPN also allowed for the seamless expansion of intranet configurations to branches, improving ease of access to information for all networks throughout the organisation. In addition, it provided the connectivity essential to offer access to the Department’s internal applications to all sites as required.

VPN Supreme has the unique ability to prioritise network traffic on a per application basis, providing forwarding guarantees over shared IP infrastructure.

This Quality of Service (QOS) guarantee means that essential applications, such as financial processes, court scheduling, case management, bail payment, etc can be given priority over non-essential network traffic. Differentiated classes of service ensure that mission-critical traffic receives the required bandwidth throughput and guarantees. Telkom also provided the DOJ&CD with data hosting services, ensuring that the data generated by the Department is stored in a stable, reliable location and always available.

Rolling out the benefits

According to Sakasa, the solution brought a number of important benefits to DOJ&CD:

• A resilient, scalable and efficient communications network, providing real-time communication to all DOJ&CD sites.
• Seamless access to all departmental sites, including rural infrastructures.
• A secure infrastructure, including extended VPN and mobile scenarios.
• Well-managed, scalable and extensible, always-available infrastructure.
• Support for the network modernisation agenda, including VOIP, video arraignment and e-Justice between government department and citizens, and between departments.
• Support for the Department’s strategic application intent through the use of directory-based identity management as well as services-oriented architectures.
• Support for the Department’s strategic service delivery, e-government and ejustice intent.
• Interoperability support.
• QOS guarantees.

Achieving considerable savings

Further benefits include lower hardware and operating costs through a reduction in the number of servers needed to run the network, as well as the electronic availability of court judgments.

In fact, a CIO report following the migration to the new solution reveals that the DOJ&CD saw its Internet and data-line costs dropped.

Videoconferencing remand: pilots

Ultimately, yet more cost reductions will come via the use of video over IP to carry video traffic, and lower costs for physically transporting prisoners to courts for procedures such as remands and postponements, thanks to videoconferencing.

The DOJ&CD first rolled out a pilot video remand project in KwaZulu-Natal, utilising ISDN lines for video remand. By May 2007, it had concluded 4 899 remands, without detainees leaving their Westville host correctional facility. The Department then took a decision to leverage the VPN Supreme Network provided by Telkom, for the roll out of the video remand solution.

The Department went out on tender during 2008 for the installation of the Video Remand Solution over IP, utilising the VPN Supreme Network, and it was awarded to a service provider during September 2008. Telkom’s role in the project is to ensure that the VPN is configured optimally for the solution.

Wider video deployments

In this regard, Telkom recently completed a VPNS upgrade to enable the first pilot rollout of video remand services utilising IP, at St Albans Correctional Services facility in the Eastern Cape, linking the prison to two Magistrates Courts via the VPN (Port Elizabeth and New Brighton Magistrates Courts).

Following on that, the remand facility is being set up between Pretoria Central Prison and four surrounding Magistrates Courts – Pretoria, Pretoria North, Atteridgeville and Soshanguve Magistrates Courts. In the months following, the service is scheduled to be rolled out to 44 courts throughout the country, linking them to 22 DCS facilities.

Future possibilities

In some countries, videoconferencing is used for court appearances, case remands and even actual trials. “In such a setup, the equipment is installed in both the court and the prison. This not only cuts transportation costs, but also minimises the risks associated with prisoner transportation,” says Deon Grove, DOJ&CD IJS sub-programme manager.

“The system adds tremendous value to the process of conducting remands and ensuring that cases using the system are turned around quickly,” says Grove. “Furthermore, videoconferencing is also being used with great effect to improve communication between DOJ&CD offices,” says Sakasa.

Clearly the administration of justice has much to gain from this seminal installation of Telkom’s VPN Supreme. In years to come, many more groundbreaking converged services will be trialled on it, pointing the way for ever larger enterprises throughout the country.

C O N T A C T

Thabo Sakasa

Director of IT Infrastructure and Software Assets, Department of Justice & Constitutional Development
Tel: 012 315 1077
Fax: 0866 704 835
URL: www.justice.gov.za

Nonku Dlamini

Executive: Government Sales Telkom SA Ltd
Tel: 012 680 7172
Fax: 012 680 7415
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
URL: www.telkom.co.za