15.6 Basic IT infrastructure needs and skill requirements#
There are a number of technology infrastructure components and skill requirements that are essential for an NSO to be able to manage its statistical life cycle processing. These requirements are not uniform and will, of course, depend on the capacity of the NSO. A small, low-capacity NSO in a developing country will operate under a very different set of conditions than an NSO in a medium-capacity country and even more so than a developed, high-capacity country. However, there are certain technologies that are common for all NSOs in order to efficiently collect, process and disseminate quality statistics in a timely manner.
The term IT infrastructure is defined in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3 as a combined set of hardware, software, networks and related facilities, used to develop, test, deliver, monitor, control or support IT services. People, processes and documentation are not considered part of IT Infrastructure.
The key infrastructure components are outlined below.
Computer hardware platforms consist of client and server machines and in some cases, mainframes. A server is a computer that is dedicated to managing network resources dedicated to a particular task. These specialist server roles include print servers, file servers, network servers, database servers and web servers.
Skills required: Software Engineer (Hardware specialist).
Operating systems (OS) are software that manage the resources and activities of the computer and act as an interface for the user. The best-known client OS is Windows operating systems. Server OS are dominated by the various forms of the UNIX operating system or Linux.
Skills required: Software Engineer (OS specialist).
Software applications are the IT tools used to manage production activities in an NSO from data collection to dissemination as covered by the main processes and sub-processes in GSBPM. These applications can be developed by the NSO, commercial tools, generic software developed collaboratively, or software developed by another statistical organization.
Skills required: Systems analyst, Software developer.
Data management and storage is handled by database management systems (DBMS). DBMS is a collection of programs that manages the database structure and controls access to the data stored in the database. A relational database management system (RDBMS) is used for creating, storing and connecting structured data and then rapidly retrieving via a query language. Rules can be applied for data security, connecting data and enforcing referential integrity. This is vital for an NSO to ensure data quality which cannot be guaranteed using unmanaged data stores such as Excel. The most widely used commercial DBMS are Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase and IBM. A number of open-source examples are also available including MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB and PostgreSQL.
Skills required: Database Administrator, Database Architect, Data Modeller.
Network infrastructure consists of the hardware and software resources that enable network connectivity and communications. It provides the communication path and services between users, processes, applications, services and external networks and the internet. The most widely used networking and telecommunications platforms include Windows server operating systems, Novell, Linux, and UNIX. A network firewall protects a computer network from unauthorized access.
Skills needed: Network administrator.
Internet-related infrastructure includes the hardware, software and services to maintain corporate web sites, intranets, and extranets, as well as web hosting services and web software application development tools.
Skills required: Webmaster, web developer.
Legacy systems are generally older transaction processing systems created for mainframe computers that continue to be used to avoid the high cost of replacing or redesigning them.
Skills required: System Analyst, Software developer.
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a globally recognized collection of best practices for managing information technology.
ICT plan for Laos Statistics Bureau is covering all aspects of the information & communication technology (🔗).
Standard architecture implemented in the Tunisian Statistical Institute (INS).