In 2004, the autonomous region of Catalonia, Spain, launched an ambitious project to transform how it delivered services to citizens. Services from all 16 government departments, scattered across a patchwork of 270 separate networks - often hard to locate - were to be grouped according to user needs.

Technologically the transformation called for upgrading the government's internal network to all-Internet protocol (IP) and widespread broadband deployment. By replacing numerous public networks with a shared services center, Catalonia gave its citizens access to all government departments through a common portal using a single telephone number or URL.

Today, Catalonia reports that citizen satisfaction with service speed doubled in six months. Project cost savings are $22 million over three years, and the government expects a 30 percent reduction in the time it takes constituents to find services.

Unlike Catalonia, most government agencies and bureaus still maintain their own individual processes, networks and information systems to accomplish local tasks. However, these governmental IT and communications "silos" have created several situations that warrant improvement:

• Administering redundant stand-alone systems drives up capital and operational costs. The rate of government IT budget growth has slowed, so IT departments are being asked to do more with less.
• The inefficiency of numerous isolated systems frustrates citizens and businesses, who often must contact multiple offices to find information or register changes to their personal status.
• Maintaining unconnected or out-of-sync public safety and central intelligence databases poses societal risks because it limits public safety and homeland security organization's ability to correlate cross-agency files and information.

Connected Government
Fortunately technology is coming together with government programs and policies to transform what were independent systems and processes into a more connected government. As governments realize the inefficiencies of a segmented and isolated organization, policymakers are enacting regulations that allow, and sometimes require, government agencies to share information and processes across boundaries.

Simultaneously, IP-based shared-services technologies have emerged that allow governments to pull together their processes and information resources in a collaborative way. These technologies, which are now embedded in the basic network infrastructure, are:

• virtualization;
• unified IP communications networks and applications;
• mobile networks and devices; and
• overarching security.

Virtualization/service-oriented architecture is at the heart of building shared services. Hardware virtualization links multiple computing systems and WANs into one large pool of resources that an entity can use. Virtualization also logically segments user groups across the data center, as well as LANs and WANs, so they operate securely across distributed entities and departments while maintaining privacy.

In addition to hardware virtualization, service virtualization -- also called a service-oriented architecture -- relies on standard software tools and design principles to turn individually hosted applications into networkwide services that operate independently of user-access devices, local computing hardware platforms and operating systems. This infrastructure fosters interactive, real-time collaboration within and among agencies.

Collaboration/unified communications. Unifying communications systems by linking applications to one another enables the transparent use of processes and resources across systems. It also accelerates communication among employees, between employees and citizens, and between agencies with public safety or intelligence information to share.

Unified communications systems include IP telephony infrastructure and related conferencing applications, integrated voice and data messaging systems, video-conferencing systems, and contact/call centers. They also comprise special IP equipment and applications enabling the interoperability of wireless radio systems that empower police officers, firefighters and other public safety personnel to communicate with one another.

Collaboration is a large focus area for government CIOs: In November 2006, Forrester Research surveyed 64 government technology decision-makers in North America to discover where they planned to invest their software budgets in 2007. The study found that