Advance Manual : 226-H Technical Presentation
Project # 1 : The Technical Briefing
Title : Challenges of Fingerprint Enrollment
Delivered at : PICPA Riyadh Toastmasters Club
Evaluated by : ATM-G/CL Rufino "Ron" Jacobe
Target Norm : Advance Communicator Bronze
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Prologue: (the Toastmaster of the Day must read this before the speakers starts the speech)
Background of the Target Audience:
A technical briefing is conducted every week to decision makers, department heads, and line managers working at National Information Center of the Ministry of Interior. For some critical projects, royal dignitaries may attend the briefing.
Please note that all attendees of the briefing has the minimum technical knowledge and prior background of the subject/ project to be presented. Only the department involve in the project are allowed to attend the briefing
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(Speakers delivers the speech)
Your Highness Prince Bandar it an honor to be at your presence, Directors, General Managers, fellow Consultants, good evening.
We are gathered here tonight to shed light on the status and challenges that we are facing in the implementation of the Fingerprint Enrollment project. I believe that all department involved are well represented here in this meeting. I also understand that each the department received regular updates from the line managers. However, those reports do not include updates on the status of entire project.
Hence, the objective of this briefing is to assess with you, if the Fingerprint Enrollment schedule is achievable or not. I will discuss three major concerns that we believe are critical to the project:
Major Concern 1: Computer SupportYou would agree with me that the heart and main component of the project is a reliable computer system. This system is comprised of:
• hardware that runs 24 hours x 7 days per week
• stable computer software
• dedicated team of engineers and software programmers
Failure or delays on any of these three components will have a major impact on the timetable.
• dedicated team of engineers and software programmers
Failure or delays on any of these three components will have a major impact on the timetable.
Issue No 1: Software bug on authentication and cross reference
Last Nov 2008, we discovered a software bug during a live test. Finger print data cannot be validated versus Iqama data. Investigation shows that somebody modified the reporting system which affects the validation mechanism.
What is the impact of the issue? Major!
The production run was delayed by two weeks to restore the software to its original state.
Preventive Measures:
The software development team will no longer have access to any of the 200 live servers. Any modification on the software must be cleared with the Change Committee.
Issue No 2: Server Farm Failure
Last December 2008, 24 Servers went down because of a configuration error. The hardware failure made the remaining 176 Servers inutile because access to the database has been disabled.
What is the impact of the issue? Severe!
There was a delay of 3 months! Actual gathering of fingerprint data started only by April instead of January, and without the assistance of the Consulting team, the delay may have lasted for six months.
Preventive Measures:
To preclude similar occurrence in the future, the Change Committee has issued a procedure governing any changes on the computer configurations and settings. The Audit & Security Committee will oversee the implementation of the new procedure.
When the project started, we estimated that we will need 10 engineers and programmers. This estimation is no longer valid because of the incurred delays on the project. Now, there is a need for additional 4 head counts.
The request of additional manpower has been submitted to the HR Department.
Major Concern 2: Telecommunication support
Another major concern that is haunting the project is the perception that the Telecommunication support is unreliable.
For simplicity, we divided the issues into two components:
1. Link between Central Office to Zone Center
2. Link between Zone Center to Collection Nodes
Operators in the Zone Centers complain that there is a delay which lengthens gathering procedure from the normal 5 minutes per person to 15 minutes per person.
This issue has been validated. The affected sites are:
• Buraidah
• Tabuk
The report submitted by the Saudi Telecoms Company (STC) showed that the primary communication link on these Zones had been damaged if not destroyed because of the indiscriminate digging during the water expansion of 2007-2008. STC is looking on this matter and based on the latest report, only one area is not repaired – Najran.
Preventive Measures:
Last February, the Project Management Committee approved two supplementary for the project. These supplementary will cover the installation of a secondary link via cable line and commissioning of a tertiary link via satellite. Once completed, all Zone Centers will have three full-redundant connections. This should preclude any communication link issues in the future.
Issue No 2: Network Congestions from the Collection Nodes
For the entire month of April, we made a thorough analysis on the performance of the 500 Collection Sites spread across the country. Initial result shows an extended full utilization of the network link on particular periods of the day.
Users will experience delay on validation which may extend the fingerprinting duration by at least 3 minutes. Instead of the regular 5 minutes average, each transaction may now last to up to 8 minutes.
Action Item:
A recommendation has been submitted to the Project Management Committee to revise the flow of the registration. Iqama data will no longer be online; instead, it will be stored on the Collection Sites. Once approved, the new bandwidth assignment will be 20% downlink / 80% uplink from the previous 50% downlink / 50% uplink
Overall fingerprinting procedure may be reduced to 4 minutes or less
Major Concern 3: Operation Issues
Issue No 1: Limited number of stations
As per our original projection, we will only need 500 Collection Sites, with each Sites having a least 5 workstations, for an average of 18 pax per day. This calculation was taken from a straight forward averaging from the total 9 million targets. It did not consider the demographic distribution of the population.
Impact to the project: Major
Some cities have been assigned with more Collection Sites than necessary, while cities are short of Collection Sites. If this trend will continue, only the cities of Abha, Arar, Madinah, Najran, Tabuk and Taif will achieve 100% completion; while Buraidah is 85%, Dammam 90%, Jeddah, 80% and Riyadh 70%.
Action Item:
The most recent paper released by Planning Department shows a need of additional 200 Collection sites that will be assigned to densely populated areas of Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, and Buraidah. The recommendation has been submitted to the Planning Committee for approval.
We also believe the major reason for the low enrollment rate is the lack of information dissemination of the project. There are basic questions such as:
• Who should enroll?
• What is the requirement for enrollment?
• Where and when can I enroll?
• Do I need to enroll my dependents?
• Can I travel outside the country if I did not enroll?
Action Item:
Planning Department has assigned this task to the Project Committee, and we expect result within the week.
The Fingerprint Enrollment project has three major concerns that requires immediate attention. These concerns are: Computer Support, Telecommunication Support and Deployment Issues/Streamlining.
Honorable members of the committee, the decision is yours.
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