Annual Report 2005 - Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka

IPS Support ServicesInformation Systems UnitThe Information Systems Unit (ISU) of the Institute of Policy Studies concentrates its activities on the coreareas of, a) software, hardware, networking and IT infrastructure management; b) web development,maintenance and information dissemination; and c) database development, maintenance and management.Computing Facilities and ResourcesAll the IPS staff members are provided with personal computers operating on a Windows environment alongwith relevant software. The two buildings occupied by the IPS are fully networked and interlinked via anunderground optic fiber cable.All centralized IT services are facilitated through an array of state of the art servers located in a dedicatedserver room powered by an independent online Uninterrupted Power Supply system. These servers run allcentralized applications and services such as the IPS Email system, File sharing and Microsoft Active DirectoryService, IPS databases, finNGO; the IPS accounting system, IPS Corporate web, the back end facilities for theIPS public web www.ips.lk and a host of other applications, and are available round the clock. Data Backupfacilities are made available to the IPS staff and an institution wide Disaster Recovery Solution is also inplace.IPS Public WebIPS public web (www.ips.lk ) now consisting about 450 web pages and many other downloadable files, is thefocal point for the latest details of IPS research and findings, its latest (and archived) publications as well asIPS news and other related information. The web site is designed,developed and maintained by the ISU.IPS web site has seen a significant improvement in its access ratesince its inception in 2003, where the IPS commenced developingits web site in-house, and currently the IPS web attracts around100,000 hits and disseminates around 2 Gigabytes of data/information per month. It was planned to redesign the IPS publicweb under a new theme. Initial work was started during 2005,where a new home page based on this theme was developed. Workis underway to re-develop and re-engineer the entire websiteenabling it to meet the current requirements of the IPS.The ISU also possesses the ability to provide web development/information dissemination services and solutions customized tothe requirements of various research projects undertaken andother related activities.IPS Public Web Home Page36__________ Annual Report 2005