Computacenter helps Environment Agency deliver more Online services

Computacenter has implemented a new managed web infrastructure for the Environment Agency as part of the development of its Property Search Project.

The aim of the Agency’s project is to improve the efficiency of its current paper-based search service. The new infrastructure has helped to reduce search time from up to six weeks to two minutes.

The Agency’s system supports the Government’s key objective of joining up services, by delivering search reports through the National Land Information Service (NLIS) – a one-stop, government-supported information portal.

NLIS enables conveyancers and property professionals to conduct a range of online property searches, and is a key modernising government initiative.

The Agency’s new infrastructure is based on a highly resilient platform using hardware from Sun Microsystems with applications supplied by Oracle and Weblogic. Computacenter, which already hosts the Agency’s main web site infrastructure, will remotely monitor and manage the new environment from its sophisticated Service Operations Centre. The GIS (geographical information system) components are based on ESRI products.

David Price, Programme Manager at the Environment Agency, comments: “Developing the IT architecture to underpin the new service was extremely complex as we had to ensure that our existing production systems were not compromised or impacted in any way by the expansion of the core web infrastructure. We were also mindful of the need to maintain ultra-high availability in order to ensure a seamless service to our partners.”

The project is part of the Environment Agency’s response to the modernising government agenda, and underpins the ability of NLIS to deliver online environmental searches via its channel partners to solicitors.

Out-tasking the management and implementation of the infrastructure has allowed the Agency to focus its own resources where they could add the most value, as Price confirms: “By sourcing IT infrastructure skills and services from Computacenter, we were able to focus our own people on developing a highly sophisticated search capability. This allows users of the online search service to mine a wealth of environmental data available on properties across England and Wales, yet still receive an answer within a matter of minutes.” He adds: “Traditionally it has taken up to six weeks in the more complex cases to bring together manually the relevant information - such as determining whether the property sits within a flood plain or is near to a waste disposal site – that a property purchaser might need to consider. Through the NLIS portal we have one of the quickest and most robust services of its kind in Europe.”

Colin Brown, Sector Director for Government at Computacenter, believes that this project demonstrates the Environment Agency’s commitment to being at the forefront of the modernising government agenda. “The service level agreement (SLA) set by the Agency demands not only that the system can eventually cope with up to three million requests annually, it also sets one of the highest levels of uptime with 99.97% availability as the base. This is being achieved through a solution that has no single point of failure, and has been stress-tested to 1,000 requests an hour. This roll-out is an important step towards delivering e-conveyancing services, and will help stem the paper chase currently facing property purchasers.”