Since 2001, I4C resources have partnered with Bell Canada, CGI and IBM in the development and implementation of the Secure Channel project

The Secure channel project is the development and implementation of the Government Online (GOL) infrastructure for PWGSC. This involves design and build of an internet/intranet web portal as well as the deployment of an Operations Control Center (OCC) for the ongoing support and maintenance of the web portal environment.

This PWGCS project is primed by Bell Canada and Bell Security Solutions Inc. (BSSI) in partnership with CGI, IBM, Entrust and Accelio.

I4C resources have been involved in several areas including:

Technology Architecture: Our resources were involved in the early stage of the project in the tools evaluation process with regards to security, database, architecture, design and development.

Quality Assurance and Testing: I4C played an active role in defining the guidelines and selecting the tools for the quality assurance process and the overall test strategy. As the project evolved we played an active role on the testing component from a User Acceptance Testing perspective on both the application side and the operation side. Our QA manager and testers played an important role in the successful delivery in production.

User Interface (UI): Working closely with the Government of Canada’s UI guidelines we defined and executed the design for the common user interface of the web portal.

Application: We were involved in building the staging and testing environment for the application services group. We also provided the architects, designers and developers who built the custom web-based applications for different government departments.

Operations: We evaluated and defined the call center tools and the structure of the escalation process within the call center. We also defined the skills required for the different support levels as well as the training required on the tools selected to operate the call center. We were responsible for putting in place the Support Level Agreements (SLA) which had to be negotiated and coordinated with the different partners involved on the project (Entrust, Bell, and PWGSC).

We had networks subject matter experts in the areas of security, system administration and support as part of the overall operations solution. Our Network Analysts and architects help to define best practices and processes in a high availability internet data centre environment.

The success of the ongoing Bell Canada relationship is based on the continued successful involvement of I4C resources in the Secure Channel project.