Thin client enabled business consolidation after merger of municipalities in Iwakuni city. Interview with Mr. Murao, Manager, Information Statistics Section, Comprehensive Policy Dept, Iwakuni city.

IT implementation to cope with widening of administrative district due to mergers

Sometimes in local cities, merger with surrounding small towns and villages occur. Considering the wide range of government after the merger, we needed to push the progress of IT. If we are to commute in between municipal offices of each town or village by car, it would require human cost and time. We won’t be able to make prompt decisions either.

With critical changes looming in local governments, smooth distribution of information and speed are required. Iwakuni City adopted a thin client system in their information-related network and started operating on the cutting edge to tackle the challenges.

420 PC terminals in 2002 and 208 terminals in 2003 were arranged and allocated to all regular employees (1 PC per person). Previously in Iwakuni City, use of computer in information-related work was restricted only to secretary’s office or administration dept., etc. and internet connection or email exchanges with outsiders was also restricted.

Mission-critical network and information-related network are separated

"From the viewpoint of protecting privacy of municipal residents, we would never mix the networks between mission-critical tasks and information-related tasks." In Iwakuni City, PCs had to be allocated for information related tasks in addition to those for mission critical tasks. It is complicated not only to manage this but also to acquire the space for those PCs at actual sites. They evaluated several different systems, adding other conditions as well.

Reason for selecting thin client is rationalization of work with terminals and security

"We never thought of utilizing thin clients at first. However, at the time of virus scares in 2001, a small number of employees had to cope with these issues but it was hard work. We were sure that the current employees would never be able to handle the problem if the number of terminals was to be increased to 700 PCs."

Thin clients free administrators from maintaining each terminal. This advantage was the first reason for the implementation of thin clients in Iwakuni City. Mr. Murao points out the second reason, "We also had to think of the resident registry network. In order to meet two requirements - security and maintenance -, we studied many different systems and selected a thin client as a result."

The second priority in selecting a system was security. Even in information-related networks, there is a large amount of data that holds privacy, which needs to be protected, thus leaking of data should never happen.

Management work has been rationalized thanks to implementation of thin clients

"I have to hurry to go to the actual site in case of troubles in terminals, etc. as a system administrator. However, even in this sort of case, I can use thin client using my code at this site. This is a huge advantage."

"We also aim for the awareness-raising among employees in the background of providing 1 PC terminal per person. I anticipate a great improvement in the consciousness of employees when 1 PO thin client is provided per person."

Anticipation for reducing management cost is great. On top of that, education for 700 employees, which requires plenty of time, is difficult. In this regard, simple operation and system configuration are truly reasonable for a local government.

High expectation for life period of thin client

"There is no HD in a thin client so we can expect over 5 years of operation, which is generally referred to as a life period of PC. There was an inquiry on this point from an assembly member in a committee and I answered that we should be able to use it over 7 years."

Approximately double amount of life time can be expected for a thin client compared to a PC because it has little failure due to its structure and an update of OS or applications is possible on the server side. In municipalities that are trying to push the progress of IT with limited budgets, a thin client may be the inevitable selection.