Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Case Study

SDLC helped show us the way forward with the most cost-effective solution for our needs.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for the regulation of risks to health and safety arising from work activity in Britain. Its aim is to protect people’s health and safety by ensuring risks in the workplace, from nuclear installations to hospitals, are properly controlled.

The HSE is sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions and employs around 4,000 people across 35 or so locations, the majority of whom work from the offices in Bootle (1,300) and London (700).

Given the size, stature and importance of the HSE, IT systems operate as the core of communication, both internally and externally and as such, high dependency is placed on key operational applications.

The Brief

HSE with its service partners is constantly undertaking a number of IT related business initiatives including the recent deployment of a new Inspection System (COIN) which was to be deployed across 38 sites using WAN and LAN facilities. The project focused on the current status and capacity of the HSE network, with a view to fully understanding the impact of significant rollouts such as this. SDLC Solutions was engaged to provide performance measurement and reporting, and subsequently provide assurance to HSE that the existing infrastructure would cope with the introduction of the new application and to help achieve a successful deployment.

COIN is a key application facilitating the sharing of information between HSE individuals and offices. It is a web based application which was expected to be used by around 2,000 users nationally and up to 600 users concurrently. The application is CRM based, using PeopleSoft (now Oracle) software.

The COIN application carries high importance and consequently, high visibility within the organisation. With this in mind, the HSE appointed SDLC Solutions to ensure that:

• Its current network infrastructure was sufficient to cope with existing demands
• The performance of the Inspection System met the requirements of the users
• That its deployment had no detrimental impact on the performance of other applications on the network
• That the capacity planning effort was managed successfully

The Project

The SDLC brief was specifically to:

• Measure and report on existing application performance within the current infrastructure
• Monitor the network utilisation of existing application traffic
• Understand the performance characteristics of COIN
• Model the anticipated performance to be achieved from the application in the ‘live’ environment
• Simulate the performance of COIN over differing network conditions; and
• Provide insight as to the optimum bandwidth conditions under which to run the application at HSE.

SDLC selected Compuware’s Vantage toolset to take measurements from the current live environment including network metrics, application flows, usage patterns and response times, thus identifying how the infrastructure and current applications were performing. This process accrued historical data, which added value to the capacity planning process.

Information was then collected relating to the behavioural characteristics of the COIN application on performance, bandwidth, sensitivity, latency tolerance and the predicted interaction with the existing network. Following the initial scoping work, the current network infrastructure was assessed including the current performance of applications on the network. This enabled SDLC to determine the impact of the new application.

In addition to performing a detailed breakdown of the endto- end transaction performance, SDLC diagnosed the issues causing poor response times or excessive traffic. It was clear that extra bandwidth was needed, but it was decided to go a stage further and use predictive analysis to make sure that the correct levels for the HSE’s immediate and future needs were utilised . This included optimising the deployment methods.

Pete Stock, Managing Director, SDLC Solutions explains: “In summary we were able to look at the performance of the live applications that were supporting HSE’s activities, and then assess the impact of deploying the new application. This was achieved using a combination of analysis techniques, investigative tools, and predictive modeling.”

Peter Wood, IT Contracts & Services Manager comments: “Ultimately SDLC confirmed that aspects of our wide area network would simply not have been up to the job of supporting the COIN application. However, since this was discovered in advance, with no adverse effect on our live operations we were able to deal with the problem before it became an issue. With SDLC’s help we also determined the most appropriate way of going forward and the most costeffective solution for our needs. With the rollout complete and the usage profile still evolving, we will continue to monitor how the service is being delivered to our user community. Their confidence in the performance of the COIN application is one of the cornerstones of benefits realisation.”

Business Benefits

• Provided valuable information to assist HSE to determine the state of existing WAN and application performance
• Gained understanding as to how COIN would interact with other applications on the network
• Recommended the appropriate network sizing and bandwidth requirements to deliver the application successfully
• Ultimately helped to assure the performance of the application within the organisation
• Contributed to securing user buy-in, a key factor for benefits realisation