Jamaica’s Ministry
of Finance functions as the government’s fiscal manager.
It is responsible for the macro-economic policy management
of Jamaica’s budget.
The Challenge
The process of setting and maintaining budgets calls for vast
resources in terms of facts and figures; from analyzing past
years performance to making future projections. This kind
of complex administration is ideally suited to the application
of computer systems and the Jamaican Ministry of Finance was
quick to recognize the available technology, which would no
doubt make its job a lot easier.
Originally, the Jamaican Ministry of Finance was using a variety
of stand-alone personal computer systems for this task. Whilst
providing a short-term solution, the installation had drawbacks
in that resources could not be adequately shared throughout
the department. It was also decided, that the department required
enhanced performance from its computer systems. After an exhaustive
review, leading Jamaican distributor MC Systems, completed
the initial phase of a new computer installation at the Ministry
of Finance.
The installation required the ability to network 180 user
terminals giving them access to system host servers.
The Solution
Perle IOLAN+ terminal servers were sited at various distribution
points throughout the building to network enable the user
terminals and support multiple remote printers.
The Benefits
Each Perle IOLAN+ terminal server enables any combination
of serial devices to be connected to the Ethernet backbone,
providing host access and processing power where it is needed
most.
The installation originally had 180 users on-line,
but has the ability to accept over 300 via the Perle IOLAN+
terminal servers. The long-term goal, is to standardize on
Unix applications over LANs for all Jamaican Government departments,
each feeding into an X.25 gateway for wide area networked
communications. Duncan Soares, Marketing Manager of MC Systems
Limited comments on the choice of Perle IOLAN+ for the site,
“Our reason for choosing Perle IOLAN+ servers was primarily
cost and compatibility with SCO’s TCP/IP. Additionally,
Perle’s ability to communicate on thick wire Ethernet
and support remote printers gave it clear advantages over
other products evaluated”. |
