CGIAR ICT Roadmap

CGIAR Information and
Communications Technology
Roadmap and Action Items:
A Three Year Perspective

Prepared by the Office of the
CGIAR Chief Information Officer

December 2010

Executive Summary
This document includes a three-year roadmap in the area of Information and
Communications Technology. It proposes twenty-four prioritized Action Items for
the CGIAR, divided into five general areas.
These Action Items were developed, discussed, and prioritized by the ICT
managers of the CGIAR Centers. Each of the Action Items is a standalone project
with specific deliverables. In addition to the Action Items themselves, this plan
contains background information, rationale for each area, environmental scans of
the CGIAR and related organizations, as well as a business case or business need for
each Action Item.
The starting point for the roadmap was the Strategy and Results Framework
documents [SRF] on the Design and Establishment of the Consortium of CGIAR
Centers. Within these documents, the concept of “shared services” across CGIAR
centers is called out in “Key Findings and Recommendations from the Consultancy
on Common Administrative, Financial, and Research support Services in the new
Consortium of the CGIAR Centres (November/2009),” hereafter, the “Accenture
Report.” These shared services across the CGIAR centers were focused largely on
information technologies. In the Accenture Report, it was noted that
“… shared services in IT can drive improved specialization and increased
services. Efficiency gains can potentially free up IT personnel to focus on
strategic uses of technology to help drive the future research agenda instead of
tactical IT support within a specific Centre. “
The Accenture Report identified five key goals that shared services within
the CGIAR would support:

· “Improve the effectiveness and quality of research by allowing Centres to
focus more time and resources on core research activities
· Increase collaboration and knowledge sharing within and across Centres
through the introduction of standards and collaboration tools
· Increase productivity and efficiencies of research support, administrative
and financial services through use of industry leading practices and tools
· Improve the ability of the CG system to quickly scale and respond to
potential increases in funding and introduction of CGIAR Research Programs
(CRPs)
· Reduce redundancies in spending, technologies and resources by sharing
common back- office and research support services” (Accenture Report, page
13)
Based on these five goals, 15 very broad shared services initiatives (page 20),
ranging from “standardize ways of working” to “share donor intelligence,” were

CGIAR ICT Roadmap Page 2

proposed. While the very broad initiatives provide high-level guidance, the
Accenture Report didn’t offer a detailed implementation plan. Thus, the CGIAR
turned to its own ICT managers to flesh out the broad initiatives. The ICT managers
developed a series of “action items” to build a 3-year roadmap for shared services
ICT deployment within the CGIAR. Those action items form the core of this
document.
Over a three-month period (July to September, 2010), as a group effort, the
CGIAR ICT managers met electronically and via conference call in small groups to
develop a set of action items. The discussions were divided into five general topic
areas, and each topic area was covered by a team of ICT managers, with most
managers participating in more than one team.
In October, 2010, the ICT managers met in Addis-Ababa for a face-to-face
meeting. During the week-long meeting, the five topic areas were combined into
this document. Each action item was discussed, both in small group discussions
and, finally, in a full meeting of all managers. When the action items had been
agreed upon, ICT managers worked together to prioritize and order the final set of
twenty-four. Finally, budget estimates were prepared for the highest priority items.
This document doesn’t represent a final three-year plan with a timeline, but a
rolling analysis of the action items needed for shared services within the CGIAR.
Each year, it is expected that this roadmap will be re-visited to verify its
applicability, to re-confirm priorities and initiate new projects from the action item
lists, and to further fine-tune the roadmap. To begin, the following immediate
recommendations for implementation of the highest priority seven action items
beginning in CY2011 are offered.


Title Description and Proposed Project Scope
Description: Establish minimum standards for Internet connectivity,
including guidelines for selecting vendors, media (wires/wireless/VSAT),
Internet and types of circuits.
Connectivity Scope: Prepare policies and negotiate contracts based Internet
requirements across different regions in the CGIAR; manage Internet
contracts and handle purchasing, negotiation, and project administration.
3 person-months for research, policy establishment, contract negotiation
Resource
at project initiation; 2 full-time staff continuing to handle admin/finance
Requirements
tasks and manage program.

Description: In conjunction with appropriate partners within CGIAR, a
Common Data Repository for CRPs should be developed, including data
dictionary and with full access control/security capabilities. Both known
data objects and potential future data objects should be supported. This
Common Data action item has scope beyond CGIAR Research Programs (“mega-
Repository for programs”) as well, and may have results with broad applicability.
CRPs and beyond Scope: Establish requirements definition and project design; prepare white
paper comparing hosted versus cloud; research on existing repositories for
“meta” repository; detailed design of repository; develop access control
guidelines, archiving, publishing, and data dictionaries; create repository
and operate repository for all CGIAR

Resource 60 person months to design, contract, and deploy system. Hardware costs
Requirements of approximately $250,000. Continuing staffing of 1 person full-time to
manage/maintain (or outsourced contract).

Description: Support the selection and deployment of back-office software
as part of the One Corporate System initiative. Investigate any
bandwidth/connectivity requirements and integration with document
One Corporate management systems/corporate repositories that OCS will require when it
System is rolled out.
Scope: Monitor OCS project and provide ICT input; report and gather
feedback; full-time participation and liaison regarding ICT function;
progress reporting and documentation
Resource
Requirements 1 full-time person for life of OCS project.

Description: Establish CGIAR data backup systems focusing on the needs of
Backup, Data under-served and small offices, including day-to-day automated solutions
Protection, as well as cloud-based backup services.
Business Scope: Establish backup system policy; establish cloud policy and contract;
Continuity establish best practices guidelines for business continuity; contracting for
service; establish and initiate service.
Resource 4 person-months at project initiation; continuing ¼ full-time person for
Requirements management of service and assistance to participating Centers


Title Description and Proposed Project Scope
Description: Continuing program of maintenance, education, and
development of CGIAR Active Directory.
Active Directory Scope: Creation of knowledge base, community of practice, training
materials. Update status of directory. Extend AD beyond simple
Exchange/Windows uses. Write governance policy. Deliver training
program in 3 regions; continuing daily monitoring and maintenance of AD
4 person-months at project initiation; 3 weeks training annually;
Resource
continuing ¼ full-time person (or outsourced) for monitoring and
Requirements
maintenance and management.

Description: Make available to all CGIAR staff, support, and promote a
collection of collaboration tools (locally hosted or cloud-based, as
appropriate), including collaboration platforms, desktop sharing, video
Develop a
and audio conferencing.
Collaboration and
Scope: Identification of tools based on action item; product selection;
Social Media
development of training materials and decision matrix; best practices
Toolbox
establishment; governance development; continuing outreach and
training program; operation of collaboration platform CGIAR-wide
including licensing and conferencing services.
Resource 3 person-months at project initiation; continuing ½ full-time person and ¼
Requirements full-time person; hardware/bandwidth costs; annual licensing costs.

Enterprise Single
Description: Design and deploy an enterprise single sign-on infrastructure.
Sign-on
Infrastructure Scope: Requirements definition and project design only
Resource
Requirements 2 person-months


Table of Contents
Executive Summary .........................................................................................2
Introduction ....................................................................................................8
Priority Initiatives ............................................................................................9
TOPIC AREA: Application Layer....................................................................... 11
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................................ 11
BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE .................................................................................................... 11
ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN .................................................................................................................... 12
OCS - One Corporate System.................................................................................................................12
Other System-Wide Applications........................................................................................................12
Enterprise Architectures ........................................................................................................................12
Survey of Application Usage .................................................................................................................13
ACTION ITEMS ........................................................................................................................................ 13
A1) One Corporate System ....................................................................................................................13
A2) Enterprise Application Framework .........................................................................................14
A3) Common Data Repository for CGIAR Research Programs and beyond ...................14
A4) Lifecycle of Shared and Standardized Applications .........................................................15
A5) Data Management and Collection Tools for Research ....................................................15
TOPIC AREA: Communication & Collaboration Tools and Techniques .............. 16
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................................ 16
BACKGROUND, ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN, AND RATIONALE .............................................. 16
ACTION ITEMS ........................................................................................................................................ 17
C1) Develop a VoIP strategy for the CGIAR system....................................................................17
C2) Develop a collaboration and social media toolbox. ..........................................................18
TOPIC AREA: ICT and Organizational ICT Governance ...................................... 20
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................................ 20
BACKGROUND, ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN, AND RATIONALE .............................................. 20
ACTION ITEMS ........................................................................................................................................ 21
G1) Identify Critical Center ICT services supporting Science................................................21
G2) Rightsource ICT services at Centers with a global view .................................................21
G3) Transform ICT from Service Provider to Strategic Partner..........................................22
G4) Improve ICT maturity at Centers ..............................................................................................22
G8) Establish Appropriate CGIAR-wide ICT Standards ...........................................................23
TOPIC AREA: Location Strategies .................................................................... 24
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................................ 24
ACTION ITEMS ........................................................................................................................................ 25
L1) Provide ICT Support, Training, and Procurement to Under-Served Offices ..........25
L2) Backup, Data Protection, Business Continuity ....................................................................26


L3) Global Standards for Network Infrastructure .....................................................................27
L4) Internet Connectivity.......................................................................................................................27
L5) Optimizing Wide Area Network Connections ......................................................................28
TOPIC AREA: Network and Telecommunications Infrastructure Services ......... 29
OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................................ 29
ACTION ITEMS ........................................................................................................................................ 30
N1) Active Directory ................................................................................................................................30
N2) Enterprise Single Sign-On infrastructure .............................................................................31
N3) Cloud Computing - Utility Computing, Outsourced Services, and SaaS ..................32
N4) CGIAR-wide VPN redesign, firewall upgrade, and filtering options .........................33
N5) CGIAR Security Operations Center ...........................................................................................33
N6) CGIAR-wide Equipment and Training contracts ...............................................................34
N7) Strategy for IPv6...............................................................................................................................35
Participating ICT Managers ............................................................................ 36
References..................................................................................................... 37
Appendices .................................................................................................... 39
Maturity Model: A Definition ............................................................................................................ 39
COBIT: A Definition ............................................................................................................................... 39
Enterprise Architecture: A Definition ........................................................................................... 40
Unified Communications: A Definition ......................................................................................... 42
What is Unified Communications? ....................................................................................................42
Two Types of UC Applications .............................................................................................................42
UC Applications ..........................................................................................................................................43
UC Applications ..........................................................................................................................................44
Cloud Computing: A definition ......................................................................................................... 45
What is Cloud Computing? ....................................................................................................................45
Types of Cloud Computing.....................................................................................................................45
Single Sign-on: A Definition ............................................................................................................... 47
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................47
Benefits of Single Sign-On......................................................................................................................47


Introduction
This document presents a three-year roadmap for Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) for the new CGIAR System. The plan is
presented as a series of Action Items in five key areas of ICT:
- Applications and Upper Layer Services
- Collaboration Tools and Techniques
- ICT Governance
- Geographic Location and Mobility Issues
- Network Infrastructure and Security Services
These Action Items were developed, discussed, and prioritized by the ICT
managers of the CGIAR Centers. Each of the Action Items is a standalone project
with specific deliverables. In addition to the Action Items themselves, this plan
contains background information, rationale for each area, environmental scans of
the CGIAR and related organizations, as well as a business case or business need for
each Action Item.
The starting point for the roadmap was the Strategy and Results Framework
documents [SRF] on the Design and Establishment of the Consortium of CGIAR
Centers. Within these documents, the concept of “shared services” across CGIAR
centers is called out in “Key Findings and Recommendations from the Consultancy
on Common Administrative, Financial, and Research support Services in the new
Consortium of the CGIAR Centres (November/2009),” hereafter, the “Accenture
Report.” These shared services across the CGIAR centers were focused largely on
information technologies. In the Accenture Report, it was noted that
“… shared services in IT can drive improved specialization and increased
services. Efficiency gains can potentially free up IT personnel to focus on strategic
uses of technology to help drive the future research agenda instead of tactical IT
support within a specific Centre... common processes and systems can reduce time
in finance spent working on manual processes, reconciliation and reporting…
standards for collecting, managing and disseminating information can increase
collaboration within and across Centres, and also reduce the risk of losing data and
institutional knowledge “
The Accenture Report identified five key goals that shared services within
the CGIAR would support:

· “Improve the effectiveness and quality of research by allowing Centres to
focus more time and resources on core research activities
· Increase collaboration and knowledge sharing within and across Centres
through the introduction of standards and collaboration tools
· Increase productivity and efficiencies of research support, administrative
and financial services through use of industry leading practices and tools
· Improve the ability of the CG system to quickly scale and respond to


potential increases in funding and introduction of CGIAR Research programs
(CRPs)
· Reduce redundancies in spending, technologies and resources by sharing
common back- office and research support services” (Accenture Report, page
13)
Based on these five goals, 15 very broad shared services initiatives (page 20),
ranging from “standardize ways of working” to “share donor intelligence,” were
proposed. While the very broad initiatives provide high-level guidance, the
Accenture Report didn’t offer a detailed implementation plan. Thus, the CGIAR
turned to its own ICT managers to flesh out the broad initiatives. The ICT managers
developed a series of “action items” to build a 3-year roadmap for shared services
ICT deployment within the CGIAR. Those action items form the core of this
document.
Over a three-month period (July to September, 2010), as a group effort, the
CGIAR ICT managers met electronically and via conference call in small groups to
develop a set of action items. The discussions were divided into five general topic
areas, and each topic area was covered by a team of ICT managers, with most
managers participating in more than one team.
In October, 2010, the ICT managers met in Addis-Ababa for a face-to-face
meeting. During the week-long meeting, the five topic areas were combined into
this document. Each action item was discussed, both in small group discussions
and, finally, in a full meeting of all managers. When the action items had been
agreed upon, ICT managers worked together to prioritize and order the final set of
twenty-four. Finally, budget estimates were prepared for the highest priority items.
This document doesn’t represent a final three-year plan with a timeline, but a
rolling analysis of the action items needed for shared services within the CGIAR.
Each year, it is expected that this roadmap will be re-visited to verify its
applicability, to re-confirm priorities and initiate new projects from the action item
lists, and to further fine-tune the roadmap. To begin, the following immediate
recommendations for implementation of the highest priority seven action items
beginning in CY2011 are offered.
The remainder of this document outlines the most critical Action Items
identified by the ICT managers, and provides additional detail for readers interested
in the rationale and business case behind each action item.

Priority Initiatives
The ICT managers of the CGIAR prioritized the action items in this roadmap by
dividing them into three priority classes: highest, normal, and lowest. Based on the
collective ranking of the ICT managers, the action items are ordered below from
highest priority to lowest priority. Please note, however, that the rankings are
rough and that within each of the four groupings identified (by color or
P1/P2/P3/P4 level) below, the items are approximately equally ranked. In other


words, all action items ranked “P3” have approximately the same priority with the
ICT managers of the CGIAR Centers.

L4 P1 Internet Connectivity
A3 P1 Common Data Repository for CRPs
A1 P1 One Corporate System
L2 P1 Backup, Data Protection, Business Continuity
N1 P2 Active Directory
C2 P2 Develop a "collaboration toolbox"
N2 P2 Enterprise Single Sign-on Infrastructure
G3 P2 Facilitate organization-wide ICT transformation
G4 P2 Improve ICT maturity at centers
L1 P2 ICT Support, Training, Procurement
G2 P2 Rightsource ICT Services at Centers with a Global View
N3 P2 Cloud Computing - Utility Computing and SaaS
C1 P3 Develop a VoIP strategy for the CG system
G1 P3 Identify Critical ICT services supporting Science
L3 P3 Standards for Network Infrastructure and Security
N6 P3 CGIAR-wide Network Equipment contracts
L5 P3 Optimizing Wide Area Network Connections
N4 P3 CGIAR-wide VPN redeployment and update
N5 P3 CGIAR Security Operations Center
G8 P3 Establish Appropriate CGIAR-wide ICT Standards
N7 P4 IPv6 Strategy for CGIAR
A2 P4 Enterprise Application Framework
A4 P4 Lifecycle of Shared and Standardized Applications
A5 P4 Data Management and Collection Tools for Research


TOPIC AREA: Application Layer
OVERVIEW
The CGIAR Centers each operate their own ICT infrastructures. At the
highest layer of these infrastructures are applications that support the work of the
Center. These applications include a very wide variety of research tools and
collaboration systems, as well as traditional back-office applications such as
accounting, human resources, and purchasing.
This topic brief covers the use of applications within the CGIAR Centers and
proposes specific action items designed to optimize the selection and sharing of
applications, specifically common applications, within the Centers.

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE
There are many reasons to consider common applications across multiple
Centers, including similarity of purpose, CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs, formerly
called "mega-programs") and shared locations, facilitating collaboration, exploring
cloud-based services, and reducing capital and operational expenses. Most of these
reasons are fairly obvious and have been evaluated in considerable depth already.
Similarity of Purpose: Although each of the CGIAR Centers is unique and
operates in its own regulatory and administrative environment, there is also
considerable commonality: each of the Centers is more like the other Centers than it
is to a traditional trans-national enterprise. This suggests that major application
acquisition in any area can be done more effectively by raising the level above the
individual center.
CRPs/Shared Locations: The Strategy and Results Framework for the CGIAR
proposes “CGIAR Research Programs” which will cross CGIAR Centers. [SRF] At the
same time, Centers are choosing to co-locate with each other in some geographic
areas. While the CGIAR Research Programs and geographically co-located Centers
don’t require integrated cross-Center applications, there are obvious arguments on
both the research and back-office sides of ICT to have common applications.
Facilitating Collaboration: As the research teams at the CGIAR Centers are
engaged in related work (independently of the collaboration required by the CRPs),
it is logical to encourage researchers to draw from a common research tool kit, to
simplify future collaborative efforts both within the CGIAR and without.
Exploring Cloud-based Services: Software as a Service (SaaS) is a strong
trend being explored by many enterprises. As Internet bandwidth increases and
becomes more reliable at CGIAR Centers, the use of SaaS may make sense in both
back-office and research computing areas, as well as with commercial office utilities
such as as email and/or other related office suites, providing thin clients for users
where appropriate. Utility Computing, another type of Cloud-based service, may also
be useful for researchers needing high-performance computing for their work


Reducing Expenses: As with any asset, software has both capital and
operational expenses. Sharing applications may reduce acquisition costs, training
costs, maintenance costs, and allow some specialized applications to be made
available to researchers in more Centers, however possible increases in end user
support and technical support would have to be well thought out, so as not to incur
further expenses.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
The possibilities for shared application services have been explored
extensively in the CGIAR Centers, especially in the back-office area.

OCS - One Corporate System
The “One Corporate System” initiative [OCS] is already working to develop a
single back-office system (sometimes referred to as ERP, enterprise resource
planning, or HIFAS, highly-integrated financial accounting system) for multiple
Centers:
“The OCS Initiative is an inter-center bottom-up initiative that seeks to have
CG centers working together to select and implement a [corporate] system … to
create synergies and economies of scale by increasing centers negotiation power
with vendors, reducing consulting and implementation costs, and by increasing
center collaboration by sharing development and maintenance costs among
centers.”
Given that the core module of the OCS is Project Management, scientists
could take advantage of all project information provided and be able to use it to
their advantage, being able to have vital information on hand at any time of their
projects.

Other System-Wide Applications
Other system-wide applications are currently being incorporated in various
centers, for example the Human Resources application HR4U is successfully being
used by a few centers. Other centers may want to follow suit and incorporate this
system-wide solution while the OCS initiative takes flight. These solutions are
probably not exclusive of each other and can work together.
The CGXchange, built on top of Google’s cloud-based web services, is
currently providing collaboration tools across the CG Centers.

Enterprise Architectures
The team preparing this brief also evaluated four Enterprise Architectures--
Department of Defense [US] Application Framework, Zachman Enterprise
Architecture, The Open Group Application Framework, and the Federal [US]
Enterprise Architecture. A summary of these architectures is beyond the scope of
this brief, but is available as part of the references. [Framework]


Survey of Application Usage
As part of this topic brief, the ICT Roadmap group asked each Center to
provide a list of applications in use in four areas: Financial/Administrative,
Operations Management, Research and Data Management, and Publications
Management. While the survey was not comprehensive and different Centers gave
different levels of detail in their answers, several trends are visible: [AppSurvey]
1. Centers all have a mature set of applications running in traditional
back-office roles, although there is little commonality, with Oracle
eBusiness, SAP, Microsoft, and other tools all reported in use.
2. Operations Management functions such as travel management,
project management and coordination, grant management, and
business intelligence functions are sophisticated in about half the
Centers, with multiple applications including both COTS (commercial,
off-the-shelf) and custom-developed. The other half did not report
having a sophisticated operations management application portfolio.
3. Research and Data Management applications are common across all
Centers, with a few typical applications (ESRI GIS tools, SAS or SPSS
statistical tools) in almost each Center. Centers reported as many as
37 different Research applications. The survey data suggest that
Centers have extensive portfolios in this area.
4. Publication Management applications are less sophisticated. Many
Centers reported library management applications, but there seems to
be very little penetration of various collaborative tool kits (other than
typical web content management systems, such as Drupal and Joomla)
into the Centers.
5. Above and beyond the applications themselves, there is a big
opportunity to provide a much more integrated data management
system for applications to use. For example, CGIAR Centers make
heavy use of surveys, but the survey data and results are not
coordinated or linked. Researchers wondering whether they can use
an existing survey or not are stymied by the lack of common or linked
databases that can be searched. The theme of "data repository"
appears many times in this document.

ACTION ITEMS

A1) One Corporate System
Deliverable: Support the selection and deployment of back-office software as part
of the One Corporate System initiative. Investigate any bandwidth/connectivity
requirements and integration with document management systems/corporate
repositories that OCS will require when it is rolled out.
Business Need: The Background and Rationale in this document lists five reasons
for shared applications. All of these are valid reasons to suggest a common back-


office framework for the CGIAR centers. The One Corporate System initiative is an
"action item" which proposed a single, shared application to cover many back-office
requirements. The Action Item here is an endorsement of the One Corporate System
initiative and a directive to continue the standardization of back-office applications
across Centers and, where possible, the creation of a shared back-office application
to handle financial and administrative tasks.

A2) Enterprise Application Framework
Deliverable: Research Enterprise Application Frameworks in the context of the
new Consortium to determine applicability to the CGIAR in the area of
administrative applications. N.B. It is not anticipated that this would apply to
research computing needs.
Business Need: Enterprise Application Frameworks address the twin problems of
increasing system complexity and decreasing business alignment within the
information technology arms of large enterprises. In the context of this research,
individual Centers are likely too small to require such an enterprise architecture or
framework. However, as the Centers combine to a larger CGIAR Consortium, there
is applicability of these frameworks to the larger organization. The goal of this task
is to identify the areas where the research in Enterprise Application Frameworks
can be applied to the CGIAR Centers to increase IT value while reducing IT costs.

A3) Common Data Repository for CGIAR Research Programs and beyond
Deliverable: In conjunction with appropriate partners within CGIAR, a Common
Data Repository for CRPs should be developed, including data dictionary and with
full access control/security capabilities. Both known data objects and potential
future data objects should be supported. This action item has scope beyond CGIAR
Research Programs (“CRPs”) as well, and may have results with broad applicability.
Consideration should be given to storing both structured (e.g., database) data
and unstructured (e.g., publications, images) data in the Common Data Repository.
The Common Data Repository should be workflow-enabled, rather than
simply being a repository for data and role-based with the possibility of having both
public (uncontrolled) and private (authenticated, access-controlled) access.
This Action Item may be satisfied by making a single common repository (if
there are few Center-wide repositories), or by creating a "virtual" repository that
sits on top of existing repositories to create a single consistent view.
This Action Item should also consider using Storage as a Service as the core
storage for the repository (“in the cloud” storage).
Business Need: The new CRPs will be generating large amounts of data that need to
be managed. This is especially important with the new CRPs, because some
information that is generated by one CGIAR-Research-program will be needed as
input to another CGIAR-Research-program. The Common Data Repository will
include common data dictionaries to describe the data collected, definitions of terms
and specifications of allowable values, documentation of the data stored, and


version control for updates. An important part of this Common Data Repository will
be the security of the shared data, both against unauthorized access and
unauthorized modification.
As the work of the CGIAR gets re-organized into Research Programs, the
work outputs for any Research Program will be spread across the institutional
repositories that have been setup at multiple centers and are a major component of
the One Corporate System (OCS) project to be adopted by as many as ten centers
initially. The information in these repositories will need to be repackaged (virtually
or physically) so that they not only reflect the institutional knowledge and memory
but so that they also reflect the CGIAR’s research program history. The current
reality of diverse, center-based repositories needs to merge seamlessly into the
definitive collection for each research program.

A4) Lifecycle of Shared and Standardized Applications
Deliverable: A Procedure to deploy both Shared and Standardized Applications and
a common methodology to deal with the lifecycle of applications.
Business Need: The action items within this brief, as well as other projects within
the CGIAR Centers, call for applications to be either standardized or shared or both.
We anticipate the benefits of shared and standardized applications, and want to
encourage the creation of greater application standards and application sharing.
This implies that a simple model to describe how applications are adopted,
maintained, and eventually retired will reduce the costs of setting up new shared
and standardized applications.

A5) Data Management and Collection Tools for Research
Deliverable: In conjunction with field users, this deliverable would include a report
on new fieldwork data collection tools (mobile voice networks, text networks, tablet
computers, Netbooks) across CGIAR Centers. The report would include an
inventory of existing tools and devices in-use across the CGIAR Centers.
A second aspect of this deliverable would be guidance for end-users on the
different data collection tools, including use cases to help users select the correct
tools for their research.
Business Need: Multiple CGIAR Centers are investigating data collection tools that
make use of newer technologies, including both hardware and networking. To
reduce duplicate effort and work more efficiently, a CGIAR-wide investigation of the
technology is appropriate.


TOPIC AREA: Communication & Collaboration Tools and
Techniques

OVERVIEW
“Communication and collaboration tools and techniques” includes a broad
set of ICT products and services, but some of the most fundamental are:
 Synchronous Communications, including:
a. Telephony and Audio conferencing
b. Video conferencing
c. virtual meetings
d. Instant Messaging
 Asynchronous Communications, including:
a. Electronic Mail
b. Collaboration platforms
c. Social media and networking
 Shared Repositories

These are core tools and techniques that can minimize the impact of distance
on geographically dispersed team members, helping them work together more
effectively.
In all of these areas, technology has changed extensively in recent years,
opening up a broad range of possibilities to improve communications. The
widespread availability of the Internet in most locations world-wide has made
collaboration a more practical matter than ever before.
Even more significantly, the innovative forces behind collaboration tools
(such as social media networks) are becoming more and more familiar to CGIAR
researchers, making the use of these tools not just familiar, but an expected part of
any day-to-day work plan. We are already observing the CGIAR research
community exerting a substantial “pull” towards collaborative tools. The challenge
facing the ICT community is how to bring collaborative tools to the CGIAR research
community in a secure fashion. CGIAR ICT staff must ensure that the use of
collaborative tools within CGIAR research teams operates in the best interests of the
entire CGIAR community, providing a controlled, open and transparent platform to
easily share and preserve information.

BACKGROUND, ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN, AND RATIONALE
Within the CGIAR system, the need for communication and collaboration
tools and techniques is especially relevant for three reasons:


1. Most centers are highly decentralized so even intra-center teams are
often geographically dispersed.
2. Most projects involve working with external collaborators.
3. Inter-center collaboration exists now and is likely to increase with the
reorganization into CGIAR Research Programs.
Though the IT units in all of the CGIAR centers are independent of each other,
the CGIAR has a long history of ICT collective action focused on supporting
communication and collaboration. The IVDN (integrated voice data network) was
developed in the mid-90s to facilitate inter-center communication; the voice
component of this is still in use at over half of the centers today and all centers
participate in the common directory and email component. The CGVlibrary project
successfully combined the library resources on all of the centers into a single,
searchable collection; this is available at http://vlibrary.cgiar.org. The lessons
learned in the initial attempt to develop a CGIAR intranet/extranet paved the way
for the successful development of the CGXchange collaborative platform
(http://www.cgxchange.org).
Institutional repositories -- a mechanism for collecting, preserving, and
disseminating in digital form the work of an institution -- are described as a major
component of the One Corporate System (OCS) project that will be jointly adopted
by at least ten centers, although the focus of OCS has shifted towards back-office
functions such as finance and administration and document management workflow
functions. At this time, the OCS is not seen as a repository for research results so
further work is required to collect the requirements for a collaboration platform and
repository for OCS. [OCS]
But not all efforts have been successful; the pilot project using the Microsoft
Live Communication Server (for instant messaging) was not embraced by all centers
and the platform was dropped after two years.
There is much more that can be done to expand on this initial effort and
CGIAR teams would benefit from having a robust set of communication and
collaboration resources to choose from that are easy to use and well supported.

ACTION ITEMS
C1) Develop a VoIP strategy for the CGIAR system
Deliverable: Develop a unified VoIP strategy, and an implementation plan, for the
CG system, including:
 for Centers using analog or digital phones, technical standards to add
SIP to PBXes; for Centers wishing to use full VoIP to the desk,
technical standards for full VoIP PBXes and SIP interconnectivity
 an overall architecture for VoIP based on SIP
 software standards, profiles, and if necessary acquisition of VoIP
clients to encourage VoIP


 creation of gateways between popular proprietary systems, such as
Skype, to bridge Center VoIP networks and encourage connectivity
 linkage of Centres’ PBX system to enable least-cost routing of calls and
inter-centre calling
 standard procedures and promotion to encourage inter-center calling
using SIP and a “communication culture”
 standard procedures and promotion to encourage linkage to regional
and country offices either using softphones or branch office SIP
gateways to hosted or Campus based PBXs
 directory services to allow easy discovery of phone numbers for
CGIAR staff
 external linkages to easily allow calls from non-SIP-connected parties,
such as a button on a web page “click to call me”
 integration of the CGIAR VoIP system with a cloud-hosted conference
calling system/service
 establishment of minimum standards for VoIP services, including
investigation of proprietary extensions and their effect on
connectivity
 investigation of regulatory issues
Business Need: The introduction of CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs, previously
called "mega-programs") will broaden the collaborative nature of the work of the
CGIAR centers. Voice communication can help teams collaborate more effectively,
but the lack of a “communication culture” within the CGIAR and in some cases cost
and ease-of-use can deter a researcher from using voice. The original IVDN project
begun in the mid-1990s addressed this by implementing a system that allowed all
center headquarters staff to call each other as easily as a local call, but this has
dwindled to only half the centers and, for the most part, never reached beyond
headquarters offices. Changes in voice technology and the broad adoption of Skype
have opened up new opportunities to revive and expand upon the original vision of
no-barriers voice between CGIAR staff.

C2) Develop a collaboration and social media toolbox.
Deliverable: Make available to all CGIAR staff, support, and promote a collection of
collaboration tools (locally hosted or cloud-based, as appropriate) including:
 collaboration platforms
o virtual meetings
o wikis
o shared workspaces (Google Apps, SharePoint)
 desktop sharing
 large file transfer
 social media and social networking tools
 video/web conferencing
 audio conferencing


“Make available” in this context could include CGIAR-wide licensing,
subscriptions to cloud-hosted services, CGIAR-hosted services, and so on, depending
on the tools selected and the requirements. Where appropriate, paid services and
enterprise versions of these tools should be selected (i.e., don’t just focus on free
services). In the case of video conferencing and audio conferencing, CGIAR-wide
subscriptions to bridge services may be appropriate if suitable vendors can be
identified.
Another aspect of this deliverable is the creation of training materials and a
decision tree or matrix for users to help them understand which tool to use in which
situation (use cases). The training materials should be part of a continuing end-
user support program, with regular updates.
The list of collaboration tools should be guided by the communication
collaboration strategy of the CGIAR, and the set of tools should be selected with care
to keep the variety appropriately contained. “Best Practices” for the CGIAR in the
use of collaboration tools will be created, and maintained, as part of this deliverable.
This action item has several governance issues. One is an important tie-in
between the use of collaboration tools and data/document knowledge management
policies; the relationship between collaboration tools and long-term repositories
within the CGIAR.
Business Need: Collaboration tools, including collaboration platforms (such as
wikis, blogs, Google Aps, and Sharepoint), desktop sharing (such as GoToMeeting,
webex and Dimdim), and file transfer systems (such as FTP and YouSend It) are
widely used throughout the CGIAR system. Emerging tools, such as Yammer
(company-private Twitter micro-blogging tool), are also seeing use by early
adopters. Since teams have different needs—document archive versus joint
document creation, for example—there is no one-size-fits-all tool that will meet all
needs. CGXchange 2.0 has done a superb job in meeting many of the collaborative
needs of CGIAR teams, but it alone cannot meet the needs of all of them. Centers
have independently attempted to address the needs of their staff, resulting in an
array of overlapping solutions. As inter-center collaboration grows, researchers will
grow frustrated with having to master a different tool for each team. So the centers
need to work together to identify, support, and promote the collection of tools that
will meet the needs of staff without significant overlap.
People in many different locations and from different organizations are
carrying out research projects. These projects and people require a platform and
associated mechanisms for collaboration and joint work. As a side note:
collaboration platforms require access control at the individual, group, and
external/outsider level. The current CGIAR Active Directory does not easily enable
access controls for external organizations. Changes or extensions to the directory
may be necessary as part of this collaboration action item, and these have been
identified as part of an Action Item in the Networking brief.


TOPIC AREA: ICT and Organizational ICT Governance

OVERVIEW

While the CGIAR is moving from a set of independent Centers to a more
unified Research Entity, ICT in the CGIAR will also have to adjust from a set of
independent ICT Centers to a more unified ICT Support function. Yet, there will be a
need for regional and Local ICT specialized services.
There is also an opportunity for ICT to move from a simple support function
to join the Business in researching ICT solutions to achieve the strategic objectives
of the Organization. Stepping up the role of ICT will involve the adoption of well-
defined ICT Governance policies and procedures.
Because the alignment of ICT with business needs and knowledge
management is a widespread industry trend, many Centers have taken some or even
many steps in this direction already.
As part of the new ICT governance it will be important to define the new role
of the CEO and CIO along with a new Global ICT Services function. An external
review on the ICT-KM Program in 2009 [ICT-KM-ExtReview] proposes several
different structures for Governance. This will help support the consistent
transformation of ICT groups across all Centers into an integrated ICT, information
and knowledge function.

BACKGROUND, ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN, AND RATIONALE
Up to now, with the current Center’s independent status, ICT managers and
senior management were in charge of taking all decisions. This includes decisions
about the value of cooperation with other Centers, because the life of the Centers
was mainly on each manager's own shoulders. This should not be the case anymore
in a more unified CG where funds are distributed from a single entity. In this case,
the CG is going to really look for economies of scale (as the study from Accenture
points out) across multiple Centers. So if the CG is serious about economies of scale,
the CEO and the CIO will have to take on higher profile roles which involve making
ICT decisions and doing ICT planning on behalf of the Centers.
It is clearly an advantage from a business point of view that global ICT
services currently with the ICT-KM Program would be expanded. It is also
important that ICT units within each of the Centers continue and expand their
expertise in the areas of information and knowledge management. It is felt that
there is an ongoing trend for ICT in Centers to become more an expert and advisory
service to guide staff on the best use of the technology for maximum cost efficiency.
Local ICT would become less involved with running ICT operations and more with
optimizing the workflow of staff and offices.


Staff should make sure that they get their project requirements ready, ask for
the proper contract to service them and monitor results. ICT will be the
intermediary that makes sure the right ICT services are chosen, the proper contracts
setup and ensures deliverables are obtained. However, these ICT services should be,
in large part, outside the local premises in the cloud or in the Enterprise cloud.

ACTION ITEMS

G1) Identify Critical Center ICT services supporting Science
Deliverable: A needs assessment for ICT services required by the science
community, including all ICT services, not just those provided internally by CGIAR IT
groups.
Consideration should be given to using the ITIL framework (such as the ITIL
service catalog) in structuring this deliverable.
Business Need: Accenture did not have the resources or the time to look at the role
of ICT in each center. IT needs to get involved in the planning of the entire spectrum of
(research) support services in the new CGIAR landscape. There are special ICT
services provided to the Scientists and to the scientific community that are crucial to
the success of research. It will be useful to find out if they are strictly local or if they
can be globalized. Furthermore, some locally provided services could benefit from
globalized support or globally provided tools.

G2) Rightsource ICT services at Centers with a global view
Deliverable: "Rightsourcing" is the process of identifying ICT services and
applications, then deciding whether they should be delivered internally or handled
using external service providers (with internal oversight). This deliverable has two
parts: guidelines, and recommendations.
The CGIAR Centers, as the first part of this deliverable, should prepare guidelines on
rightsourcing decision making along with a discussion of the elements required to
guarantee service quality and continuity to the end users. For example, providing IT
support to country offices might come with a service catalog, SLA (Service Level
Agreement), performance metrics, and costs.
Further, once the guidelines on rightsourcing are developed, the second part of this
deliverable calls for the guidelines to be used in a CGIAR-wide exercise. As part of
this exercise, services will be identified that are common across multiple centers,
and recommendations made about which should be kept internal to each Center,
which can be fully outsourced, and which may be able to take advantage of an
internal CGIAR service provider. N.B. “Global view” in this Action Item does not
imply the same sourcing for all locations. However, the option for CGIAR Centers to
collaborate because of proximity should be fostered.


Business Need: Rightsourcing of services aims for economic savings while
providing the same or a higher level of service to end-users.

G3) Transform ICT from Service Provider to Strategic Partner
Deliverable: Recommend ICT goals and visions for the new CG systems that will be
used as key messages to persuade senior management in championing organization-
wide ICT transformation. Necessary steps (assessment, gap analysis, architecture
definition, etc.) will be defined to a certain level of detail that can help facilitating
the discussion, strengthen the case, and setting reasonable expectations.
Business Need: Modern IT management suggests that IT, in general, needs to be
more closely aligned with the business it serves. This Action Item helps to promote
IT into the position of best serving the CGIAR Centers.
Additional Background Information: As part of the discussion of this Action Item,
the ICT managers offered guidance on direction and goals.
The ICT structure should be aligned with the business structure and
organization and strategy. The organization and infrastructure needs to be flexible.
We should align with internationally recognized frameworks like COBIT for
governance to include oversight steering groups and ITIL for ICT Service Provision.
It needs to be clear which ICT Services are mandatory to be provided within
the Consortium (either internally or externally with internal oversight).
Requirements must be generated and agreed to by those who need the services.
These can them be provided through a service catalogue and SLA by the ICT teams.
One option is to take ICT Services out of the Center structure. Since ICT
functions are self-financing, they could be detached and still provide services back
to the Centers and CRPs including partner organizations. (similar to ICT Services at
ILRI and World Agroforestry). Country offices can then choose who they want to
receive the service from: the closest ICT Service Unit, the ICT Service Unit that
provides the service to the lead Center of the CRP, or from somewhere else.

G4) Improve ICT maturity at Centers
Deliverable: With the input of IT users, enterprise management, and the IAU,
analyze the current ICT maturity level (see Appendix for a definition of "maturity
level") at Centers, gather existing international maturity standards that would be
applicable to CGIAR Centers, and recommend changes to help increase compliance
with standards and increase overall ICT maturity.
This could be done in a fashion similar to the process followed by security auditors.
However, it will require changes that have implications for the entire Organization
and must be championed by senior management in Centers. Recommend that ICT
within Centers adopt ITIL for the provision of services. One strategy for this may
include benchmarking by comparing ICT maturity within Centers to Universities
and similar organizations. This could provide a baseline as well as a target.


Business Need: Using tools such as COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and
related Technology), identify measures, indicators, processes, and best practices to
help maximize the benefits that ICT provides. These metrics can be used to carry
out e-readiness assessments and gap analysis of each Center or CRP, providing both
a baseline for future comparison and a measure against global standards for
research centers. The goal of these types of assessments is to identify areas that
need to be worked on (and, when repeated, documentation that improvements have
been made).
Note that this is not a one-time project but a continuous process.

G8) Establish Appropriate CGIAR-wide ICT Standards
Deliverable: Explore areas where CGIAR-wide ICT standards would be beneficial,
where these standards would further the goals of the CGIAR as a whole, and where
standards would be valuable to the groups involved. Some of these standards might
require coordination with other groups within the CGIAR. For example, while there
is an ICT component in the following two example areas, they are not purely ICT
standards:
- Defining policies regarding “branding” of CGIAR web sites and collaborative
tools, including the use of logos and domain names
- Defining social media (internal and external) policies and guidelines
Some areas are more clearly purely within the remit of the ICT area, for example:
- Creation of good practice standards for application development
- Security guidelines for Active Directory
- Requirements for ICT business continuity
- Security requirements for 3rd party vendors
- Tools to use to operationalize policies and guidelines
N.B. The areas listed above are meant purely as examples, and are not meant to be
an exhaustive list for this action item. It is likely that ICT Standards will be a
continuing action item, not a one-time project.
Business Need: Establishment of standards helps to reduce long-term costs and
uncertainty within an organization. By providing guidelines in common areas of
concern, standards enable groups to focus on the important work at hand and spend
less time re-visiting decisions and discussions that have already been made.


TOPIC AREA: Location Strategies

OVERVIEW
In an era of extreme mobility, the concept of "being in the office" has
disappeared for many knowledge workers. Today, being in the office may simply
mean sitting in front of their laptop anywhere they can find a Wi-Fi signal. At the
same time, in some cities, CGIAR Centers have chosen to co-locate with one another
and with other partners. These twin trends of mobility and co-location give CGIAR
staff great flexibility in where they work, but also raise important issues.
This topic brief focuses on ICT issues that are affected by a person's location,
whether they are in their head office, a regional, country or project office, or
traveling.

An implicit part of the CGIAR is that certain guiding principles should apply
to all staff, no matter what their location. In the context of this brief, we believe this
means that there should be equal access to resources wherever a person is located.
This requires a minimum standard of connectivity and a security system that can
authorize access across locations.
Obviously, not all locations will have the same capabilities, due to the
realities of geography, politics, and budgets. However, when a minimum standard is
set, this will provide guidance to applications and systems designers about what
they can, and cannot, expect in the end-user community.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
The ICT-KM Second Level Connectivity project investigated issues
specifically related to smaller regional and country offices. Started as a project to
improve connectivity to the internet, it soon became clear that there were several
other issues limiting the effective use of ICT in the regional and country offices
including poor support, old or non-existent equipment and infrastructure, lack of
funding, information and training and poor collaboration with others. Many of the
ideas from the Second Level Connectivity project have been used in the action items
in this brief. See also [SLC Vision].
The NetHope project (www.nethope.org) is a project to increase
collaboration among international humanitarian organizations. NetHope focuses on
five initiatives, all collaborative in nature, including Connectivity, Field Capacity
Building, Emergency Response, Shared Services, and Innovation. Information on
NetHope is available on their web site and not generally in standalone documents.
CIAT has produced documentation for their Regional Offices focusing on
Standards and Procedures. In the Standards area, Cabling Standards, Computer
Room Cabling, and Electrical Protection are covered. Procedures are documented
for Hardware and Software Inventory, Policies on Computer Use, Backup

Procedures, and Policies for Internet and Email. [CIAT-Procedures] [CIAT-
Standards]
Other projects within the CGIAR and community that have looked at these
location issues include:

CIFOR (Center for International www.cifor.cgiar.org
Forestry Research)
IDRC Acacia Initiative http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/
IDRC Connectivity Africa [IDRC Infobook]
Infobook (2005)
Balancing Act Africa http://www.balancingact-africa.com/
(commercial reports, not uploaded)
UN Economic Commission for http://www.uneca.org/ (although dated, the
Africa UNECA hosts dozens of publications on
Information Technology for Development),
[NICI eStrategies]

United Nations agencies have considered sharing locations carefully in the
context of their "Delivering as One" project. The One Office piece of Delivering as
One includes overview guidance documentation, as well as specific reports on the
projects in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uruguay.
[OneUN]

ACTION ITEMS
L1) Provide ICT Support, Training, and Procurement to Under-Served Offices
Deliverable: Create an ICT support organization, based on a clearly defined scope,
for under-served CGIAR Centers based on a regional support model with local
language capability. The scope of this deliverable is primarily offices that do not
have local support, although this could be extended more broadly based on
experience and capabilities.
This may also include development of a knowledge base and COPs, harmonization of
procurement standards, desktop standards, standards for remote support tools, and
general policies within a location or region to reduce variance between Centers.
Any support structure should also include reference to established international
guidelines, most specifically the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure
Library) framework for IT Service Management.
This deliverable also includes specific support for training, as in the following
examples (which are not meant to be exhaustive or restrictive):
- face-to-face training


- virtual training
- self (CBI) training
- orientation (new employee) training
- funding for support visits in remote areas.
Several issues to be addressed here include:
- structuring of costs and staff pay
- accountability and reporting (who does this report to?)
- governance of the support and training facility
- selection of web-based tools for support
Business Need: Good quality ICT support at all locations within the CGIAR is critical
to ensure effective use of systems and infrastructure. Because the CGIAR Centers
have very similar ICT environments, there is considerable overlap in technologies
and configurations. By moving support resources closer to the end-user, time zone
and language differences can be minimized. At the same time, a higher level of
training (with greater face-to-face or virtual training sessions and e-Learning tools)
will make end-users more efficient in utilizing the resource available to them, head
off potential confusion, and resolve support issues more quickly.

L2) Backup, Data Protection, Business Continuity
Deliverable: Establish CGIAR data backup systems focusing on the needs of under-
served and small offices, including:
- a day-to-day automated solution (for disaster recovery or lost file
recovery) based on either traditional software approaches or backup
appliances,
- cloud-based backup services, especially for small offices, contracted at the
CGIAR-level (not at the individual office level)
In addition, establish a CGIAR Storage As A Service contract (not dependent
on a single vendor, though). This can help to mitigate risk in the development of
disaster recovery packages
Business Need: Head offices of CGIAR Centers typically have full-time IT staff and
the expertise to manage and maintain standard backup systems. In smaller offices,
this is not the case and backups may be handled in a haphazard or ad hoc manner by
staff who are not trained to ensure that systems are being properly backed up. A
CGIAR backup solution will ensure that valuable data are not lost when disks crash
or laptops are lost. This could be based on cloud services, or combined with a
location storage system, and would be designed to be easily rolled out to smaller
offices, replacing tools such as portable hard drives and never-replaced magnetic
tapes.
A different, but related, issue is the loss of data from an institutional
perspective when the data are being gathered and managed away from central IT
facilities. To reduce the risk of loss, a CGIAR repository should be created to help
capture information from all types of locations in a secure and protected fashion.


L3) Global Standards for Network Infrastructure
Deliverable: Establish minimum specifications, recommended equipment, and
standard configurations (for different types and sizes of locations) to ensure
network capabilities, configuration, and desktop security meets acceptable
standards at all CGIAR locations. This includes both governance issues and
technical standards, so multiple groups may need to contribute to the final result of
this Action Item.
Some components of this deliverable may also be covered by the CGIAR
Security Operations Center (proposed in another topic brief).
Business Need: In general, ICT infrastructure in larger campuses is established
with a high level of network capabilities and security. However, in regional, country
and project offices, the level of network infrastructure and the attention paid to
security can be quite low, impeding access to critical resources, and putting the
entire organization at risk through malware infection or unauthorized access. By
establishing minimum standards and recommended configurations for networks
across all locations, this risk can be reduced. In addition, standardization will
reduce the costs of deploying secure networks and secure desktops by enabling
knowledge re-use not just within a Center but also across all Centers.

L4) Internet Connectivity
Deliverable: Establish minimum standards for Internet connectivity, including
guidelines for selecting vendors, media (wires/wireless/VSAT), and types of
circuits.
Identify roaming service providers (such as iPass) for public Wi-Fi and GSM data
services and establish CGIAR-wide contracts for best pricing.
Investigate CGIAR-wide e-mail and application gateway approaches with an eye to
reducing capital and operational expenses and improving reliability.
Investigate emergency VSAT connectivity options with an aim towards setting up a
"standby" contract for CGIAR offices in need of emergency connectivity. This item
probably should be moved to the VSAT negotiation Action Item.
Policies should be established to encourage offices to keep their infrastructure to a
minimum, to encourage co-location, and put budget monies into better Internet
connectivity.
Business Need: Internet connectivity is crucial to the new way of working within
the CGIAR. While smaller offices have investigated lower cost services, a lack of
standardization and shared knowledge has resulted in sub-standard deployments in
some locations. As sharing of infrastructure using Internet services becomes the
norm, the quality of Internet connectivity will be a key predictor of success of
location sharing projects.
As CGIAR staff travel, they also always need Internet access even when away
from a CGIAR location. While pay-as-you-go services are always convenient, it is
desirable to investigate global services providers that may result in lower overall

costs and possibly better connectivity. This applies both to Wi-Fi services and GSM-
based telephone services, including gateway products such as BlackBerry
Enterprise Server.

L5) Optimizing Wide Area Network Connections
Deliverable: Investigate and, if appropriate based on cost vs. benefit, establish a
CGIAR-wide contract for WAN acceleration products and circuit aggregation
products. Produce a report showing how these products could be used in the CGIAR
and the expected benefits and cost savings.
A second aspect of this deliverable is the investigation of alternative technologies to
WAN acceleration, such as Windows 7 Branch Cache, and other software-based
proxy or caching solutions.
Business Need: WAN Acceleration products can provide a better end-user
experience over congested, high-latency, or bandwidth limited circuits, although at a
cost. The use of these products within the CGIAR VPN or individual Center VPNs has
no been fully explored. The unique nature of the CGIAR operating environment
means that most publicly available test results and evaluations do not apply. A
rigorous testing and procurement process could result in the availability of these
valuable tools to the CGIAR ICT managers. By providing enterprise-wide testing,
CGIAR managers can select products with a minimum of effort and maximum
assurance of proper return-on-investment.


TOPIC AREA: Network and Telecommunications Infrastructure
Services
OVERVIEW
Each CGIAR Center manages and maintains its own telecommunications
network. While many of these networks are similar in design, the final responsibility
for network design and operation has fallen on the individual Centers. In a more
tightly connected CGIAR Consortium, many basic network and infrastructure
services could be coordinated with a result of increased collaboration capability and
reduced cost.
This topic brief covers a variety of areas where coordination between the
CGIAR Centers is desirable in the areas of network layer services and
telecommunications infrastructure. Voice over IP and digital telephony, topics
which might be considered at this layer as well, are covered in the Collaboration
Tools brief instead.

The network infrastructure within the CGIAR Centers is a core that all other
ICT services depend upon. More and more, the research and results that the Centers
produce requires 100% uptime of infrastructure services, including the network.
For this reason, it makes sense to seek ways to:

- increase the reliability of the network and the basic network services
- monitor and manage the security of the network 24/7
- decrease the cost of running the network
- provide a larger and more flexible set of network service building blocks

For many mid-size organizations, the operation of the network and network
services such as Active Directory are secondary tasks of the ICT team--they don't
necessarily take a full-time person's attention. Because networks, once set up, tend
to run acceptably even in the absence of any active monitoring and management,
ICT teams focus elsewhere. The end result is networks that slowly decay in
performance, security, and reliability, and are often behind the capability curve
when new demands are placed on them.
By bringing together the requirements of multiple Centers, many tasks that
would not be affordable or reasonable for a single Center to accomplish can be
shared among multiple Centers--and provide cost-effective benefits to all. This topic
brief proposes eight specific initiatives to meet the goals of increasing reliability,
security, and services at a cost-effective level.


ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
A number of CGIAR-wide projects have focused on network layer and
infrastructure services. These include the Active Directory project, and a project to
coordinate use of anti-malware software across Centers.
In 2003, the CGIAR Centers migrated from their existing Windows
environment to a coordinated Active Directory/Windows 2000 system. This
installation, coordinated by CGnet, also included installation of Microsoft ISA proxy
servers at each site and the creation of a shared Microsoft Exchange email network.
Each Center runs its own Exchange servers, but the email directory is common as is
the address space for users "@cgiar.org". While the Active Directory and ISA proxy
server installation met many goals, the software and hardware are generally out-of-
date. An existing project to upgrade Microsoft Exchange to Exchange 2010 is in
operation beginning in 2011.
In 2008, the brief study was undertaken to consider the use of a single
antivirus tool in the CGIAR. At that time, Trend Micro's anti-virus tool was in use in
most Centers and the question considered was whether this was still the technical
best solution. The conclusion of the study was that Trend's efficacy had suffered
and several Centers had migrated to competing products, including ones from ESET,
McAfee, and Kaspersky.
In 2008, a case study was undertaken to explore alternatives to the existing
CGIAR collaboration system. At the time, a goal was to find a system that would not
require too much investment in time and money. Because Google Applications, a
suite of collaboration tools on the cloud (Software as a Service - SaaS) that includes
calendar, chat, documents, sites, video and more, met the requirements of low initial
investment, it was chosen as a pilot project. The study went so well that in early
2009 it was decided to replace BEA Aqualogics (CGIAR's former locally managed
collaboration system) for Google Applications and the advantages of this change
have been substantial.

ACTION ITEMS
N1) Active Directory
Deliverable: Continuing program of maintenance, education, and development of
CGIAR Active Directory.
This deliverable would establish a funded program to:
- maintain the health of the directory,
- to include outreach on existing training materials,
- to create a knowledge base
- to add a community of practice,
- and develop new training materials to help CGIAR Centers make use of
this resource.


It should also be considered whether Active Directory should be opened up
for use beyond the current Windows Domain Controller and Email/Exchange uses,
and if this is agreed, then any required changes to routing, replication, and access
methods should also be implemented. At the same time, additional services such as
DNS may be added (for health checks, training, etc.).
Additions to Active Directory as part of this action item would also include a
way to access the GAL (Global Address List) of Exchange outside of the Exchange
environment, but within the CGIAR using protocols such as LDAP.
This deliverable should include a review of current design or Active
Directory alternatives, to determine if the design is still optimal given changes in
organizational direction and hosting environments.
An additional action item within this would include a governance policy
explicitly addressing the sharing and/or replication of Active Directory information
between CGIAR centers.
Business Need: Active Directory provides a critical service for the CGIAR. The
CGIAR-wide Active Directory is not providing the best service possible to all Centers.
One of the reasons for this is simple neglect--there is no continuing program to
maintain the health of the directory and resolve problems. While there are some
"best practices" provided by CGnet, in practice, the individual Centers do not have
the expertise or privileges to keep the directory operating optimally. In addition, it
was found that Centers are not making good use of the common directory and
authentication service because of lack of training in programming and operation of
the directory. The lack of a properly working directory can impact end-user
productivity, cause interruptions in service, and decrease total system security.

N2) Enterprise Single Sign-On infrastructure
Deliverable: An enterprise single sign-on infrastructure that includes the following:
- based on open standards; not necessarily based on AD
- integrated with the CGIAR Active Directory (or its successor)
- ability to include partners and a non-CGIAR user base

When rolling out systems that integrate with SSO, a governance requirement for a
risk/security analysis should also be included.
Because the single sign-on system would be a superset of the existing Active
Directory authentication and directory service, the scope of single sign-on may
require Active Directory to be expanded to include giving non-CGIAR collaborators
access to resources that require authentication. This could be done, for example, by
creating an authentication service that integrates CGIAR Active Directory and
another directory through tools such as OpenID, SAML, and OAuth.
Business Need: CG Centers have traditionally used internally run applications that
would only require an initial logon by the staff. Currently, there is increasing
demand for SAAS (Software as a service) and applications running in the cloud.


These applications require logging into foreign systems that do not rely directly on
the CGIAR Directory services. To avoid users having to remember several
passwords, increase security, staff efficiency and establish license-tracking
mechanisms it is critical that the CG adopts an ESSO system. This will be an
extremely useful tool to identify applications where economies of scale can be
applied through Centers. This system should be centrally hosted and managed in
collaboration with the Centers.

N3) Cloud Computing - Utility Computing, Outsourced Services, and SaaS
Deliverable: Identify specific areas where Utility Cloud Computing, Software-as-a-
Service Cloud Computing, Platform-as-a-Service Cloud Computing, and other
Outsourced Hosting and Management can be used within CGIAR Centers.
This deliverable includes the following:
- establishment of policies and good practices to encourage Centers to move
to SaaS and Utility Computing/PaaS as a default deployment strategy, to define
security in the use of cloud services, including data protection and compliance, and
to define inventory control to ensure that cloud-based services have a defined
lifecycle to reduce “sprawl.”
- specific review of the existing Email network to consider whether email
should be outsourced in some way (ranging from on-premises to off-premises
hosted)
- scan CGIAR environment to identify back-office applications (finance and
administrative) that can be moved to the cloud, such as the existing OCS initiative;
- scan CGIAR environment to identify areas where research computing can
make use of both SaaS and utility computing. Examples of this might include bio-
informatics, remote sensing, GIS (geographic information systems), and modeling;
- identify areas where outsourced management of applications or systems
would benefit the CGIAR centers
This deliverable should include a white paper or other explicit discussion of
the constraints that would prevent Centers from joining cloud services or
infrastructure changes such as increased bandwidth that may be required before
cloud services can be effectively used (a “reasons not to go to the Cloud” white
paper)
Business Need: SaaS and Utility Computing promise to provide lower costs to
enterprises by taking advantage of massive economies of scale that can be offered
through service providers. While there are significant issues of control and data
security that have "clouded" the use of these new computing delivery techniques,
there are many other areas where cloud computing can offer fast deployment, high
degree of scalability, excellent reliability, global levels of accessibility, and
significant cost savings. This is both true in the SaaS area (for example, the CGIAR is
already using Google's cloud-based services for information collaboration) and in
utility computing (which will be of primary interest to researchers needing high


performance computing). (Readers needing additional background information on
SaaS and Utility Computing should refer to the Appendix of this document.)

N4) CGIAR-wide VPN redesign, firewall upgrade, and filtering options
Deliverable: The CGIAR-wide VPN should be updated to meet current needs. This
deliverable would include several basic requirements:
(1) redesign of the CGIAR VPN to separate out the VPN from the firewall
functionality to provide a more appropriate locus of control
(2) consider options to replace the ISA servers with low-cost firewall
appliances to support the VPN
(3) design a standard for Web caching, malware detection, and URL filtering
to replace the ISA functionality in Centers that want proxy-type web filtering.
Support of IPv6 should also be built-in at this point.
Business Need: The CGIAR VPN was originally developed to share Active Directory
information using a combination web proxy/VPN/firewall product developed as
Microsoft ISA running on general-purpose computers. Enterprises rarely use this
technique today. As the original ISA software and hardware is now badly outdated,
a re-design of the VPN to use less-expensive, more reliable and more capable
hardware is appropriate. In addition, because the combination of
firewall+VPN+proxy in the same device has been problematic for some Centers to
manage, and has restricted greater use of the VPN for information sharing, a
separation of function that will allow each piece to operate independently offers a
greater value to the Consortium as a whole. Models for VPN deployment, including
central administration or distributed administration, should be explored to find the
"best fit" with current use of firewalls and VPNs within individual Centers.

N5) CGIAR Security Operations Center
Deliverable: Creation of a CGIAR Security Operations Center (SOC), either using in-
house resources or outsourced to a MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider).
The responsibility of this SOC would be to handle day-to-day operations in
the area of network security for Centers, including monitoring any IDS/IPS
(intrusion detection/intrusion prevention) systems, updating firewall
configurations and software, monitoring firewall logs, managing threat mitigation
tools such as network anti-malware. The SOC would also monitor multiple security
alert bulletins to summarize and report regularly to CGIAR network managers on
emerging threats and any urgent patches or updates.
Because the SOC would be applying uniform standards across multiple
centers, there is a substantial Governance component to this Action Item. The SOC
must be linked to security policies established by ICT Governance. The SOC would
promote solutions to the CGIAR Centers that help them to adhere to the CGIAR
Security Guidelines.


Because anti-malware products and patching products have variable efficacy
rates, an important part of this action item would be regular re-evaluation of the
desktop protection and patching vendors being used in the CGIAR to ensure that the
tools are providing effective protection (or patch management, as appropriate) in all
environments.
The SOC would also have a long-term audit function to ensure that proper
security is applied across the CGIAR Centers. As part of the audit, the SOC would
promote solutions to the CGIAR Centers that help them adhere to the security
guidelines.
Another aspect of this action item is a regular update schedule for the CGIAR
Best Practice security documents, since without regular updates they would not be
useful.
Business Need: Few Centers, if any, have networks that are large enough to support
a dedicated SOC function. However, all have networks connected to the Internet and
a constant flow of systems in and out of their network. Most have also suffered one
or more security problems in varying degrees of severity. Because there is no full-
time support, security is a 'part time' job for many Centers, increasing the possibility
that an intrusion or infection will interrupt work or cause data loss. By combining
the resources of multiple Centers, a SOC can be established (or contracted with
through any number of Managed Security Providers, MSPs) to provide this
increasingly required service at a low cost to Centers who wish to make use of it. It
should be noted that previous Enterprise Security and Internal CGIAR audits have
already recommended the creation of a SOC.
The CGIAR has already begun work on enterprise-wide “best practices” in the
area of network security ([EnterpriseSecurityDocs]), which help demonstrate the
demand from Centers to improve their security posture.

N6) CGIAR-wide Equipment and Training contracts
Deliverable: Investigate, and if appropriate, negotiate contracts for IT equipment
and training globally for CGIAR Centers.
This would include typical devices from the vendors most-used within the
CGIAR Centers, including:
o Networking Equipment: switches, firewalls, and routers
o Systems: desktops, laptops, and servers
o Specialized Equipment: PDAs, mobile phones, ruggedized systems
o Training
Challenges such as stocking of replacement equipment and geographic
support issues will have to be included in any contract to facilitate world-wide
buying and support. A side-effect of this Action Item might be greater
standardization of equipment across CGIAR Centers.
This action item should also include an investigation of training alternatives.
For example, internal IT training on common equipment could be provided by


CGIAR staff in conjunction with an equipment vendor or third-party training
provider.
Business Need: Negotiating individual pricing contracts for each of the CGIAR
Centers for products such as routers, switches, and firewalls is a significant time
waster that adds to total costs and reduces the agility of CGIAR Centers. While the
buying power of the Centers may not be significant globally, it is likely that
advantageous pricing can be identified that at least reduces the requirement to run
separate supplier bids and establish individual contracts with each supplier at each
Center.

N7) Strategy for IPv6
Deliverable: A CGIAR-wide strategy for IPv6, including:
- any governance guidelines related to acquisition of IPv6-compatible
network equipment, including a moratorium on purchasing equipment
incompatible with IPv6
- a training program to inform network teams within the CGIAR on how to
migration to IPv6
- a strategy for migration to IPv6 including long-term coexistence
Business Need: IPv4 IP addresses are essentially unavailable, limiting the growth of
networks that require IPv4. As the CGIAR Centers link to each other “behind the
firewall” using tool such as VPN tunnels, address collision may require the re-
addressing of networks to ensure unique addresses are used within the entire
CGIAR. IPv6 is the declared migration strategy by the IETF.


Participating ICT Managers
This roadmap was created through the collective work of more than 18
individuals. The main contributions were driven by the ICT managers of the CGIAR,
CGIAR’s CIO (Enrica Porcari) ,with additional coordination and guidance from Tania
Jordan (Office of the CIO) and Joel Snyder (External consultant, Opus One).

Center ICT Manager
Bioversity Dario Valori
CIAT Carlos Meneses
CIFOR Muhamad Robby Munajat
CIMMYT Carlos Gabriel Lopez
CIP Edgardo Torres (Acting IT Manager)
ICARDA Colin Webster
ICRAF Ian Moore
ICRISAT Pradyut Modi
IFPRI Nancy Walczak
ILRI Ian Moore
IRRI Marco van den Berg
IWMI Nirudha Perera
WARDA Moussa Davou
WorldFish Rainelda Ampil

Roadmap development started in 8/July/2010 and continued electronically
until 28/September/2010, when all teams had submitted their first drafts of action
items for the Roadmap. A second draft based on comments was presented to the
ICT Managers on 7/October/2010. At the annual ICT manager’s meeting, held in
2010 in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, the roadmap was discussed in face-to-face meetings
the week of 11/October/2010. A final draft and prioritized list of action items were
output documents from the Addis meeting on 14/October/2010.

The final version of this roadmap was prepared on 22/November/2010.


References
[SLC Vision] ICT-KM Second Level Connectivity Project: Improving
Communications and Access to Internet Resources for CGIAR Regional and Country
Offices. (uploaded to ICT-Roadmap Location Site)
[IDRC Infobook] Connectivity Africa Infobook (downloaded from
http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/ev-89542-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html) (uploaded to ICT-
Roadmap Location Site)
[NICI eStrategies] National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI)
e-Strategies. Best Practices and Lessons Learnt (2006) (downloaded from
http://www.uneca.org/aisi/nici/documents/nici-book.pdf) (uploaded to ICT-
[EnterpriseSecurityDocs] Enterprise Security Good Practice documents include
seven “Good Practice Guides” and an accompanying set of checklists. These include:
Email Management and Security
Internet and Email Acceptable Usage Policy
Internet Security
Network Infrastructure Security
Network User Identification and Authentication
Sensible Use of Bandwidth
Workstation Security
( downloadable from http://www.cgxchange.org/ict-infopoint/es-security-good-
practices )
[CIAT Procedures] CIAT Information Systems Unit: "Regional Offices IT
Procedures" (uploaded to ICT-Roadmap Location Site)
[CIAT Standards] CIAT Information Systems Unit: "Standards and
Recommendations for Regional Office Infrastructures" (uploaded to ICT-Roadmap
Location Site)
[OneUN] Multiple documents, downloaded from
http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=1213 and
http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=1214. Uploaded as a single archive to ICT-
[OCS] One Corporate System documents: http://ocs.cgxchange.org
CG Systems - Existing Systems Comparison (November/2008)
CG Systems - Lessons Learned (November/2008)
OCS General Requirements
OCS Key Questions
OCS Concept Document for Rome Meeting (August/2009)
OCS Technical Requirements
(all downloaded from www.ocs.cgiar.org/July/2010)
[SRF] Strategy and Results Framework documents:


A draft Strategy and Results Framework for the CGIAR (March/2010
Background Document and FAQ document for Consultancy on Common
Administrative, Financial, and Research support Services in the new Consortium of
the CGIAR Centres
Design and Establishment of the Consortium of CGIAR Centers - Final Report
(October/2009)
An AHP-Expert Choice Model for the Strategic Results Framework of the CGIAR
(Executive Summary by Mueller and Stricker)
Key Findings and Recommendations from the Consultancy on Common
Administrative, Financial, and Research support Services in the new Consortium of
the CGIAR Centres (November/2009)
[Framework] Application Layer Frameworks
Department of Defense (US) Application Framework v2 (volumes 1-3)
Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework Consolidated Reference Model v2.3
The Open Group Architecture Framework v9
Zachman Framework structure for Enterprise Architecture
Comparison of the Top Four Enterprise Architecture Methodologies by Roger
Sessions
[AppSurvey] Survey on Application Deployment within the CGIAR Centers
(August/2010) (http://hyperlink/here)
[ICT-KM-ExtReview] External Review of the Information and Communications
Technology and Knowledge Management Program (ICT-KM) of the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research (Sept 13, 2009)
(http://ictkm.cgiar.org/document_library/program_docs/External_Review_09/ICT-
KM%20External%20Review%2009.pdf)


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