Common Services Centre

CSC On Line Monitoring

(Technology Solution)
July 2009

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited

Confidential

Version 1.0

Effectively Monitoring CSCs

Table of Contents
1

Background ______________________________________________________________ 3
1.1

Monitoring Requirements and Challenges _____________________________________ 5

2.1

Technology Challenges ___________________________________________________ 5

2.2

Key Monitoring Parameters and Solution ____________________________________ 7

High level solution architecture: _____________________________________________ 9

3.1

Uptime Monitoring Solution_______________________________________________ 9

IT Architecture and Cost Summary __________________________________________ 14

4.1

Vision for CSCs ________________________________________________________ 4

IT Architecture ________________________________________________________ 14

Glossary ________________________________________________________________ 15

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Background
The objective of this document is to discuss an approach to effectively monitor the
CSCs using IT tools under various SCA-CSC connectivity scenarios. This docume nt
provides business requirements, IT architecture, and estimate of project cost for ICT
infrastructure and software development and its implementation.

Prior to this note, IL&FS had discussed the solution with senior members of the CSC
project at DIT and also evinced interest amongst vendors to provide Proof of
Concept (POC) for such solution.
On the basis of a conceptual framework discussed, we have received proposals from
software vendors to help develop a customized solution of this tool.

This report discusses:

(a)

Conceptual framework of solution to monitor CSCs

(b)

ICT Architecture

(c)

Opex / Capex Estimates

(d)

Software vendor selection

(e)

Areas where we need DITs concurrence to kick start the project

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1.1

Vision for CSCs

The Vision for CSC is to make the various digital services accessible to the
common man in his rural locality, throughout his life through an integrated
service delivery platform thereby ensuring efficiency, transparency and
reliability at affordable costs to meet his basic needs.
CSCs would form the front-end for the citizens to access all the possible G2C
and B2C services, information and other localized services, which may be
needed by the local community.
With advances in the Information and communication technologies (ICT), it is
possible to provide whole range of high-quality and cost-effective services
relating to video, voice and data through single communication channel using
appropriate terminal equipment. This has opened up a whole new stream of
opportunity

to

provision

for

e-Governance

and

B2C

services

such

as

entertainment, education, telemedicine, e-commerce, info-services etc.

A large scale roll-out of this scale would warrant use of advanced tools to
monitor the uptime of CSC delivery channels and ensure service outages are
minimum.

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Monitoring Requirements and Challenges

For such a large-scale roll out, it would be important to ensure that the proposed
services are made available to the citizens and all the CSCs are operational as
intended. The States would like to prescribe appropriate SLAs of availability and
service delivery for the services to be delivered through CSCs. DIT would also be
keen to regularly review the entire server delivery mechanism.

The important

requirements hence would be that CSC ICT services should be available and the
citizens should be able to use the CSCs during the designated hours of operation.

Application of technology tools and options for monitoring this requirement using
technologies would add credibility and facilitate successful monitoring of the scheme
with such a vast spread across the country. It is important to examine the various
technology challenges and options available for on-line monitoring of CSCs.
One of the primary expectations from CSCs would be that IT environment is
available to end users and Internet access is available to provide various on-line
services.
Monitoring of CSC on the above lines would require monitoring two independent
sources of information:

1)

The uptime of IT terminals at each CSC

2)

Monitoring network uptime at each of the CSCs

This note analyses this requirement and solution in more details hereinafter:

2.1

Technology Challenges
The SCA-CSC IT environment would vary across SCAs and across States.
Each SCA-CSC unit could implement a different architecture under the overall
IT specifications prescribed. A large-scale roll out across the country may not
provide one standard enterprise grade architecture. The available, standard
off-the-shelf Enterprise Management Solutions hence would not be able to
meet the needs for the CSC monitoring.

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It is important to highlight the hybrid environment under which the CSCs

would operate:

(a)

The end devices at CSCs i.e. the PC/Kiosk/Client could run Windows
or Linux variants. The variants could include Windows 2000 and
above i.e. XP, Vista (Win95 and Win98 are omitted due to product
and service not available from Microsoft) and for Linux could be
Redhat, Ubuntu , Fedora Core 4 (FC4) or SUSE (there are many of
these around)

(b)

Each CSC may opt for varying modes of networking for accessing the
Internet bandwidth:

i)

Some SCAs may set up intranet and provide internet backhaul

using centralised SCA

ii)

The SCA may provision Internet directly at the end point CSC

iii)

CSC route would choose connectivity and be readily available wireless

Wifi

/Wimax

RF

VSAT:

Wired

DSL/Cable/Ethernet/Dial/VPN
iv)

Internet access to CSCs could be provided by different ISPs,

depending on which service provider has better footprints and
approve offerings in the respective areas

v)

In an environment like the above, static IP address to an end

CSC may not be always available, though it is highly desirable

vi)

No Permanent Internet connection. Some CSCs would face this

challenge and may resort to dial-up

(c)

CSCs being in rural areas where apart from the telecom challenges
there are other challenges like power availability and environmental
(e.g. operating in areas easily affected by rain, floods etc.) put
constraints on the network component being always on

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(d)

CSCs system would be using IT Platforms based on Intel / AMD

architecture

(e)

SCA across the centre may not be amenable to implement a Standard

Enterprise Monitoring solutions for monitoring SCA-CSC channels,
owing to the above constraints

2.2

Key Monitoring Parameters and Solution

Having regard to the hybrid environment for the uptime monitoring of CSCs
needs to be custom-built. Key features of this system are as below:

The CSC monitoring system for an all India roll out needs to be a
centralized system to ease the collection and dissemination of
information

All the stakeholders would have a view to the uptime information

All the CSC computers should run a Micro CSC agent, which would
feed the information to the Centralized Aggregation Point (to a pool of
central servers).

Each CSC machine would connect once to a centralized Monitoring

Hub to download this tool and to obtain a unique authentication key

The micro agent would generate and store Logs such as Switch
on/Switch off data and would be very thin agent with bare bones
information

CSCs would connect to the central Hub using internet connectivity

Micro agent communicator should update information at periodic

intervals which should then monitor against set parameters / SLAs

The centralized system should monitor SLA violation raise a ticket

against specific SCA

Various stakeholders would have access to various reports published

by the Central Hub

This system would require very minimal bandwidth and would be

automated

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Design Considerations:

In order to design and develop such a sophisticated tool, it is important to

identify certain design considerations:

(a)

The proposed solution would not require any specific skills from the
CSC admin or from the personnel administering the end PCs

(b)

This system would have a built-in mechanism to self start by

automating one time agent installation work

(c)

Micro agent would be installed as a system service and hence starting

the agent when the machine is started should be taken care by the
agent installation procedures and should not require any manual
intervention from the administrator

(d)

The

collected

CSC

uptime

data

can

be

viewed

in

easily

understandable format in the web interface

(e)

The micro agent would not result in any form of overhead on the
system or bandwidth

(f)

The bandwidth requests of polling logs from CSC to a central server

should be very low, so as to have a minimal impact on CSC

(g)

The system would work on a auto scheduler or a watchdog timer

mechanism by virtue of which the data is ported from CSCs terminal
to a central server

(h)

The uptime monitoring tool would not need any static IP address, but,
should have some form of authentication in the form of a mail
address and key embedded on the client machine during the
registration process

(i)

The frequency of data polling would be configurable and should not

lead to any bottleneck at the central server

(j)

All CSCs should communicate with the central server using only the
Internet

(k)

The micro agent would support all the constraints of a hybrid

environment as listed above

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3

High level solution architecture:

Based on the monitoring requirements the monitoring tools would be used, which
would allow enforcement of the defined policies, and monitoring and complying with
the Service Levels. This section analyses the requirement of different types of tools
for on-line monitoring.

Sr. No.

3.1

Business Requirement
Monitor uptime of IT terminal at each
CSC under all constraints listed above

Tool/Technology
Using

micro- monitoring

agent

under

Windows

Linux environment

Uptime Monitoring Solution

Requirement:
It would be pertinent to monitor the availability of the IT terminals (PCs) by
installing a micro agent in each of the IT terminals

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System Architecture

B2C
Applications

Centralised CSC Monitoring Hub

G2C
Applications

Service
Level
Manager

CSC
Agent
Communicator

Internet

Service
Desk

CSC MICRO AGENT Machine Logs

M
Sel f

`
CSC-2

CSC-1

ri ng
onit o

CSC-3

The proposed solution for the CSC Monitoring System is based on a Central
Server Agent architecture
(a)

Central Server:
Central Server should be deployed in the Central data center. Central server
should have Web and data base component.

These three components

should be deployed in the central data center in a manner to minimize the

processing load on the systems.
servers.

The central server should have two Web

One of the web servers should perform the job of receiving and

processing the data

given by the agent (running on the CSC) and the other

Web Server should be used to publish

Interface.

the collected data in the Web User

There would be load balancers to balance the load from several

concurrent nodes

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(b)

Micro Agent:
The Micro Agent is a piece of software that would be deployed in each of the
CSCs. The Agent would start as a system service (with no option of disabling
it) while booting the device at the CSC.

Key features and prerequisite steps for operationlising this agent are listed
hereinafter:

The micro agent would be active as soon as the PC is booted up

Tempering of this agent will stop the functions of agent and logs will
not be sent to the Central location. This would then be monitored
through exception handling process

The logged data would be encrypted. The decryption of the logged

data would be permitted only at the Central location

The Log size generated by the Micro agent and the overhead on the
Client terminal would remain at the bare minimum. This is necessary
to ensure that performance of the CSC terminal; the network and the
central location

The micro agent would report the uptime data to the central server at
pre-determined intervals.

Central server would receive the data

uploaded by the agent and persist in the database for report

generation and to display the collected information in the Web
Interface

For logs upload the Internet connectivity at the CSC is a must. The
communication between the agent and the central server would be
secured. It is advisable to have one-way communication from agent
to central server to avoid load on the central server

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It would be mandatory to have all the PCs operating from the CSCs to
have registered once with the central server. The registration would
be a simple on line process and the successful registration would
enable the CSC to download this agent. Further, the first time
software

distribution

could

also

happen

through

distribution

of

physical CDs or sending software to SCAs for dissemination to the

end CSC terminals, if they have setup an Intranet environment

The onus of installation and keeping the micro agent active at CSCs
should rest with the SCAS and this could be prescribed under MSA

(c)

Reporting Startup/Shutdown time:

Once the agent is installed on the CSC computers, whenever it is booted,
agent should self-start and record the time to the central server. Similarly
when the computer is shutdown, the agent should record the shutdown time
and report to the central server.

There may be other special events like

screensaver, locking of the computer or hibernation which needs to be

recorded / reported

(d)

Privilege based segmented view:

Central server administrator logging into the ILFS CSC Monitoring System
should be able to view the details about all the CSCs monitored by the
system through the Web based interface.

Similarly, the central server

administrator should create user account for the CSCs through the web
interface. User with SCA privilege can view the details about the uptime of
the end PCs pertaining to the corresponding SCA.

In

a similar way, CSC

accounts can also be created with which the CSC user can view the uptime
data of the PCs pertaining to this CSC.
(e)

Reports:
Using the web interface, reports should be generated with the data collected
and analysed by the Central Server from the agents deployed in the CSC.
Reports capturing the list of CSCs from which start uptime / shutdown time is
not received for the past XX days could be useful to the CSC Monitoring

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System administrator. Options to export the report data to CSV/PDF should
be provided.
The system would be useful for DIT, NLSA, SDAs (States), SCAs and CSCs.
User log-in would be role based for e.g. SCAs should be able to review
performance of CSCs under their direct control.

The key reports that would help monitoring uptime performance includes:

Information on CSCs meeting the uptime requirements during a range

of dates within a Block, District, State and SCA

Uptime Performance of CSCs within a Block, District, State and SCA

Exceptional occurrences and Trouble tickets for CSCs under a SCA or

state for corrective action

(f)

Uptime Performance on an All India basis by States, By SCAs

Inter State and Inter SCA performance comparison on uptime

Exception Handling:
If the CSC Monitoring System does not receive the uptime data from a
particular CSC/PC, or fails to meet required SCAs, it should generate an
email notification to the configured administrator.
trouble

ticketing

generate tickets.

helpdesk

system

can

receive

Most of the existing

email

notifications

and

Hence, in addition to notifying the administrator thro ugh

email, the CSC Monitoring System should generate email and log a ticket in
the trouble ticketing system.
The trouble ticketing are exception reports for action. These reports would be
sent to the concerned state authorities, SCAs. for corrective action. For e.g. a
trouble ticket would be raised if a CSC were reported down for 3 consecutive
days in a week. A mail alert would be sent to SCA and States.

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4

IT Architecture and Cost Summary

4.1

IT Architecture

An high level IT Architecture of the solution discussed in Section 3 is depicted

in the exhibit below, The budgetary estimates of infrastructure cost is provided
later in this section:

IT ARCHITECTURE FOR CSC MONITORING

CENTRAL MONITORING INFRASTRUCTURE

DMZ
Internet link
from ISP 1
CSC 1

Internet
Routers
Web Server

INTERNET
CLOUD
CSC 2

Mail Gateway

Internet link
from ISP 2
MGMT. NETWORK

CSC n
Perimeter
Firewall

INTRANET SERVERS
STORAGE AREA NETWORK

DS4300

DATABASE SERVERS

TotalStorage

Management Application Mailbox Server

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Glossary
AMC

Annual Maintenance Contract

BOD

Beginning of day

CSC

Common Services Centre

DIT

Department of IT, Govt. of India

EMS

Enterprise Management System

GIS

Geographical information system

HA

High availability

ICT

Information & Communication Technologies

IP

Internet Protocol

ISP

Internet Service Provider

LDAP

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

MMP

Mission Mode Project

MSA

Master service agreement

NeGP

National e-Governance Plan

NDC

National Data Centre

NLSA

National Level Service Agency

NMS

Network Management Solution

POC

Proof of Concept

RAID

Redundant array of inexpensive disks

RPO

Recovery point objective- is the maximum allowable data loss

RTO

Recovery Time objective -Maximum time by which a system must be

returned to operation

SCA

Service Centre Agency

SLA

Service Level Agreement

SDC

State Data Centre

SDA

State Development Agency

SWAN

State Wide Area Network

TSP

Telecom Serv ice Provider

VLE

Village Level Entrepreneur

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