BCCS provides application hosting services to the many State agencies of Illinois. This service includes a variety of underlying support services such as midrange and mainframe application server and development environments, systems integration, the underlying network and communications infrastructure, systems management, security, backup and recovery.
Our application hosting environment utilizes a variety of technologies tailored to meet the needs of our customers and can support everything from single database systems utilizing traditional thick client interfaces, to complex mainframe database systems, to multi-tiered and highly secured mid-range and mainframe application systems accessed via a web browser and involving automated business-to-business data transfers.
Application hosting initiatives require an organized approach to planning beginning with requirements gathering, technical planning and project planning through the BCCS Governance and the Project Charter processes.
Every application hosted by BCCS includes these services: Network Services (LAN/WAN)
In addition, professional PC workstations are available for purchase that can support the work of customer application developers.
There are four basic areas common to every application with standard methods and software available to BCCS customers. The basic components of applications hosting include:
- Application Input can be accomplished by direct keyboard input, file transfer, imaging or on-line forms processing.
- Application Output includes the various methods utilized to print, report, and transfer processed data for practical use.
- Processing represents the internal operations and platforms allowing for the collection, organization, calculations and resulting output from the application.
- Backup, Storage and Recovery is essential to the protection and recovery of data captured as well as the ability to recover from system failure.
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- Service availability requirements must be identified within the governance process. Availability is an engineered component of initial application planning. Current systems may be promoted to higher levels of availability as a new project initiative. Service availability options extend to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, subject to and limited by the business requirements defined within governance planning, and, resource and budget constraints.
- An environment that's secure and robust
- System administration, configuration and tuning
- Pre-planned software and system upgrades, following documented processes for Change Management
- Administration and maintenance of production security software
- Backup and recovery schedules and planning assistance
- 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday break/fix technical support is standard with an optional 24/7/365 service desk limited by on-call technician availability.
- Technical systems Disaster Recovery options
- LDAP administration and management
- Tracking of service rates and invoicing
- Prompt, friendly and courteous technical support staff collaborating with customer application development staff in their efforts
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- Routinely review and update your application inventory in the Business Reference Model
- Embrace and support the governance process as a means to ensure essential requirements, project planning and oversight avoidance are accomplished
- Identify low-tech disaster and availability options where possible to reduce costs
- Prepare business continuity plans for all business critical applications prior to system development and implementation (availability requirements may impact technical planning, implementation decisions and purchases)
- Ensure efficient application development best practices to reduce costs
- Engage CMS early in the application planning stages
- Develop long-term obsolescence projections during the initial application planning
- Migrate current legacy systems to shared service delivery models
- Assist CMS with long-term capacity planning - maintaining good communications with BCCS concerning application initiatives and agency business planning
- Implement archiving and data retention policies for each application based upon business needs to reduce costs
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The first point of contact or inquiry concerning any new application hosting initiative, or, a planned update to an existing application is the
BCCS Governance team.
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Service Order Information |
Unlike other services that begin with an
Enterprise Service Request, application hosting and new application development initiatives begin with
Governance. Contact and involve the Governance team early in your application planning to ensure timely accommodation of your hosting needs.
