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IT system for elections within the Church of Sweden

IT system for elections within the Church of Sweden. Rolf Wasteson Sema InfoData AB Sweden rolf.wasteson@infodata.sema.se. Sema. French-Brittish company undergoing a friendly takeover from Schlumberger 21000 employees in more than 25 countries

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IT system for elections within the Church of Sweden

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  1. IT system for elections within the Church of Sweden Rolf WastesonSema InfoData ABSweden rolf.wasteson@infodata.sema.se

  2. Sema • French-Brittish company undergoing a friendly takeover from Schlumberger • 21000 employees in more than 25 countries • Business:› Consulting› Systems integration› Outsourcing› Software products

  3. InfoData • Part of Sema e-Business Unit WebTec • The leading Swedish supplier of online business information • Supplier of direct marketing services (addresses, register updating and matching, printing…) • Building portals – specialized in the content • Large experience in web, wap, voice and cti • Running Call center

  4. Sema - Church of Sweden • Sema InfoData main supplier of IT services to the Church of Sweden • Major business relations since 1980’th

  5. The history of the Church of Sweden • Protestantic since the age of king Gustav Wasa in 16th Century • The Church has been part of the state since then • Divorce 1 January 2000 • Now a faith community among others

  6. Elections to decision making bodies 16 September 2001 • Previously run by the National Tax Board • The Church supported by Sema InfoData now organizes the elections • The largest election ever done in Sweden(except for the number of persons voting…)

  7. Support system tasks • Register the election organization:› parlamentary bodies (3 500)› constituencies (3 000)› electoral areas (3 500)› voting-stations (4 500) • Register the parties (1200) • Register the lists of candidates (8 000) • Register all candidates (80 000)

  8. Support system tasks (contd.) • Prepare printing orginals for all voting-papers (8 000 editions, 200 000 000 copies) • Prepare printing files for voting cards (6 100 000) • Prepare printing files for electoral registers to all voting-stations (3 500) • Counting of votes • Assign the seats

  9. The organization of the Church of Sweden • Complicated organizational structure • Dynamic organization - >600 changes 2002 • The elections are to the organzation valid from 2002 • Elections to four levels:› Parishes› Communities› Dioceses› Church Assembly

  10. Compressed time scale • 10* bigger than general elections on half the time • A chalenge for the organization of the Church

  11. System structure • The system consist of› The distributed membership register with a centralized update system› A register of the organization and the elected representatives› A register of the electional organization, parties and candidates› A system to handle the results and to assign the seats All subsystems consists of both online routines and batch routines. All online routines are using Web technique

  12. Online routines • All online routiones are built with Informix WebConnect • WebConnect was choosen as the foundation for Web applications in 1997 • WebConnect has a lousy programming language • The developement environment, Data Director for Web, is a buggy tool

  13. The internals of WebConnect Web browserInternet Explorer 5.0 Web-serverNetscape Enterprise HTML pages http://benhur/wbdaemon?MI_NAME=fetch&p=123 Run wbdaemon DataTable: tab Web-connect Interpret template Include datafrom table tabfrom row=123 Fetch templatefetch.html value row … … 123 Priest … … ”HTML”- templatefetch.html … … Informix database fetch.html:<html><body><?misql sql=”select value from tab where row=$p”> <h1>The value is $1</h1> <?/misql> </body></html>

  14. WebConnect applications • The WebConnect code contains SQL that is interpreted every time it is executed • Performance (and code readabillity) will be enhanced by using stored procedures • Original application did not make use of it

  15. Batch routines • Written in different techniques: • Stored procedures • SQL scripts to be run in dbaccess • Shell scripts with extensive use of awk programming, Unix sort, join and merge • Very few routines written in traditional programming languages (C and 4GL) Our home-brewed RAD concept

  16. Access control system • A very flexible and powerfull access control system was implemented when develping the election system • Concepts of rules and organizational hierarchies are used • Implemented by using userdefined tags in WebConnect app-pages • Re-use of original user authorization structure dramativcally shortened the development time • Performance implications because of need of dynamic authorization check in every program call

  17. Software • Sun Solaris 2.6 • Informix IDS 7.31 • Informix WebConnect • Informix 4GL • Sun Workshop C & GNU C The software will be upgraded in late autumn 2001 to • Sun Solaris 8 • Informix Internet Foundation 2000 • Informix 4GL (new version)

  18. Hardware • Sun Microsystems Enterprise 4500 • 4 400 MHz Sparc II CPUs • 3 Gb RAM • 372 Gb T3 disk units with optical connections, RAID 5 All harware is built with redundancy for minimum system failures

  19. Performance enhancements • Severe performance problems in the beginning. Solved by: • A more powerfull machine • Utilizing stored procedures in WebConnect applications • Unloading large tables, manipulate files by Unix sort, join and awk instead of Informix SQL • Optimizing WebServer behavior • Rewrite SQL to better utilize indexes • Gain performance by new indexes • Using the TYPE(raw) property on tables in IDS 7.31

  20. Project organisation • Project manager • 4 co-project managers • 10 programmers • 2 full time persons working with versions management and testing • 2 database technicians • 2 system managers • 2 production assistants • A total of 25 persons involved in the project, many on full time • Almost 15 man years spent on development

  21. Application tests • Extensive testing • End users involved in tests during developement phase • Full scale acceptance tests • A total of more than 25 different application databases – version logistics extremly complicated

  22. Problems • The complicated organizational structure of the Church • ”The moving target”, the constantly changing organization • Performance • Testing vastly more time consuming than calculated • The tight time scale • The changing demands from the Church

  23. Experiences • WebConnect not really suited for such a large application • Today we would probably have choosen other tools, utilizing Java techniques • WebConnect good for non programmers • Too much time spent on administative matters with Informix, both contractual and support • Very little knowledge of WebConnect in Informix organization • Web browsers differs very much from version to version

  24. End Questions?

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