By Commandant Niranjan Pratap Singh
The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) shoulders a wide array of responsibilities that demand that it maintain an agile operational posture at all times. That onerous task is dependent on the efficiency of the organisation, in turn, determined by its ability to take decisions (based on reliable facts and figures) swiftly and accurately to fulfil its objectives.
To accomplish such a feat, efficiency must be instilled in the organisational decision flow. It must cut across the administrative hierarchy in a way that the necessary administrative, logistical, financial, and technical support reaches units and operational formations in a time-bound manner. That would entail a foundational revamp designed around integrating people, processes, and technology through digital transformation.
In today’s rapidly-evolving operational landscape and technology paradigm, digital transformation is no longer the subject of preference. Rather, it has come to be an obligatory prerequisite for any large and geographically distributed organisation. The process of a transformation like this is now facilitated by rapid advancements in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which present organisations with flexible options to redefine their processes and operational strategies without impinging on the operational imperatives. Modern-day institutions are empowered to think and act as a single entity, courtesy of network-centricity and a centralised database. This provides a substantial boost to both efficiency and effectiveness.
The Digital Coast Guard Project
For ICG, the ‘Digital Coast Guard’ project provides the holistic blueprint for achieving digital transformation. Since the quintessential objective of digital transformation is to allow digitisation processes to permeate every level of the organisation, the successful implementation of the aforementioned project would facilitate the digital transformation process in the ICG. It would promote the collation of information, integrated data visualisation, collaborative monitoring, analysis and quicker decision making. Enabling these activities would aid different echelons in preparing for contingencies and coordinating and efficiently managing response efforts. By design, the facilities whose creation is intended under the Digital Coast Guard project would allow various formations to share information across the lines to accelerate problem response. Furthermore, the project would eliminate data incoherence, help anticipate the challenges, and minimise the impact of data analysis disruptions.
There are some more distinct, nevertheless related, objectives of the project that shed light on the path envisaged for the Coast Guard befitting a digital age. The creation of state-of-the-art information technology (IT) infrastructure to bolster immediate and future digitisation imperatives of the country’s Coast Guard is an essential aim of the project. Erecting a central repository of data and instituting a strong, trustworthy, and secure networking infrastructure for the ICG to enable its units and formations to access various IT-enabled services are closely related to the first goal and accordingly enumerated on the objectives list.
Additionally, the project is oriented toward enabling efficient management of all logistical, financial, and human resources-related functions across the organisational hierarchy. It will focus on defining and managing the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for multiple operational aspects of the three presently mentioned arenas.
Equipping the ICG to respond to exigencies in a more coordinated, unified manner is an objective, too. Another goal is to make provision of and manage touch points from all concerned stakeholders throughout the course of the lifecycle of various incidents. Related to this is the aim of providing the capability to conduct analysis for continuous improvement of India’s Coast Guard.
Serving as a testament to the farsightedness of the project is the final objective which aims to create an integrated and enabling environment to promote and support future digitisation efforts within ICG.
Pillars Of The Project
Project Digital Coast Guard will consist of a few major verticals. The fulfilment of the multiple objectives recounted above will rest on the backs of these pillars.
The first vertical will deal with creating a Data Centre, a Disaster Recovery Data Centre, and a Near-line Data Centre. Digital Coast Guard (Core IT Infrastructure) consists of one Data Centre (DC) and one Disaster Recovery Data Centre (DR DC). Both facilities have an air-gapped intranet, internet zones, and Security Operation Centre (SoC) alongside their allied facilities. DC and DR DC are home to the computational power, storage, and applications necessary to support IT requirements to meet the objectives of the Digital Coast Guard.
The DR DC is a critical component of enterprise IT infrastructure. This is because it is built to provide business continuity in case of non-availability of DC. DR DC shall be provided with IT infrastructure equivalent to a minimum of 50% of the DC.
Near Line Data Center (NLDC) facility in close proximity to the Data Center is envisaged to achieve minimum RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
The DC, DR DC, and NLDC are being constructed per uptime Tier–III standards to ensure 99.982% availability of services.
Key design essentials (and accordingly set design goals) for these include the requirement for greater availability of system and data, scalability in a phased manner, and optimal utilisation of space.
Additionally, Software Defined Data Centre (SDDC) that will include Software Defined Storage (SDS), Software Defined Network (SDN), Software Defined Computing and Software Defined Security (SDS) with Enterprise support are also a requirement.
The project will require Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) based systems for IT loads and centralised single-pane Enterprise Management System (EMS)-based monitoring of the entire IT infrastructure, too. This will include the DC, DR DC, MPLS Networking, Virtualisation, Cloud systems and integration of all individual management suites to EMS.
Furthermore, this vertical will require the provision of necessary infrastructure for central monitoring & support centre for network, DC, data centre software systems etc.
It is interesting to note that the functional requirements and implementation of the private cloud for ICG will be completely integrated with the supplied and existing hardware/software. This implies integration with the manager of the hypervisor, Software Defined Network and storage, etc. The Cloud Management Platform (CMP) will be integrated with the existing Directory Services software and create a business group per the service’s requirements.
The second vertical will focus its energies on readying a Pan ICG MPLS/VSAT High-Speed Secured Network. Any digitisation initiative requires a reliable, potent, and secure network with adequate bandwidth. Keeping in mind the necessity of this crucial enabler in the endeavour it has undertaken, the Digital Coast Guard project also intends to establish connectivity to all Coast Guard units, including ships at jetties. This would be done using a high-speed, highly-secured Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)/ Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) network spanning 210 links at 109 sites.
Aspects of high availability, scalability, redundancy and security would be intrinsic to the network architecture. All remote sites will be provided with a Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) duly micro-segmented with a virtual Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW). All functionalities such as router, load balancers, WAN optimisers, NGFW etc. should be provisioned as virtual instances. Required IT infrastructure to be provided as HCI system enclosed in data closet with in-built cooling, power with central management, and integrated with DC & DR DC DCIM software.
The last vertical of the project will deal with ERP for Surface and Aviation, OPS Logistics, Finance and Human Resource Management Module. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) intends to digitise the processes of surface and aviation ops logistics, Finance, and Human Resource Management to address the day-to-day functions of ICG. The application will be hosted in the ICG DC, and access will be provided to various users through the ICGWAN. An offline module of the ERP will be made available to the ships for use whilst not connected to the network.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for the project. It will bring digital transformation in the service and pave the way for a paperless Indian Coast Guard.
Commandant Niranjan Pratap Singh serves as a Public Relations Officer (PRO) at the Indian Coast Guard Headquarters in New Delhi. The Officer has served with distinction on various classes of ships and held tenures at key headquarters formations. Comdt. Singh has done his academic specialisation in ‘Maritime Safety and Security Policy Studies and is a notable alumnus of the ‘National Graduate Institutes for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, Japan
