A State Wide Area Network (SWAN) is one of the core infrastructure components under the National e-Governance Plan of the Government of India. The main purpose of this network is to create a dedicated Closed User Group (CUG) network and provide a secured and high speed connectivity for Government functioning and connecting State Headquarters, District Headquarters, Blocks Headquarters. The SWAN project, which forms a strategic component of the National eGovernance Plan, was approved in March 2005.
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Introduction
SWAN is an approved scheme of Department of IT of Government of India claimed to bring speed, efficiency, reliability and accountability of Government-to-government functions. It is one of the core infrastructure components under NeGP and was planned as a converged backbone network for voice, video and data communications across each of the 29 States and 6 Union Territories. Common Service Centers (CSC) schemes would serve as the end delivery points. The Department of Information Technology, Government of India, is the nodal department for each SWAN implementation. The scheme was a “centralized initiative with decentralized implementation”. SWANs across the country are expected to cover at least 50000 departmental offices through 1 million (10 lacs) route kilometers of communication links.
Objectives
To ensure desired quality of service (QoS) by the network operator and the bandwidth service provider, a third party audit (TPA) mechanism monitors the performance of each SWAN. The third party audit agency performs for five years from the date of final acceptance test of the network and primarily monitor the compliance of the service-level agreement (SLA) which the State / UT would enter with the Network Operator and also with the Bandwidth Service Provider.
Architecture
The SWAN is required to be an open standards based, scalable, high capacity network to carry voice, data and video traffic between the designated State Government offices at the State, district and sub division / block levels. The connectivity to the end-user is based on either one or more of the standard technologies such as leased circuits, VSAT, radio frequency dial-up circuits or using appropriate Ethernet ports for the individual offices. The network would have single point gateways of adequate capacity connected to the Internet. The entire SWAN architecture is logically divided into two components.
Vertical component
The vertical component of SWAN is implemented using multi-tier architecture (typically, three-tier) with the State/UT Headquarters (SHQ ) connected to the each District Headquarters (DHQ) which in turn gets connected to the each Block Headquarters (BHQ).
Horizontal component
The Horizontal component of SWAN is composed of horizontal offices spread across the State. All vertical PoPs of SWAN will have various Horizontal connectivity. In horizontal component, the government departments at each tier are connected to the respective PoPs.
Implementation
There are two options to the State Governments for State Wide Area Network establishment. The first option is the public–private partnership (PPP) model for operation and maintenance of the Network. In the PPP model State/UT identifies a suitable PPP model and selects an appropriate Network Operator agency through a suitable competitive bid process. The second option is designating National Informatics Centre (NIC) as the prime implementation agency for the SWAN as an integral part of NICNET. In the NIC model the State / UT designates NIC as the prime implementation agency for SWAN for establishment, operation and maintenance of the Network. NIC in turn would identify a Facility Management Service (FMS) agency for the State / UT concerned, to manage day-to-day management and operation of the network.Department of IT support covers the entire cost of establishment, operation and maintenance of the SWAN for a period of five years on 100% grant basis. A majority of the States / UTs have opted for the PPP model. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has been identified as a preferred bandwidth service provider for SWANs.