Question NW1705 to the Minister of Transport
20 June 2017 - NW1705
Gqada, Ms T to ask the Minister of Transport
Whether regular maintenance is being undertaken on information technology facilities and systems within the SA Maritime Safety Authority; if not, (a) why not (b) what steps have been taken to change this (c) why have no officials been (i) charged and/or (ii) suspended for not ensuring that these systems and facilities are maintained; if so, what are the relevant details?
Reply:
South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) Information Technology (IT) Department has formulated and put measures in place to ensure regular maintenance of Information Technology infrastructure and systems. The following are as follows
1. Infrastructure
- Systems are in place to monitor performance of the infrastructure to ensure its ability to operate the critical systems that are used by the organization to carry out its duties.
- The performance of the system is monitored frequently to ensure maximum availability at expected levels.
2. Applications Systems
- Business and operations are regularly monitored to also ensure availability to the clients at all times.
- There is a dedicated effort to ensure that these performed as expected and also at expected levels.
Systems generated reports are used to monitor performance and point to the nature or type of maintenance that will be required. As part of maintenance, there are also regular reviews with service providers to address issues prior to them escalating to problems.
The maintenance of the systems and the infrastructure has contributed significantly to avoiding down times and reducing systems and infrastructure performance inconveniences to very low levels which is critical to availability through high uptime.