Systems and Communications

The Systems and Communication section is broken into three units: Server Administration, Network Administration and Database Administration.

Server Administration

The Server Administration Unit is responsible for deploying and maintaining the server infrastructure for the Department.

This includes:

Ensuring that backups are running and servers are kept up-to-date with operating system patches.
Deploying changes to Applications developed in house.
Deploying packaged applications and software developed by vendors.
Configuring and maintaining the Active Directory Servers and creating security policies through group
  policy.
Configuring and maintaining the Department Domain Names Servers (DNS) and File Transfer Protocol
  Servers (FTP).
Creation of user accounts and user permissions.
Setup and management of the Department Antivirus Services.
Setup and management of the Web filtering and spam filtering appliances.
Maintaining the Department’s Storage Area Networks (SANs).
The unit is also a part of the Security Incident Response Team (SIRT) and is responsible for providing
  the technical resources during an incident.

This unit provides 24x7x365 support of the server infrastructure though staff works 8 – 5 Monday through Friday. After hours incidents require overtime usage. In addition, the Unit supports Department e-mail and smart phones. This includes:

Configuration, maintenance and support of approximately 1,600 user accounts.
Maintenance of 5 years of e-mail archives o E-mail search and retrieval services as required for
  investigations.
Configuration of the Outlook Web Access server which allows Department users to access their e-mail
  from the Web and PDAs or smart phones.
Initial setup of smart phones for e-mail access and initial training on how to access e-mail via smart
  phones.
Remotely “wiping” smart phones if they are lost (this is done for security reasons).

Network Administration Unit

The Network Administration Unit is responsible for deploying, securing and maintaining the network infrastructure for the Department and the statewide law enforcement community. This includes ensuring that our network complies with State and FBI CJIS security policy. This unit provides 24x7x365 support to ensure that law enforcement statewide has access to JLink; this involves significant coordination with DoIT, other carriers (AT&T, Embarq), and local agencies that connect to the DPS Network. The unit also operates similar to the Systems unit, in that after hours incidents require overtime usage. There are approximately 16,000 users (internal and external) connected to the DPS Network statewide; there are approximately 230 nodes on the network.

The Unit also is responsible for maintaining connections to other networks for access to other states and federal criminal justice databases through Nlets (the International Justice and Public Safety Network), the Western States Identification Network (WIN), the Rocky Mountain Information Network (RMIN), and the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS).

Database Administration Unit

The Database Administration Unit is responsible for deploying and maintaining all databases for the Department. This requires close coordination with the Applications Development Section for applications developed in-house, and outside entities for vendor-developed software. The unit manages approximately 53 databases running in Oracle or SQL. In addition, the unit oversees the security and administers the quarterly database patches to these database environments. The Unit also runs offline searches of NCJIS databases for the statewide law enforcement community. This group operates in a similar fashion to the Server and Network units in that after hours incidents require overtime usage.