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Interview

IT Director highlights importance of technology in IBGE

Section: IBGE | Adriana Saraiva e Pedro Renaux

April 16, 2018 01h45 PM | Last Updated: June 05, 2018 10h36 AM

José Sant´Anna Bevilaqua, IBGE´s Director of Information Technology, is completing 50 years in this area in 2018. He undertook different tasks in this period, like programming, system analysis and technical support analysis. Working in the IBGE for 35 years, he witnessed the evolution of Information Technology - IT in the institution and in the world.

Heading the Directorate of Information Technology since 2016, a position he already headed between 1988 and 1990, Bevilaqua highlighted two recent projects: the Census of Agriculture and the Repowering of Information and Communication Technology Project.

In an interview to the IBGE News Agency, the director talked about technological innovations in the data collection of the Census of Agriculture, the creation of the Security Management and the challenges ahead. "We need to be prepared to support operations that will benefit from new technologies, like big data, and to incorporate technologies that uses artificial intelligence".

José Bevilaqua unveils challenges in Information Technology area

IBGE News Agency: What is the main project that the Directorate of Information Technology developed recently?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: Indeed, there are two very important projects that we carry out with great care: repowering of Information and Communication Technology - ICT and Census of Agriculture. It is hard to say which one involved me most.

The first one because we spent many years without any investment in the IT sector. We arrived at a situation of depletion and obsolescence of the IT resources. The project provided us the opportunity to resize and recycle. Today, we are in a quite comfortable situation in terms of equipment infrastructure. The equipment were updated. We managed to provide new equipment to our servants, including in the State Units and Agencies. It was the first time that it happened in the IBGE, since the old method of equipment reutilization did not reach the most distant units.

Actually, the repowering project was the regeneration of the commitment of the ICT area in the productivity of the institution. Indeed, there are no more processes without technology in the IBGE today. We need to keep the institution equipped to contribute to the good results of the IBGE.

IBGE News Agency: What did the repowering process change?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: More than 60 different processes were undertook in 18 months to acquire ICT equipment and services, including the installation of the infrastructure of the Census of Agriculture. Just to cite a figure, we acquired 6,300 desktop computers for the IBGE servants, i.e., there are more new equipment than the number of permanent servants. It is key to address the new challenges that are already in place, like the expansion of the surveys, new methods of acquisition of statistical and geoscientific data, and automation and streamlining of administrative processes, among others not less important.

Data collection faced another important upgrade, as we are replacing the old Personal Digital Assistants - DMCs, manufactured by LG and Nokia, with new equipment. Increased storage capacity, fast data collection, online edition of questionnaires and WiFi transmission are only some of the benefits that we have when we make these upgrades.

In terms of the ICT infrastructure, we replaced and expanded the data center by increasing the power capacity of the main data center in Rio de Janeiro by about four times, enabling us to carry out large operations.

We also increased the online data storage by about eight times. If we add all the online data storage resources available in the IBGE, we have already surpassed one pentabyte – one quintillion bytes of data –, which is equivalent to nearly 7 billion photos stored on Facebook. A number of IBGE projects that need a lot of data storage should be taken into account, like the partnerships with the Ministry of Labor and Employment (CAGED, RAIS and others) and projects to store orthophotos (aerial images), satellite images and all the compositions for georeferencing that we provide to the society.

In terms of modernization, we implemented an alternative Data Center in São Paulo to backup the processing carried out in Rio de Janeiro. This data center went live twice, ensuring the full availability of the services of data transmission.

IBGE News Agency: What was the role of the Directorate of Information Technology in the Census of Agriculture 2017?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: The Census of Agriculture experienced the largest use of technology than in any other statistical operation in the IBGE. For the first time, we not only provided a faster availability of field information, but also began to collect information never collected before in a statistical operation. Today, the supervision and quality control teams can check what is happening in the field like, for instance, whether an enumerator left or not his/her area.

IBGE News Agency: Which were the technological innovations?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: We used georeferencing technologies to provide a complete view of the operation in the territory. We began to work with the so-called para data of a statistical operation, i.e., we not only registered the information of the questionnaire, but also registered the interactions of the enumerator with the DMC. We followed up what happened during the data collection, both inside and outside the enumeration area. For instance, how much time did the enumerator take to move from an item to the other, which is a key factor to improve the way of asking, answer options and online help, as well as to more precisely plan the manpower required for future field operations.

It was the first time that we could see what was happening in the field. At the same time, we did it not affecting the speed of the information flow. In addition, the good integration between the control and payment systems allowed the State Units to pay for the services as the field work advanced.

The digital data collection exerted a huge pressure on the whole ICT infrastructure. Nevertheless, this was the first operation in which the right sizing of the resources allowed the operation to flow smoothly, where systems and equipment worked well.

The quality of the Census of Agriculture is a new milestone for data collection operations in the IBGE. Establishing this milestone was only possible due to the commitment of the staff and availability of the new resources.

IBGE News Agency: On top of the experience with the Census of Agriculture, what are the challenges for the next censuses?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: We assure the preservation of the information as soon as it enters in the IBGE, by providing a backup  and putting it in proper files for the update of the database. We still worked in daily cycles of updating in the Census of Agriculture, but we plan to evolve to process interactive updating, thus providing an even greater speed. In 2020, the enumerators will transmit the information directly to the IBGE database and the supervisor will check the result even before they leave the housing units.

IBGE News Agency: How does the IBGE protect itself from hacking attempts?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: We have just created a Security Management. We have also the Information Security Committee, including representatives from other directorates, in charge of developing and updating the IBGE´s Information and Communication Security Policy - POSIC, which establishes the methods and practices to protect the ICT infrastructure and the information.

Internet attacks are just one of many means of hacking. Hacking attempts happen everyday and, thus, are not episodic. Therefore, the protection routines and procedures should be present in the daily management of the ICT operational infrastructure.

The firewalls were replaced in the modernization process with new generation firewalls, which are much smarter in detecting hacking.  These equipment are already operating. We also work with an anti-virus mechanism, spam detection mechanism, as well as other hacking detection mechanisms. Nonetheless, we know that the technology of cyber crime is always innovating, forcing us to be always aware. We cannot leave any door open and efforts are huge, as the staff is still too small to face this challenge. We hope to solve this issue in the next competitive bidding, which is not only a headcount issue, since it requires a hard and expensive specialization in the market.

We also launched a security campaign aimed at our servants. In this first phase, booklets are being distributed with rules to avoid the exposure of files and equipment. One of the objectives of this campaign is to sensitize every person to the importance of information security, mainly within the IBGE, which is an information house.

IBGE News Agency: What is the main challenge of the Directorate of IT in the future?

José Sant’Anna Bevilaqua: I believe that the biggest challenge, not only in the Directorate of IT, but rather in the IBGE as a whole, is to keep the operations in spite of the loss of personnel. The loss of personnel compromises our fulfillment capacity. So, the big challenge today is how to keep on getting along with the restrictions of human resources, more and more present in our daily routine. Regardless of the expressive increase in our workload, the replacement level doesn´t match neither the speed nor the volume of retirements.

Compared with nowadays, we had a very restricted automated workload 35 years ago. Today, the pressure for automation is huge, because the demand for technology never stops. We need to be prepared to support operations that can benefit from new technologies, like big data, and to incorporate technologies that uses artificial intelligence.

I think that we will have quite advanced applications in 25 years time, with an "intelligence" level that will enable them to be used even more friendlier, and the processes of information integration even more present. The interaction between people and systems shall be something natural and ordinary.



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