Uganda Authority Curbs Tax Evasion with EMC's Agile VCE Solution

According to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), tax evasion in the country has been put under check thanks to the Vblock 340 platform with a VCE Vision™ software dashboard allowing the URA no longer experience the debilitating effects of downtime.

With a simple-to-operate infrastructure, and fewer components and cables to manage, the IT team is firmly in control and can see key performance metrics at a glance.

Tax evasion hurts economies. For less-developed countries it can deprive governments of the money needed to transform their nations’ prospects.

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) is there to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Moving to a Vblock 340 platform with a VCE Vision™ software dashboard means that the URA no longer experiences the debilitating effects of downtime.

With a simple-to-operate infrastructure, and fewer components and cables to manage, the IT team is firmly in control and can see key performance metrics at a glance.

Meanwhile, improved uptime and application performance ensures greater productivity and less risk of revenue leakage. Cross-border trade is able to function more efficiently, too.

The Challenge
The URA states its mission and vision as providing excellent revenue services with purpose and passion while being a model for best practice and innovation.

But the limitations of an ageing IT infrastructure meant it could only go so far.

Storage and compute had reached capacity. Fixing technical issues took time.

There were lots of servers and miles of cabling. When something went wrong, the IT team was powerless while vendors stood pointing the finger at each other.

According to James Kizza, assistant commissioner for IT Corporate Services at the URA “Everyday tools like our intranet were very slow, and we couldn’t take advantage of new developments like cloud,” Kizza added.

The Solution
Now, standardized and efficient IT operations are assured with a Vblock 340 installed at the main data center and at a newly-created disaster recovery facility.

With pre-integrated and pre-validated Cisco UCS servers and switching, EMC VNX Unified Storage, and VMware virtualization software, the Vblock 340 runs straight out of the box.

VCE Vision software was central to developing a dashboard with metrics to help improve the user experience and management of IT and resources.

Now URA can see what is happening at all times. The solution was installed within a week with zero downtime eliminating service restoration problem. “Our data and apps are always protected with EMC RecoverPoint. And if needed, we can quickly move server workloads between sites,” Kizza adds.

The Results
Now URA employees work more effectively and efficiently. Database and application performance has improved by as much as 60 percent. “User satisfaction has doubled with uptime moving toward 100 percent,” says Kizza. “We simply don’t get unexplained loss of service anymore.”

More transactions are processed and revenue recovery maximized thanks to the robust Vblock 340.

For example, international trade used to suffer as congestion spiraled out of control while waiting for paperwork to be validated. Now, as cloud working begins to take hold, such delays are less likely to happen.

IT management has seen significant benefits and positive changes. Early results include an 80 percent rise in IT operational efficiency and a 70 percent improvement in data protection through better backup and recovery.  “With fewer parts and a converged infrastructure, things are much easier to manage. We have saved money on cabling and can provision servers 80 percent faster than before,” Kizza concluded.