Practical Aspects of the Information System Reengineering

Abstract

The information system transition from the local and client-server financial and management information systems to n-tier information system is a very painful process, especially for academic and NGOs with a limited budget for computer equipment and software modernization. If such organizations area of activities are financial and project management, integrity, consistency and security become the key factors for information system development and implementation. The article presents results of the analyses, development and implementation of n-tier Oracle-based information systems for a NGO. Organizational and management problems, current technological infrastructure, financial resources availability, software platforms and developers solutions, local and headquarter offices requirements were analyzed. The systems were developed within the following requirements: financial and management information confidentiality and appropriate availability improvement and systems integration; organizational information and procedure standards development; incomplete and inconsistent information elimination from the data flow; transparency of the projects activity for public evaluation and information technology resources utilization by the non-for-profit, academic and NGOs for the project activity within Internet components. The first system prototype was presented at the European Foundations Center (EFC) Information Technology Conference in Brussels, Belgium, 24-25 June 1999. During 2000-2001, the system was migrated into Oracle Portal environment and development process was completed.