Information Services

The Information Services Division (IS) was created in 2001, tasked with developing, maintaining, and spearheading high-tech initiatives to increase services and efficiencies to the general public and staff. While primarily an internal service provider to the other divisions of the City of Vernon, we also provide contract IS work to other levels of government. Our team is made up of key individuals, each progressive, dedicated, and highly motivated to deliver the best service at the best value.

We are responsible for the development, delivery, and maintenance of all forms of the City's electronic services, including digital data, and our distributed mapping system. Our goal is to supply valuable, reliable, accurate and useful electronic services to the staff, public and visitors of the City of Vernon.

Technical Services

Among a few of the Enterprise products utilized to deliver efficient technical services:

• Cisco Avvid
• WAN network infrastructure
• Tempest Suite
• Vadim
• Map Guide
• Tero
• AutoCad Map
• Novell
• 800+ digital devices.

Over 20 dedicated servers distribute in excess of 5 terabytes of data utilizing VPN concentrators for DMZ and FTP services, as well as an advanced Network security structure. We provide a proactive service to minimize downtime and maximize efficiency such as disaster recovery, backups, virus firewalls and spam filters.

Website Development
The City of Vernon website receives over 30,000 visitors per month with over 26 gigs of data being transferred. Our mandate is to continually change and upgrade the website to service the public in an easy and understandable way. Public need for information in the past year (2006) has increased our Website visits by 80%, and files requested and downloaded have increased by 70%.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
The GIS division creates, maintains and combines graphic and tabular data sets for City staff and the public, including such things as City cadastral (property lines etc.), utility as-builts and digital aerial photos. In the past information such as zoning, sewer lines, contours and air photos would have been on separate maps, and tabular information such as property ownership, legal descriptions and infrastructure inventories would have been stored in filing cabinets. GIS combines all of this information, digitally, into one source. This provides City staff and the public quicker and easier access to information, thus allowing them to make better and more informed decisions.

The Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) uses GIS information for analysis and to evaluate situations in times of emergency, while IS technical staff provide on-site support. Staff perform detailed analysis and testing of critical systems to identify areas of improvement, so that in the event of an emergency the process is as seamless as possible.