Distributed Government e-Mail Service: Mozambique GovNet case study

The Mozambique Government Centralized e-Mail Service, one of the services offered as part of the GovNet Project has been expanding enormously within the last three years resulting in a significant growth in the number of users which as corollary have influenced the exchange of e-mail messages among public servants to grow significantly. While this communications behavior is healthy and recommended the use of available bandwidth between the GovNet points of presence at Provincial level and the GovNet Operational Center in Maputo where the servers are located is also considerable. It is estimated that nearly 80% of the GovNet bandwidth usage is related to e-mail communications between GovNet users leading to a non optimized usage of the bandwidth. This paper raises this problem and proposes a solution to rationalize the use of bandwidth within the Government´s Intranet by recommending a new approach to the Centralized e-Mail Service design. To support the approach proposed in this paper, data from available GovNet e-mail traffic and bandwidth monitoring tools were collected and analyzed. Additionally it was taken into account the planned network growth as part of the GovNet´s extension plan to the Provinces and Districts of Mozambique.