Improvements at the infrastructure level of a website

Challenge

The open data portal runs on an application called CKAN, which was in its version 2.6 and they wanted to bring it to version 9. Uploading the CKAN also implied making a framework change: from Python to Flask. This application provides a service to all government entities in Panama, such as the Comptroller General of the Republic, this gives credibility to all published data.

Our solution

Infrastructure improvements were made. In the first stage of the project, work was done at the architecture level: the application on which the portal runs (CKAN) were updated, the framework was changed and the fireserver was also removed from the backend server.

As it is a portal that manages public statistical data, data sets are generated in it, such as: publishing the budget for the year 2023, then every month the information is updated and how it is executed is uploaded.

All these documents were stored in the backend server and with the improvement that Rootstack implemented, they were taken to another server, a server exclusively for the fireserver. From the backend, a "question" is made to the other server about the documents and thus the information can be accessed.

In addition to this, a page redesign process began. The experience on the old page was quite rustic and not easy to search and the visualization was not very modern, they also wanted to implement a statistics microsite from the administrator: how many people access the staff, from which countries access, what are the sets of data most consulted by citizens, etc.

A news module was also implemented that could be loaded as news, updates and in addition to directly contacting the desired institution.

Key elements the Rootstack team worked on

• Update of the application in which the portal was running
• Made a frame change
• The fire server was removed from the backend server. A dedicated server for the fireserver has been implemented.
• In a second stage, a page redesign process was carried out, the experience on the previous page was quite rustic and it was not possible to search by date.
• Implementation of a statistics microsite, such as: how many people, from which countries access, etc.
• A news module was implemented so that portal updates can be uploaded as news, so that an institution can be directly contacted.
• Generation of a direct communication channel between the institution and the entities.
• Change of visualization themes was made within the data sets, this was part of the second stage, the redesign stage.
• A design was made to search for topics by topic.
• In the statistics you can see who is publishing, the most downloaded files, the visits on the portal, which countries consult which data sets, all this is for the administrator.
• A document module was developed where you can download and add documents of interest.

Technologies

In this Project with AIG, Ckan, Python, Flask, Docker and PostgreSQL were used.