The Information Technology Division (ITD) provides the District Attorney’s Office with technology tools and services. The 27 employees who make up this unit, design, develop, implement, and support all information technology hardware, software, business applications, and websites. They also provide support for prosecution in the courtroom and community outreach efforts. In addition, ITD provides direct support to the City Attorney’s Office in their use of the District Attorney’s case management system for criminal prosecution.
The team is responsible for supporting the organization’s data network and servers where information and applications are stored and accessed. This includes data files, email, the DA case management system and the eDiscovery system. The data network links 10 DA offices and more than 1,400 desktops, laptops, and printers to more than 200 servers and other networks including the County of San Diego, ARJIS, the Sheriff’s Department and the Internet.
Servers and Infrastructure
In 2017, the team successfully virtualized all of its servers. This type of technology provides better security, faster recovery time, less power use, and cooling that helps protect the environment. Backup has been converted to disk, which saves money and effort and provides faster and more secured processes.
Network and Security
The ITD team successfully moved the City Attorney’s Office to a new portal, which allows remote access to all of the functions needed to do business, saving the time and money. It was designed to be cross-platform, giving those with different hardware and operating systems access without additional effort.
The team was also successful in launching a baseline phishing campaign to determine the security awareness level of the office. Based on the results, ITD created mandatory security training for the DA’s Office. In addition, security updates enhanced our data protection mission and improved the time it takes to recover data in the event of a disaster.
Finally, the network team worked closely with the San Diego Superior Court’s IT division to ensure seamless business operations for our prosecutors during the move into the new San Diego Superior Courthouse.
Application Development
We achieved a major milestone when we successfully replaced the aging JURIS mainframe system with a modern Windows Operating System. The old mainframe served for more than 40 years as a medium of communication between our office, the courts and all of county law enforcement. This effort will save the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in maintenance fees. The application team continued to improve programs to meet needs of the DA’s Office and stay up to date with the latest changes in penal codes.
Web Design
The application development team manages the content and design of the District Attorney’s public website (SanDiegoDA.com), which receives thousands of views each week from around the world. In addition, the web team manages the DA’s intranet and a growing portfolio of browser-based applications, and is researching portal-based solutions to serve external customers more effectively. The team developed a browser-based application that allows Deputy District Attorneys access to the office’s case management system in the courtroom, through laptops and tablets. The team designed and updated the DA public and internal websites to enhance the experience of our external and internal users. In anticipation of the increased number of mobile device and tablet users, the web development team is enhancing and updating the DA web portal to become universal with all browsers.
The team continues to improve mobile access functionality and develop web applications that are needed complement our attorney’s needs inside and outside of the office.
Technical Assistance
The support team provides technical assistance to all DA employees via phone, email, a self-service portal or through on-site services. In 2017, the IT Division resolved 12,000 incidents for assistance through its service desk. Ongoing computer hardware and software upgrades provide improved performance, reliability, and security. Other projects include document scanning, technical support for defense attorneys using e-Discovery, and a continuous effort to improve computing capabilities and services using new technologies.
Our ticket and inventory system based on Microsoft System Center, was upgraded to the latest version, which enhanced control and resulted in cost savings on equipment and services.
