FIDIC represents the business interests of the consulting engineering industry worldwide through 75 national Member Associations. It also carries out specific activities, notably the publication of international contract documents and agreements, the organization of the FIDIC annual conference, contacts with international organizations and development banks and the development of best practice. FIDIC is described in full in the Federation web area.

FIDIC.org aims to:

• provide resources for the international engineering-based consulting industry;
• serve the communication and information of needs of members and internal working groups and committees;
• enhance FIDIC’s business opportunities in the areas of publications, conferences, seminars, and dispute resolution services.

Also registered is fidic.ch for the FIDIC Internal website based in the Secretariat in Geneva, with a web address of www.fidic.ch.

All domain name entries are registered at IPWorldcom. fidic.net and fidic.ch are registered by FIDIC and fidic.org and fidic.com were registered on behalf of FIDIC by RhysJones Publishing, formerly the publishers of the FIDIC Internal Directory.

• One FIDIC.ch server in the Secretariat for the Internal web area at www.fidic.ch. For the purposes of this description of webservices, www.fidic.ch is treated as the Internal webarea of FIDIC.org.
• A server rack (being installed) in the Secretariat for an online training platform.
• Two FIDIC.org  servers:
  • www.fidic.org, a mini hosted webserver at WorlpcomIP in Lausanne which also hosts www.fidic.net and www.fidic.com;
  • www1.fidic.org: the main webserver colocated in Lausanne.

The strategy is to have all calls on www.fidic.org/.net/.com/ routed to a highly stable and easily accessed, high speed site that has few services.

www redirects traffic to www1 and www.fidic.ch to provide redundancy and backup.

• www1: Bookshop, Events, Forums, Federation and Regions sites
• www.fidic.ch: the FIDIC.org Internal website
• a new online training wplatform

Connectivity from IPWorldcom is very transparent, but appears to be excellent on tests. Traffic (see tracert) from both the Americas and Asia-Pacific arrives via OpenTransit through Geneva.

The server belongs to a partnership comprising IKON Consulting, Bricad Associates and FIDIC. IKON takes full responsibility for maintaining the server, arranging the annual licensing agreement with IPWorldcom for hosting, and arranging payment of the hosting charge by obtaining payment from the partners.

The partnership operates under an annual agreement with IPWorldcom, with equal contributions from each party.

The cost per partner is based on :

• pro rata share of server hosting charge (paid to the service provider IPWorldcom)
• renting of disk capacity (paid to IKON to amortise the hardware)

IKON manages the partnership and charges a standard rate for intervention on behalf of one of the partners. FIDIC, however, pays a flat rate charge as it has special requirements, notably the loading an checking of special components and programmes. Ikon invoices FIDIC for this charge each three months.

FIDIC joined the partnership in April 1998, and contributed a one-time set-up charge.

In 1999, it was decided that FIDIC being the main user, would purchase the server hardware as required. This has meant that the server could be routinely upgraded, with the old components being recycled through the Secretariat's servers. FIDIC must approve any changes to the server hardware, and it only pays for the suppliers' cost of the components. Labour cost are borne by Ikon as per the partnership agreement.

• two fan-cooled 36 GB 15krpm IBM high-performance SCSI hard drives;
• two 40 GB 7.2krpm IDE hard drives;
• an Adaptec RAID PCI card for the mirroring of the SCSI hard drives.

A power switch is installed on a separate IP number to allow hard booting of the machine if required. This hard booting can only by performed by IKON on request by contacting the office.

A 100% service time is not guaranteed, as intervention is needed to reboot the server. During working hours, the server can be restarted or rebooted by the partnership without intervention by the service provider.

All files are backed-up weekly by IPWorldcom, and copies are maintained by IPWorlcom. 

A firewall, controlled and managed by IKON, is installed.

For applications, Perl running as CGI scripts and Active Server Pages (ASP) and ASP.Net 2 are available, together with Access 2005 and  SQLServer 2005 (with that latest service pack) for database-based applications.

The latest developments in Microsoft’s database-to-ASP technology are installed, notably the latest ADO and MDAC

DLL components are developed and installed for repetitive, non-presentation layer, functions requiring high efficiency.

IIS also offers a transactions server and an index server, but only the transaction server feature is used in conjunction with SQL Server. Full-text search of SQL Server will shortly be installed.

Exchange Server is installed but it is not used by FIDIC.org for email processing. All FIDIC.org email is routed directly by IPWorldcom to the IPWorldcon hosted FIDIC email addresses fidic.ge@ipworldcom.ch for fidic@fidic.org and fidic.pub@mail-box.ch for fidic.pub@fidic.org, these two mail servers being separated to increase reliability.

All development is carried out using an identical system in the FIDIC Secretariat. 

Webtrends log files are analysed monthly and stored online for consultation.

Email is sent from the site using COM Components, generally ASPMail, ChiliKat WebMail and CDONTS. Exploiting Exchange Server is planned, notably for database updates by email, an application that has been tested in development.

Applications originally coded in ASP are being upgraded to ASP.Net 2 and integrated as far as possible with standard applications, notably DotNetNuke for a Forums portal.

MOSS runs on a custom-built servey (2.8 GHz dual-core processor; 2 Raid 1, 320 Mbs 15K SSCI hard disk arrays , each with a hotspare).

It wis connected to the Internet via a 20.5 Mbs DSL link provided by Colt that feeds into the main Geneva ring backbone to a peering point in downtown Geneva. The bandwidth will be raised progressively in tranches of 2 Mbs.

• the needs of users connecting via modems in remote parts of the world;
• the expectations of users from the business community in the developed world;
• the image FIDIC projects to international organizations and other sectors of the business community.

The motto is therefore "sophistication with simplicity".

Essential features are:

• a consistent navigation structure
• minimal use of images
• default, browser-determined formatting wherever possible
• compatibility with low-resolution monitors
• control of the entry of foreign character sets in forms.

Consequently:

• All pages can be accessed using the second generation of commercial browsers and their equivalents (i.e., Netscape 2, Explorer 2, Opera, etc.) that handle nested tables.
• Frames are not used, except in applications where the technology is essential.
• Wherever possible,  "cookies"  to retain state information are avoided since users resent the invasion of their computers. Users are asked to accept cookies when they are needed.

• the general public
• academics
• industry and organization staff
• the heads of firms/government departments/NGO departments
• officers of organizations related to FIDIC
• people holding office in FIDIC
• executives and elected officers of FIDIC Member Associations

The targeted "mean" is approximately the heads of firms and departments, with a bias down the table towards greater specialisation.

• Content: in general, one can say that the needs of upper part of the table can be met with static content, while the lower part seeks highly "active", fast-changing content.
• Information: similarly, supplying information one-way to users in the upper categories is adequate, whereas those in the lower part need a two-way information flow, i.e., users both supply and receive information.
• Confidentiality: the needs of the upper part are met with non-confidential, externally available content whereas the lower part seeks confidential, internal content.
• Interactivity: as content becomes more active, two-way and confidential in the lower part, interactivity increases.

So FIDIC.org aims to provide both content/information and interactive services.

In late-1997, the FIDIC Executive Committee decided to take over direct management of the site. This soon led to the decision to join the IKON partnership by hosting the site in Geneva. The Version 2 site and site design was adopted without much modification. The main new feature was the addition of an online shopping system for the FIDIC Bookshop. The Bookshop has been developed to the point that it offers encrypted PDF documents for immediate download, with payment by credit online by WorldPay. The FileOpen encryption system is used, and authorisation strings for installing the PDF files are available online to customers.

Since these development, a conference registration and a faxmail system have been added, together with as sophisticated data processing and collection system for the FIDIC Annual Survey.