DFO FRIS (Fishery Regulations Information System)

Client Profile

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is a federal institution responsible for safeguarding Canadian waters and managing Canada's fisheries and oceans resources. DFO helps to ensure healthy and sustainable aquatic ecosystems through habitat protection and ocean science.

Thank you Paul and Team for the many years of work on the development of the FRIS system. I really appreciated the dedication to get the system developed and functioning as I know it wasn’t an easy task at times and funding wasn’t always easy. It was a pleasure working with you and your team!

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

The Challenge

To simplify and streamline the previously manual and error-prone process of creating and updating Fishery Regulations and providing up-to-the-minute information to recreational fishers in an efficient and accurate manner. Over 300,000 fishers hold recreational fishing licences in BC each year, with Pacific salmon the prized catch for most. The recreational fishery’s contribution to BC’s economy is significant, valued at over $1 billion, which supports over 9,000 jobs and anchors the social and cultural fabric of coastal communities.

Solution Overview

Using an Agile approach, the FRIS project included the design and implementation of an integrated fishery regulations management system, initially for the Recreational (Sports) Fisheries. FRIS supports the collaborative definition, management and publication of fishery regulations, for all of the species and areas under DFO's remit.

The RESTful microservices architecture enables integration with external services for publication, including the DFO Sports Fishing website and a mobile fishing app designed and developed by the Sport Fishing Institute of BC. The web site service provides real-time data access to Regulations and replaces a time-consuming and error-prone manual process for website content management.

Highlights

A RESTful SOA Application Architecture (implemented with .NET Services and XML/SOAP) including Internal Application API, secure external API, and Document Generation API
Rich client user interface
Messaging middleware for Regulations Publication
Configurable workflow rules and automations
Document generation and lifecycle management
Integration with legacy systems by Web Services

Technologies Used

Oracle 11g/12c RDBMS
IIS 7.5 (or later) on Windows Server 2016
Visual Studio
DevArt Entity Developer Core 8
.NET 8.0
C#, Javascript, HTML, PL*SQL
Sencha Cmd 7.7
Sencha Ext.JS 7.7
7-zip

Ready to Modernize?

Modern IT systems aren’t just about compliance — they’re about enabling agility, scalability, and cost efficiency. They’re also about making the right judgment calls: preserving and evolving what makes your business unique, while integrating or
standardizing what is simply a table-stake capability.

Every year, code maintenance costs average 25% of the original build. The opportunity cost of not modernizing is even higher. The real challenge is making architectural decisions that avoid over-engineering or platform lock-in — and ensure systems remain sustainable.