ESSnet presentation for the kick-off meeting October 2009 in Luxembourg

1. CORA ESSNet COmmon Reference Architecture starting ...

3. MSIS - 2006: UK paper “Towards a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the Statistical Value Chain”

4. MSIS – 2008: Task Force on Sharing Software

5. MSIS – 2009: session on “Sharing Software and Components”

7. keywords: standards, open, re-use, portability

9. co-ordination with MSIS Task Force

10. based on well defined principles, involve business units

11. tools based on sound methodologies

12. designing principles - adaptation of tools to each environment

13. 2009 activities January in Luxembourg preparatory meeting between interested countries and Eurostat for ESSnet: besides many administrative clarifications, we started to consider a layer architecture for introducing abstraction levels, ensuring isolation between different layers and topics In March 2009 METIS dedicated one session to GSBPM model in which the model was described, discussed and approved

15. Adaptable to change: modular itself

16. Common integration rules

17. Support for Open and Proprietary solutions

18. Integration of existing software

19. First step to strategic goal of interoperability and easy interchange of solutions

20. Inventory of existing shared software

21. Tools for cooperation

22. MSIS 2009 The 2009 MSIS meeting approved the proposals of the Task Force on Sharing Software, in particular the establishment of a Sharing Advisory Board you find here the related documents (particularly this ) Formal mandate was given from the Bureau of the Conference of European Statisticians at its October 2009 meeting (last week) SAB wiki: link

23. ESSnet and SAB MSIS Task Force (now Sharing Advisory Board) and CORA ESSnet: two projects, the same goal SAB : strategic, long-term, world ESSnet : tactical, 10 months, europe (but open) Crucial: cooperation and common work What ESSnet is expected to do … in next slides quotations from MSIS documents

24. ESSnet and SAB Two projects are proposed. The first, to be carried out by an ESSnet proposed by Eurostat, will take care of the more immediate needs like enhancement of the statistical community on the OSOR website and proposals for common architectures ... The results of this work will be open to all countries. The second includes the setting up of a Sharing Advisory Board reporting to the MSIS meeting, to provide strategic direction and long term continuity.

25. ESSnet goals … it will be possible to start with enabling initiatives such as a web portal to share information and tools. The aim is to create a culture of exchange of information and knowledge about sharing, open source and licensing etc. This will hopefully satisfy the need for information and provide an easy pathway to tools that can already be shared within the statistical community. We will call this the tactical solution.

27. Information Systems Architecture - consisting of data and metadata architecture and overall application architecture on a logical level

28. Technical Architecture - for example, SOA, technical platforms, use of standards

29. ESSnet goals Three cornerstones for interoperability, i.e. organisational, semantic and technical interoperability. We will need the same approach in order to share software for common business processes The architecture has to be very flexible and easily adaptable to change It has to be modular , so that different parties could contribute to their implementation and different organisations would also be free to use the modules they really need

30. ESSnet goals The design of the architecture should include a plan for its implementation , with a series of phases, so that when a component is ready it can be used without the need to wait for the complete architecture The architecture has to be generic enough to try to cover the largest number of needs of the NSIs but keeping a degree of simplicity to enable implementations with simple means in a reasonable time period, keeping in mind that IT evolves quickly and that an architecture too complex could become obsolete even before the end of its implementation.

31. ESSnet goals Even if open source software (OSS) would seem to be a natural choice it must be considered that different NSIs have invested heavily in proprietary software solutions and they cannot be expected to change completely in a short period. The architecture should therefore also support proprietary solutions, at least the most common ones, as well as OSS. This is one of the reasons why more than one physical architecture could be needed and a way to move gradually from one to another should be described

32. ESSnet goals The ESSnet shall take into account solutions that already exist. Solutions that are already shared in the statistical community shall be investigated for fitting into the technical architecture. In addition, business models shall be discussed with the owners of these applications concerning how their maintenance can be assured in the long term, and how they could be adapted to the proposed architecture, without giving extra burdens to individual NSIs.

34. Barter (e.g. exchange of software between partners);

35. Consortium for joint development;

36. Executable ownership (some legal right for source);

37. Free executable with (varying) financial compensation.

38. WPs and their issues WP1 – project management - three meetings (Amsterdam M3, Rome M6, Lux M10) – last meeting in July? - wiki for internal use (only?) - coordination inside and outside ESSnet - only 10 months: timeliness !

40. management: on the web

42. annotations about docs and framework

43. final repository? OSOR? (!) other web site?

45. - connection with physical infrastructure

46. - interfaces definition - manual supply - viability : proof of concepts

47. WPs and their issues WP4 – cooperation architecture - licensing models - business models - legal framework - best practices and tools for sharing - current existing models and future possible ones

48. WPs and their issues WP5 – dissemination - wiki (internal and external) - web site ? do we need it? - cooperation with OSOR repository (community OSS and statistics … “our” web site?) - final workshop : open - other international meetings (date problem: <M10 ...)