The SOS Group

1
The SOS Group

• MSIS meeting, Luxembourg, 7-9 April 2008
• Rune Gløersen
• Director of IT and Data Collection
• Statistics Norway

2
Background

• The Nordic Contact Network on IT (Finland,
  Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland)
• The need for anchoring at management level
• The Wouter Keller Appearance
• The common interest
• The informality and other driving forces

3
The Objectives

• The Objectives were discussed in 1999, and in
  2003
• Exists in a draft terms of reference, most likely
  not formally approved
• Aiming at common developments and reuse of
  components
• Also pointing out the need for a common (view
  upon) business process model
• Build upon de facto standards
• Hierarchical organisation, Steering Group and
  technical subgroups
• Cooperation based upon joint interests and
  efforts, and no formal procedures

4
The SOS Group in practice

• Cooperation
• Dissemination database (DK, SE, NO)
• Cristal (everyone, but the object disappeared)
• SuperStar (FI, SE, NO, UK, CH, DK is out)
• Classification database based on Neuchatel
  specification (NO, DK., CH (Bridge))
• Standards (CoSSI, XML4DR)
• Exchange of experiences
• Various items
• Discussions (and occasionally common viewpoints)
  upon international issues
• Actions to harmonise methods, architecture,
  developments (not always successful)

5
Outcome and lessons learned

• Informality and self-interest are nice, but not
  enough if we really want to achieve the goals of
  sharing software
• The relationships and trust is still a very
  valuable outcome of the network.
• Regular meetings, even at low frequency, could
  lead to valuable cooperation and connect to
  cooperative work at an early stage.
• Cooperation implies investments according to
  common goals, and willingness to invest more in
  the development projects than initially necessary
  for one party. But you get other results for
  free. Still most of the successes along these
  lines are pending.

6
Outcome and lessons learned (cont.)

• The SOS Group has been vulnerable to change in
  members (or when members have moved)
• Often (regarded to be) easier to redevelop than
  to implement software components.
• Examples from cooperation on dissemination
  databases where we have a common database model,
  but have developed a lot of similar software on
  our own.

7
The future of the SOS Group

• The concurrence of IT strategies and visions for
  future developments within the member NSIs form a
  basis for common developments that we for the
  first time can take advantage upon
• Service Oriented Architecture constitutes a
  technological platform suited for exchange of
  components, if based upon common architecture
  (principles)
• Somewhat uncertain who is in and who is out for
  the moment
• If we shall stick to the main objectives, the
  group should be anchored at top management level,
  and be recognised by the Director General of the
  member NSIs.

8
Questions or comments?