State of the EIONET at Start of the new Millennium

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State of the EIONET(at Start of the new
Millennium)

• European Environment Information and Observation
  Network
• European Environment Agency
• European Commission DG Enterprise - IDA Programme
• European Commission DG Enlargement - Phare
  Programme
• Finsiel S.p.A., European Dynamics S.A., Tieto
  Corporation

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Outline

• Background and projects
• Architecture
• Group collaboration features
• Data management issues
• Integration and development issues
• Support

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Background and ProjectsHow Did EIONET Come
About?
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General Business Requirements for EIONET

• An integrative generic infrastructure for
  applications
• Support the collaboration process of integrated
  analysis on state of environment, consultations,
  and reporting on it
• Project coordination, management of information
  overload, making life easier, achieving savings,
  other practical benefits...
• Streamline environmental data- and workflows
• Removing duplication and reporting burden
• Vehicle for coordinating international and
  national initiatives, interoperability with other
  economic sectors, creating new opportunities
• Links to public web sites, but remains a
  corporate network

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EIONET Supports the Entire Range of Information
Management from Data to Decisions
Newscast
Public Access
The Famous Pyramid of Information
Document management
Consultation
Decision
Decision Support Systems
Judgment
VALUES
Knowledge management
Analysis (Indicators)
TOOLS
Data Mart/ Warehouse
Integration (Ontology)
Data- bases
Data Observations
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7
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1
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DATA
TEXT
Harmonisation
INFO
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EIONET Origin and Facets

• EIONET was set up at the same time and on basis
  of same legislation as the EEA in 1990.
• EEA became operational in 1994.
• EIONET is both an organisational network and a
  telematic network.
• This presentation only discusses the latter
  aspect.
• The telematic network for EIONET became
  operational in 1997.
• EIONET is an Extranet on Internet.

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Multiple EIONET Projects

• EIONET began as Intranet (IDA-1 1995-97 Finsiel)
• Installation of the basic infrastructure
• EIONET became an Extranet (IDA intermediate
  1998-99)
• Accommodate new partners flexibly, integrate
• Roll in group collaboration services
• EIONET continues to expand (IDA-2)
• Generic services, interoperability, meaning
  modularisation, and clear separation of
  applications (TERESA) and infrastructure
  (EIONET-NRC)
• Roll in of data management services
• Integrate the servers and IGs into a corporate
  portal
• E-business MDIAR value chain and reduction of
  reporting burden

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Phasing of the EIONET Build-up

• Basic infrastructure
• 15 Member State NFPs 1996-1998
• 9 European Topic Centres 1997-1998
• 10 Phare countries 1997-1999
• 2 Phare countries 1999-2000
• Applications 1999-
• In summary, only the basic infrastructure is now
  available
• A new phase is at hand for application
  development, new strategy approved

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EIONET Zones
Public www- services and news broad- casting
Public
Core Extranet of 33 sites with servers
International institutions
NRC
EU Insti- tutions
NGO
ETC Part- ners
NFP
ETC
EEA
Media
RD projects
Con- tractors
Phare
Phare Topic Links
Special Interest Networks
Enviro- Windows and corporate portals
Full EIONET of 600 nodes with username access
Scientists
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EIONET Architecture
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EIONET the Mother of Extranets (with 33 servers)
Interest Groups organise collaboration of
projects
ETC Partner
NRC
Phare Topic Link
ETC
Phare NFP
NRC
NFP
EEA
NRC
Extranet Password access
Euro- Intranet
Contractors
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NRC
Node Architecture
Phare NFP
NFP
ETC
EEA
Fire- wall
TEN-155
Rou-ter
TESTA-II
Local LAN
Internet
EIONET server
Public server
General public
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State of EIONET Technology

• Internet backbone
• Speed is still a problem from public Internet to
  TEN-155 TESTA II
• UNIX Server Computers
• Old (m97) DEC, HP, IBM, Sun (ES450) servers good
  3 more years
• Linux for new projects
• Routers of Cisco, firewall of IBM, local setups
• Software server engines
• Netscape SuiteSpot 3.5 servers to be phased out
• Open source servers to replace them (Apace, Zope,
  MySQL, ...)
• CIRCA 2.1.5 from European Dynamics
• Open to all desktop applications

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How EIONET Functionality is Provided?
Personal Workplace
Group Collab App
Corporate Portal App
Library Tool
DataMgmt Tools
Workflow Tool
Other Tools
Generic services www, directory, email lists,
news, search, SQL, replication ...
Internet and its Communication Protocols TCP/IP,
http, ldap, nntp, smtp
33 Server Computers across Europe
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Generic Services, Common Tools, and Applications
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Group Collaboration Serviceson EIONET
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Organisation through Interest Groupson each of
the 33 servers
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CIRCLE Services
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Sophisticated Multilingual Document
ManagementDont print, dont email, but upload,
share and search

• EIONETsmost important service
• Users control content
• 4600 documents in EEA alone
• Versions
• Languages

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Messaging

• If the only tool you know is a hammer, the world
  soon looks like nail.
• Mailing lists _at_eionet.eu.int (about 20 lists now)
• Functional mailboxes at nodes
• Email contributes to information overload...
• Encourages unstructured communication
• Organisation of material left to recipient
• No history for new participants
• Attachments clog mail servers and spread viruses
• ....but EIONET users still want it, so...
• Email attachment to be connected to CIRCLE
  document management
• Roles to be defined in site directories and to be
  used as basis of dynamic maling lists, such as
  nrc-iw_at_nfp-dk.eionet.eu.int
• CIRCLE user classesauthors.eionet-telematics_at_eea.
  eionet.eu.int

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Discussions, Newsgroups, Joint Reviews

• Newsgroups and services available in CIRCLE
• HTTP interface to discussions
• Connecting discussions with documents
• Announce postings in newsgroups
• Threaded discussions on documents
• Need to integrate discussions with documents
  (like Amazon.com)
• WebDAV
• To be specified

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Meeting and Dissemination ServicesAfrican
village metaphor The world is one big meeting.

• New ways of working together needed
• Meetings very resource-consuming, communication
  needs escalate
• Meeting service available in each IG
• Virtual (chatroom) meetings available in 2.1 (try
  it now!)
• Meeting service might be more useful if used
  across IGs
• Announcements service available on EIONETs
  public gateways
• Provided by Zope modules
• Freqently Asked Questions service at Network
  Management Centre
• Internet-based videoconference easy and cheap,
  but not used

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Directory Services

• The n-directory problem
• LDAP is the key component in EIONET
  infrastructure
• Usernames, user information and preferences
• New features in 2.2
• Self-registration of users to site directories
• Organisation object
• Roles
• Expertise
• Integration with email lists
• Re-using user information in EIONET Directory?
• We could maintain the information at the original
  source at NFPs, ETCs
• Address database, CDS, and sitedir integration
  the goal

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Replication

• Copy entire IGs between servers (2.0)
• Used once
• Copy directory and newsgroup entries between
  servers (2.1)
• All sitedirs will be copied to NMC
• Replication of individual documents in 2.2?

NFP
ETC
EEA
NMC
NFP
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Search

• Search within one IG is surprisingly powerful
• Search is totally redesigned in 2.1
• When we have 33 nodes and several projects on
  each of them, how do we find information?
• On each IG there is a search facility
• All nodes public pages searched (Compass Server
  at EEA)
• Push technology pilot scans the Catalog Servers
  of all sites
• What is new across all Interest Groups
• A new service on 2.1.4
• Customisable welcome page Towards MyCIRCLE

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Integrate and Personalise through MyEIONET
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Workflow

• The activities of the
• prototype consultation
• process include
• request for
• consultation,
• answer request,
• make decision and
• summarize.

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Uses of CIRCLE so far

• Consultation on working documents
• All major projects use it now, such as EU98
• Repositories of project documents
• Most EEA projects use it now
• Repositories of deliveries of data to the
  reporting system
• ETC Air Emission pilot

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The Outcome of EIONET Collaboration Services
Corporate Knowledge Management
Use Apply Modify
Explicit knowledge
Applied (tacit) knowledge
Analyse Organise Share
Create Identify
TOOLS i.e. CIRCLE
CONTENT
Collect Store
System and technology supportto manage knowledge
Internalising by doing
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Support
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Helpdesk and Training

• After the training the users...."
• Network Management Centre http//nmc.eionet.eu.int
  /
• Four levels of Helpdesk
• 1st level is IG Leader or Secretary
• allow users, control access, structure library
  and discussions
• 2nd level at NMC helpdesk_at_eionet.eu.int
• 3rd level at CIRCA vendor
• 4th level by hw/sw vendors
• Training programme
• Nine different courses, offered twice a year,
  online registration, ...
• EIONET Newsletter
• Security management
• Certificate server is being established at NMC
• SSL encryption available

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Data Management Issues
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There Are No Databases on the EIONET Telematics
Network

• 1st generation CORINE has more or less faded away
• New generation on drawing board
• EEA Data Warehouse (SAS-based)
• Contains aggregated data used for report writing
• Data does not come from EIONET databases
• Disparate database developments at ETCs
• Disparate Topic-Specific Data Exchange Modules
  (DEM)
• Reporting Obligation Database to assist NFPs and
  EEA
• It is a workflow tool on microcomputer
• None of these developments have paid any
  attention to EIONET infrastructure ?

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The Ideal Distributed Data Architecture for EIONET
Operational Databases in Member Countries NRCs
Distributed Data Marts
Information Warehouse
ETC
EEA
NFP
Data - Information- Knowlegde
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New possibilities to tackle data
managementBeyond the WYSIWYG and DEM blues

• XML
• Document and data management are now the same
• DTDs for each topic area to be defined standard
  XML EDI packages needed
• A meta data registry (ISO 11179) to be
  established for EIONET
• Already available on many other similar
  institutions, e.g., http//www.epa.gov/edr/
• Harmonisation, sharing, reusing of stable core
  data elements is a necessity
• Tool support necessary for the exercise

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EIONET Data Flow Architecture 2000
EU Conventions OECD EUROSTAT DGs
Citizens
EDR
ROD
Reference Centre
Information DW
EEA
Data definitions
Reporting request definitions
Dissemination
XML
IW
XML-
AE
AQ
European Topic Centres' Information Systems
CIRCLE
Combine, analyse data
DTD XSL
XML
WORKFOLW application for dataflow mgmt
Definitions Definitions
CIRCLE
XML
XML
Country X
Import, select, transfer data
IW-DEM
AE-DEM
AQ-DEM
XML
National EIONET Data Systems
Manual input
XML
XML
XML
Collecter/ Reporter
Airbase- dem
IW
National datasources (NRC etc)
Conversion
AE
AQ
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ETC Databases

• ETCs already with projects towards the new
  architecture
• Wastebase
• EUNIS
• Waterbase
• ETCs with legacy databases
• Air Emissions
• Air quality
• CDS
• No decision
• Others

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Distributed objects...
...InfoSleuth and EDEN style
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Reporting Burden

• Each year, each member state has to provide
  37,000 figures to the various international
  reporting systems, essentially answering that
  many questions.
• Only 17 of these figures are related to
  evaluating the effectiveness of any particular EU
  policy.
• There are 57 sectoral committees in the
  environment sector alone.
• Most of them have developed their own data
  collection and applications.

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Currently Ad-hoc overlapping dataflows on
email, floppy, fax, letter
The Public and Decision-Makers
The Public and Decision-Makers
EuroStat
EC
EEA
OECD
UNEP
EuroStat
EC
EEA
OECD
UNEP
DG
DG
ETC
ETC
DG
DG
NRC
NRC
NFP and other National Authorities
NFP and other National Authorities
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2001 Report to Data Warehouse on NFP EIONET
Server
The Public and Decision-Makers
EuroStat
EC
EEA
OECD
UNEP
DG
ETC
DG
EIONET Server
NRC
NFP and other National Authorities
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2003 Automated Dataflows between Data
Warehouses on Multiple EIONET Servers
The Public and Decision-Makers
EuroStat
EC
EEA
OECD
UNEP
DG
ETC
DG
EIONET Server
EIONET Server
EIONET Server
EIONET Server
NRC
Database Server
NFP and other National Authorities
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Integration and Development Issues
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Corporate Portal

• Personalisation
• My EIONET
• Integration
• Search across servers What is new
• IGs as the only organisational mechanism has led
  to isolation
• Big picture missing
• Electronic workplace available from anywhere

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Generic Portal Services and Toolkit
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EIONET and the Reference Centre

• Share technologies and platforms
• Share document metainformation and theme
  classification
• Differ in content
• Share much of the user base integrated views
  needed

E2RC Internet content
Enviro- Windows content
EIONET content (drafts)
EEA Intranet content
E2RC Internet users
EEA users
Enviro- Windows users
EIONET users
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EIONET Links with Other Networks

• European Community Clearing-House Mechanism
  under the Convention on Biological Diversity is
  hosted on EIONET

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EnviroWindowsEIONETs Arm for Outreach to
Private Sector, NGOs and International
Organisations
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EIONET News - on Push Technology
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SUMMARY

• Basic infrastructure erected
• That is only the foundation
• Strategy is to migrate mature specific
  applications to generic infrastructure
• Core services now around Internet-based document
  management
• Success
• Still to be implemented in many countries and
  several topic areas
• Harmonisation of data management to be tackled
• Tools and content hand in hand, topic area after
  another
• EIONET is positioned as an
• integrative generic platform for applications
• integrative corporate portal for users