BECH Building, 5, Rue Alphonse Weicker, Luxembourg

Doc. Eurostat/ITDG/2009/Minutes

IT Directors Group

21and 22October 2009

BECH Building, 5, rue Alphonse Weicker, Luxembourg

Room Quetelet

MINUTES OF THE MEETING

Agenda Point / Presentation / Discussion / Conclusions

0. Meeting opening

/ The chair welcomed the participants and introduced the agenda / The minutes of the previous ITDG meeting and the agenda of this meeting were adopted.

1. Status on national central system initiatives (data warehouse and/or metadata driven)

1.1 Integrated Statistical Information System, Croatia

Croatia presented its integrated statistical information system (ISIS). The completely metadata-driven automated processing system was developed in order to migrate mainframe platform to a client/server environment making the production work closer to the subject matter experts; to faster survey processing and to reduce the burden put on IT staff by statistical production and redirect IT manpower to IT development.
Main components of ISIS are: a comprehensive metadata model (CROMETA), a metadata management tool and a set of statistical tools.
Main lessons learnt concern the importance of:

sufficient adequate manpower,
top management support,
project management, marketing ….

/ (5 interventions)
The following information were provided in the course of the discussion:

Permanent resources on the project were mainly IT people.
CROMETA is supported internally.
The second round of testing on surveys is taking place now, development is finished. ISIS should go to production next year.

Users have to change their vision of IT: they are used to getting everything they ask for and now IT will have a more normative approach. / Croatia was thanked for sharing their interesting experiences with ITDG.

1.2 Development of Integrated Statistical Information System, Statistics Lithuania

Lithuania presented the ISIS project, initiated in 2004 to replace current legacy Statistical Data Production System (SDPS) which is in production since 1995.
Main components of ISIS are: a core metadata repository, a software for metadata management, a uniform software for data manipulation using metadata, interfaces to basic registers and dissemination DB, electronic archive and data quality management means.
Main lessons learnt concern the importance of:

external technical supervision of the project,
an incremental vs. waterfall development method,
all staff must be aware of the big picture
sufficient testing
keeping good external resources on the project

All presentations are available on CIRCA. / (4 interventions)
The following was discussed:

The project should go live on January 2010
Quality management is managed in the framework of ISO 9001 certification. Additional data are necessary to measure quality
Support is planned and IT internal staff was trained

/ Lithuania was thanked for sharing their interesting experiences with ITDG.

1.3 Why an Integrated statistical Information System (SIS)

The Swiss Federal Statistical Office is currently implementing the SIS project to enable elaboration and production of integrated statistics, meet the requirements of data protection (privacy) and provide full traceability (auditing) of statistical data….
Main components of SIS are: registers, channels data warehouse, flexible statistical tool (SAS), ETL for automated treatment, web content management system offering access.
Main lessons learnt concern the importance of:

optimized management to minimize time to market
distinction between two substantially different kinds of statistics: standard indexes and reports and ever changing / one shot statistics
statisticians' education about requirements description
quality of human resources
long term investment and compromise policy

All presentations are available on CIRCA. / (9 interventions)
The following issues were discussed:

Top management support is extremely important
Statisticians had to learn to be more flexible
A training program for newcomers is in place
Snapshots of register data are copied in the data warehouse
A specific environment was necessary to enable users to adapt their statistics themselves
Only statisticians are really able to control the validity of their data, IT provides relatively basic controls (formats, presence of all necessary metadata)
Heads of section are responsible for know-how continuity

/ Switzerland was thanked for sharing their interesting experiences with ITDG

2. Commission communication on the producction of EU statistics, eurostat

2.1

Commission Communication on the production of EU statistics, Eurostat

Based on the Commission Communication (404) 2009 outlining a new ESS vision for the next decade, Directorate B compiled a more detailed work plan and vision for IT architecture and tools, statistical methodology, metadata, quality and dissemination. This paper can be seen as a complement to the general ESS vision and strategy for all these work areas.
The document contained only the most relevant annexes for the ITDG, i.e. the annexes for metadata, IT architecture and IT tools. / (11 interventions)
A rather broad discussion of the Eurostat proposals took place with the following main messages:
-Many countries welcomed the proposals for harmonising the statistical business processes, also in the light of similar efforts made at national or international level. There seem to be no other options for gaining productivity and efficiency in the future.

The new proposals require a vertical and a horizontal integration (i.e. between statistical domains and statistical organisations).This needs to be achieved in the light of heterogeneous National Statistical Systems which sometimes might limit the harmonisation efforts.
The proposals are ambitious and some of them are more for the medium and longer term. Therefore a step-by-step approach should be searched when creating and implementing the harmonisation in the different work areas described.Also an integration of user needs should be searched.
Constraints in this respect could come from the legal side, from the handling of micro-data or statistical confidentiality or from the accessibility of administrative data sources. Also national statistical integration could hamper the international integration.
Further discussions and actions are needed in the various work areas. This needs to be organised accordingly.

/ Many Member States welcomed the ideas of rationalising and harmonising the statistical business processes within the European Statistical System. The limits of these harmonisation efforts due to the heterogeneity of the National Statistical Systems as well as of the high level of ambition of the Eurostat proposals need to be considered.
The current co-operation structures should continue to be exploited. The discussions need to be pursued at various communication levels.

2.2

Eurostat annual work programme

/ Room document was not discussed explicitly

2.3

ESS governance

/ (0 interventions)
A room document was submitted and presented delineating the extended governance structure related to IT, methodology and quality. In the centre of this working structure are the ITDG, the DIME and the newly installed Co-ordination Groups. This working structure was linked to then underlying layer of working groups and Task Forces or other related groups. More co-operation within this structure seems to be essential for its future success.

Other developments in Member States

3.1

Expected synergies when merging IT and Statistical methods in Statistics Norway.

Statistics Norway presented a paper covering the following issues:
-The new organisational structure integrating IT and Statistical methods
-The objectives of the restructuring (metadata and quality improvement, greater coherence in developments, resources usage optimisation.
-The prioritisation given standardisation projects (quality, survey sampling, metadata, mapping, dissemination, guidelines drafting, editing, etc.)
-The total quality and code of practice model
-The IT Governance Model, Service Level Agreements. / ( 6Interventions)
The discussion touched the following issues:

IT people exist also in user departments but they remain outside the responsibility of the IT department.
Relation of Quality to IT and audit functions: Qualityis not part of IT; it is part of Planning and Finance Department but for the audit purpose IT and quality were audited together
How recruitment is done: recruitment in methodology consisted in integrating the 15 people of the old Methodology unit.
Existence of top management commitment: - top level commitment exists however it is difficult to ask more resources;
Interaction between IT and Methodology has been achieved through the creation of horizontal groups.
Request to develop ideas on innovation: innovation is important because it frees resources for analysis

/ Norway was thanked for sharing their ideas and experiences with ITDG. The subject was found very interesting.

4 Initiatives on ESS wide architecture & software sharing

4.1 Common Reference Architecture (CORA) Essnet

Carlo Vaccari as project manager from ISTAT, the coordinator NSI, presented the history, objectives and organisation of the project, which had just started with the kick off. Seven countries participate to this ESSnet with duration of ten months. Main objective is to define a common architecture, starting from the GSBPM model, flexible and modular, so to be easy to change and permitting different parties to contribute to the implementation and different organisations to be free to use the modules they need. It would also in this way facilitate software sharing.
Final results will be presented to ITDG in 2010.
Carlo asked ITDG to endorse and support a survey to ask NSIs about shared software and CORA requirements. / No interventions. / ITDG gave his support to the proposed survey. NSIs are invited to send the details of the contact persons for the survey to Carlo Vaccari.

4.2

Establishing the MSIS Sharing Advisory Board

Steven Vale, who assures the body secretariat in UNECE, and Marton Vucsan, the body chairman, presented the MSIS Sharing Advisory Board (SAB). The work of this body was approved in the last CES Bureau, even if with some reserves on the terms of reference for the governance. Steven and Marton explained the objectives and programme of work for this body, and the results of the preparatory work over the last year.
The mission of the SAB is to provide strategic direction to international work on the convergence of statistical business architectures and to promote favourable conditions for the sharing and joint development of software tools and components amongst national and international statistical organizations.
A first SAB newsletter was distributed in the meeting. / (2 interventions)
The plans of SAB with respect to SDMX developed software had been discussed briefly during SAB meetingandSDMX is considered as fitting well and being instrumental in data exchange.SAB will not recommend individual software but provide a kind of scoring mechanism evaluating it. / ITDG welcomed of the existence of the SAB that will keep it informed on its work.

4.3

X-DIS/OSS: progress report on the OSS repository

The progress report informed on the overall structure of the EU OSOR website and the benefits this could provide to MemberStates and the ESS as a whole.
The report also informed on 2009 activities, in connection with the improvement of the website content, namely on:
- creation of the new "OSS and Statistics Community";
- transfer of the whole content of the CIRCA OSS Interest Group into the OSS and Statistics Community;
-publication of guidelines on publishing and sharing OSS and of a new version of the guidelines for packaging statistical software as OSS;
- production of a special leaflet on OSS and OSOR / No interventions / Statisticians and IT experts are encouraged to subscribe to the OSS and Statistics Community and benefit from the content and functionality of the website.
The OSOR website is providing extensive capabilities for sharing Open Source Software and for a collaborative exchange of information and experience in all statistical domains.

4.4

PC Axis as an example of software sharing, Statistics Sweden

SE presented the history, organisation and future development of PC-AXIS, which constitutes a successful example of software sharing. PC-AXIS is a family of tools used to present statistical information, developed originally by Statistics Sweden and now maintained in a consortium of four countries (Nordic kernel) managed by Statistics Sweden. The tools have been licensed in more than 30 official statistics institutes in the world. The world wide use proves that successful cooperation and sharing is possible but in this case also costly, vulnerable to strategic changes, dependent on key persons and needing resources difficult to find. A Task Force will investigate by end of 2010 how responsibilities could be more shared between members of the PC-AXIS community and other models of cooperation including open source. / (2 interventions)
It was mentioned that it was important and natural to start providing a .NET version as PC-AXIS had been conceived in a Microsoft platform. Other platforms and OSS could be considered in future; already the tool PX-WEB has been ported to other platforms by third countries.
The problem of dependency on key persons had been touched. In case of PC-AXIS had not been solved but top management will provide a roadmap for PC-AXIS including allocation of resources. / ITDG took note of such a useful cooperation that could be applied to other projects.

4.5

Seasonal Adjustment Software

Eurostat presented the latest developments in the field of SA tools. The architecture of the new tool Demetra+ for Windows was presented: an open solution based on the library of reusable components developed at the NBB and allowing fast developments and extensions. The timetable for development has been presented as well as the intention for putting the application in Open Source and for porting to JAVA in 2011. A demonstration of Demetra+ prototype II was made to Member States. / (1 intervention)
Some were happy to see the calendar of development and the proposal for release of the final version in June 2010. It was clarified that currently it is not forecasted to integrate X13 Seasonal Adjustment engine developed by USBC into Demetra+ but rather the X12 module already available in the Demetra 2.2. / The development put in place is an example of planning and answers to users needs: develop first the methodological guidelines in SA and afterwards develop the informatics tools satisfying the proposals made in the guidelines in good collaboration/relationship among organisations and SA partners and users

Strategic IT projects, Eurostat

5.1

SDMX

5.1.1

Progress and Implementation

. Eurostat presented the progress achieved on SDMX at international level and at the level of the European Statistical System. SDMX is seen as one of the main enablers for the implementation of the new Eurostat vision (laid down in the Commission Communication (2009) 404).
At international level, the SDMX Global Conference in 01/2009 and the release of the SDMX Content-oriented Guidelines 2009 were highlighted. Based on quite mature SDMX technical and statistical standards the emphasis of the SDMX work will switch towards implementation in statistical organisations and domains.
At the level of the ESS, work progress was achieved in terms of more and better IT applications, the harmonisation of metadata and the adaptation of the Eurostat CVD to SDMX. The speed of the implementation of SDMX in ESS statistical domains remains however slow and needs to be accelerated. / (3 interventions)
The discussion started with the compatibility of the SDMX standards and guidelines with the upcoming 'data linked format' used in the semantic web. First research on this is planned by the ECB. Also Eurostat will investigate the compatibility of these two technical standards further.
Some clarifications were asked with regard to the relationship between the Euro SDMX Metadata Structure and the European Standard Quality Report. Both are complementary; the first is user oriented whilst the second is more detailed and producer oriented.
Furthermore additional country visits for SDMX training at local level were required. Eurostat committed itself in this respect. / SDMX is seen as one of the main enablers of moving towards the goals of harmonising statistical business processes within the ESS. Member states took note of the work progress in SDMX, also with regard to the implementation of the SDMX technical and statistical standards in statistical domains.

5.1.2

ESSNet, Portuguese National Statistical Institute

The representative from the INE (PT) presented the setting-up and the contents of the ESSnet on SDMX. Under the lead of Portugal six countries are involved in this ESSnet dealing with 8 different work packages. The kick-off meeting took place and the total duration of this action will be 18 months. The different work packages were explained; they refer to statistical and IT work aiming to improve the SDMX standards and guidelines and aiming to facilitate their implementation. / (3 interventions)
The plans for upcoming SDMX IT tools, in particular with regard to their reusability and the availability of test versions were queried. It was confirmed that an early involvement of countries outside the ESSnet participants would be very useful, also with regard to the testing of the upcoming software. There is also upcoming software inventory on the SDMX website.
The need for a proper quality assurance and a proper project management per se, also with regard to IT applications and IT tools was emphasised. / Member states supported the putting in place of the ESSnet on SDMX. A close follow-up and reporting to the ITDG on the work progress and deliverables of this ESSnet needs to be assured.

5.2

X-DIS project: final report

Eurostat presented the final report of the X-DIS project and the achievement in different work areas. / (1 intervention)
The compatibility (link) of the SDMX standards and emerging standards as Open Data-Link Interface (ODI) w discussed. Looking into this issue was favoured. / Member States took note of the final report and the substantial achievements.

5.3

Census Hub – Progress report

Eurostat presented the progress of the census hub project and highlighted that the governance of this project is performed by the "Demography and Census" Unit through the census TF and WG, while Unit B5 supports the project with IT applications. The results achieved in 2008-2009 were shown, with the need to continue the pilot exercise.As of November 2009, nine countries are participating in the pilot project: Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Slovenia, CzechRepublic, Bulgaria and Estonia.Three other countries (Spain, Poland, UK) have expressed their interest in joining the pilot project.
For the time being the central application (developed by Eurostat) and 5 web services in Member States' premises (DE, IE, IT, PT, CZ) are available. The central Hub application, connected with the Member States' web services, was shown to countries. / (3 interventions)
It wasenquired about
- the timeline for the about 100 DSDs tobe produced
-how confidentiality will be dealt with
- performance and national costs of implementation
-if theCensus Regulation would specify the IT architecture that should be used
The census regulation would definitely refer to SDMX, but it is not clear if also the IT architecture will be mentioned there.
The DSDs should be the same for all countries: the results of the first pilot phase The issues linked to confidentiality are a top priority.
The pilot has not revealed any performance problem on the contrary it is performing very well and the next version of the software will support execution of multiple threads and caching. / Member States noted the progress of the census hub IT project. Some countries were however concerned about the national costs of implementation of this IT architecture.

5.4