YEFI Technical Standards / Version 1.1
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YEFI Technical Standards
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Document Description
Document TitleYEFI Technical Standards
Document version1.1
Document StatusFinal
Versioning
Version / Date / Description of changes made0.1 / 01-Apr-07 / First Draft created
1.0 / 27-May-07 / Final
1.1 / 24-Nov-07 / Update with government agencies’ comments
Document Validation
Version / Author / Review by / Date / StatusTable of Contents
1.Introduction......
1.1.Definitions......
1.1.1.The e-Government Concept......
1.1.2.Yesser......
1.1.3.Yesser Interoperability Framework (YEFI)......
1.2.E-Government in Saudi Arabia......
1.2.1.The Program Philosophy......
1.2.2.Yesser and ICT in Government......
1.2.3.Rationale for YEFI......
1.3.Document Purpose......
1.4.Scope......
1.5.Target Audience......
1.6.Guiding Principles......
1.6.1.Resolution no. 40, March 2006......
1.6.2.YEFI is a Living Framework......
1.6.3.Yesser Interoperability Committee......
1.6.4.Use of Open Standards......
1.6.5.Publication......
1.6.6.Do not reinvent the wheel......
1.6.7.Government should not be adversely affected......
1.6.8.Reference to Other International Interoperability Frameworks......
1.6.9.Change Control......
1.7.Document Structure......
1.8.Document Assumptions......
1.9.Glossary......
2.Summary – Standards Snapshot......
2.1.Classification......
2.2.Approved Standards......
2.3.Candidate Standards......
2.4.Emerging Standards......
2.5.Deprecated Standards......
3.Policies......
3.1.Technical Policies......
3.1.1.Adoption......
3.1.2.Compliance......
3.1.3.Open Standards......
3.1.4.Procurement......
3.1.5.Redesigning Service Delivery......
3.1.6.The Internet is Key......
3.1.7.Minimizing the Reliance on Manual Services......
4.Technical Standards......
4.1.Introduction to Technical Standards......
4.2.Presentation and User Interface Standards......
4.2.1.HTML......
4.2.2.XHTML......
4.2.3.JPEG......
4.2.4.GIF......
4.2.5.PNG......
4.2.6.TIFF......
4.2.7.Ecma Script / Javascript......
4.2.8.Atom......
4.2.9.WAI......
4.3.Multimedia......
4.3.1.MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3
4.3.2.AAC......
4.3.3.WMA......
4.3.4.Real Audio......
4.3.5.MPEG-4 Part 2......
4.3.6.H.264/MPEG-4 part 10/AVC......
4.3.7.Real Video......
4.3.8.WMV......
4.3.9.MPEG-4......
4.3.10.ASF......
4.4.Standards for web based and electronic services......
4.4.1.XML......
4.4.2.SOAP......
4.4.3.WSDL......
4.4.4.UDDI......
4.4.5.EbXML......
4.4.6.XML Schema......
4.4.7.XSL......
4.4.8.BPMN......
4.4.9.EDI......
4.5.WS - I......
4.6.Information and Data Exchange Standards......
4.6.1.Unicode......
4.6.2.UTF-16......
4.6.3.UTF-8......
4.6.4.RTF......
4.6.5..txt......
4.6.6.PDF......
4.6.7.Microsoft Office binary formats......
4.6.8.ODF......
4.6.9.UML......
4.6.10.XMI......
4.6.11.UBL......
4.6.12.Xpath......
4.6.13.ISO 11179-5......
4.6.14.Core Component Technical Specification
4.6.15.DCMI......
4.6.16.XNAL......
4.6.17.ISO 639 - Language Codes......
4.6.18.ISO 4217 - Currency Codes......
4.6.19.ISO Country Codes......
4.7.Connectivity Standards......
4.7.1.S/MIME......
4.7.2.POP......
4.7.3.IMAP......
4.7.4.HTTP......
4.7.5.HTTPS......
4.7.6.LDAP......
4.7.7.DNS......
4.7.8.FTP......
4.7.9.FTPS......
4.7.10.IP......
4.7.11.TCP......
4.7.12.UDP......
4.7.13.IEEE 802.11
4.7.14.SMTP......
4.7.15.VPN......
4.8.Security Standards......
4.8.1.PKCS #7 (RFC 2315)
4.8.2.IpSec
4.8.3.SSL
4.8.4.TLS
4.8.5.TDES
4.8.6.AES
4.8.7.RSA
4.8.8.SAML
4.8.9.WPA
4.8.10.WS-security
5.Other standards......
5.1.Candidate Standards......
5.1.1.Pending YIC Approval......
5.1.2.XBRL......
5.1.3.XHTML Mobile Profile......
5.1.4.MPLS......
5.1.5.Saudi Post National Address Profile
5.1.6.XML Encryption
5.1.7.XML Signature
5.2.Emerging Standards......
5.2.1.Office Open XML......
5.3.Deprecated standards......
5.3.1.WML......
5.3.2.EPS......
5.3.3.ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998......
5.3.4.ASCII......
5.3.5.WAP......
5.3.6.DES
5.3.7.RSS......
5.3.8.DTD......
5.3.9.MPEG-1......
5.3.10.MPEG-2......
5.3.11.AVI......
5.3.12.Quicktime......
6.Choosing Standards......
6.1.International Standards Bodies......
6.2.Standards per International body......
7.Acknowledgements......
7.1.Copyright Notices......
Copyright Notice
This document is a working draft or committee draft and is copyright-protected by MCIT.
While the reproduction of working drafts or committee drafts in any form for use by participants in the YEFI standards development process is permitted without prior permission from MCIT, neither this document nor any extract from it may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form for any other purpose without prior written permission from MCIT.
Reproduction for sales purposes may be subject to royalty payments or a licensing agreement.
Violators may be prosecuted.
List of Tables
Table 1: Document Structure
Table 2: Glossary
Table 3: Presentation & User Interface approved standards
Table 3: Presentation & User Interface approved standards
Table 4: Web Based & Electronic Services approved standards
Table 5: Information & Data Exchange approved standards
Table 6: Connectivity approved standards
Table 7: Security approved standards
Table 8: Candidate Application Integration Standards
Table 9: Information Access and Interchange candidate standards
Table 10: Interconnectivity candidate standards
Table 11: Security candidate standards
Table 12: Emerging Standards
Table 13: Deprecated Standards
Table 14: SSO list
Table 15: OpenGIS and Ecma standrads
Table 16: W3C & OASIS standards
Table 17: W3C standards
List of Figures
Figure 1 Yesser Program
Figure 2 YEFI, YESSER and outside interactions
Figure 3 YEFI High Level Architecture
1.Introduction
1.1.Definitions
1.1.1.The e-Government Concept[1]
E-Government may be defined as the effective, integrated utilization of all information and communication technologies to ease and speed up transactions in government organizations (G2G), between government organizations and customers (G2C), between government organizations and their employees (G2E) and between government organizations and business organizations (G2B).
1.1.2.Yesser
The e-Government Program - Yesser - was launched with the following objectives:
- Raising the public sector's productivity and efficiency
- Providing better and more easy-to-use services for individual and business customers
- Increasing return on investment (ROI)
- Providing the required information in a timely and highly accurate fashion.
1.1.3.Yesser Interoperability Framework (YEFI)[2]
It’s a unified framework to implement e-government. It includes cross – governmental specifications and policies, to enable cross – governmental integration and facilitate G2G transactions and data sharing.
1.2.E-Government in Saudi Arabia
The Government of Saudi Arabia attaches high significance to the e-government concept and the transformation process that leads to its realization. It strongly believes in the huge benefits such concept of e-government entails for the national economy.
Transformation to an information society cannot be achieved without comprehensive collaboration and concerted efforts to realize the set objectives.
1.2.1. The Program Philosophy
Yesser plays the role of enabling the implementation of e-government. It reduces, as much as possible, centralization in e-government implementation while ensuring the minimum level of coordination between government departments. The program's work methodology is based on the following main principles:
Principle 1Unified vision, priorities, standards and frameworks
Principle 2Not only technology, but much more
Principle 3Reduce centralization as much as possible
Principle 4Develop once, use many times
1.2.2.Yesser and ICT in Government
ICT applications in government organizations have three categories:
- Applications common to all government organizations (common applications) such as personnel systems, financial systems, document management systems, etc.
- Applications that are jointly used by multiple government organizations such as recruitment applications
- Applications that are specifically used by one government organization.
Figure 1 Yesser Program
1.2.3. Rationale for YEFI
- Enable electronic cross – governmental integration.
- Facilitate cross – governmental data sharing.
- Facilitate cross – governmental transactions.
It is clear that in order to achieve cross-governmental integration and data sharing, a standards framework defining common technical policies and standards is necessary.
In the context of e-Government, the standards framework will be encompassed and delivered by the YESSER Framework for Interoperability (YEFI) which will provide the necessary standards required to guarantee interoperability, integration, portability and reusability of systems. YEFI shall be a foundation framework for achieving the overall e-Government strategy and help to ensure that all government systems, processes and electronic services (i.e. e-Services) are fit for their purpose.
Figure 2 YEFI, YESSER and outside interactions
1.3.Document Purpose
The purpose of this document is to present Version 1.0 of the Technical Standards for YEFI. The intention of this document is that it should be used for consultation purposes within the Yesser Interoperability Committee (YIC) and for consultation purposes across the government agencies in Saudi Arabia.
The technical standards document aims to inform which technology and engineering standards will be applicable for cross-governmental integration and data sharing.
It is expected that the next version of this document, once consultation is complete, will form the basis for the first publicly available YEFI documentation.
1.4.Scope
This document provides Technical standards for the following areas:
- Presentation and User interface
- Multimedia
- Web based and Electronic service
- Information and Data Exchange
- Connectivity
- Security
1.5.Target Audience
This document is aimed at the prospective users of the YEFI framework, namely,
Ministries and other government entities
Decision makers and policy analysts
ICT managers and Business analysts
Businesses and Vendors
Other stakeholders involved in interoperability projects or strategies
1.6.Guiding Principles
1.6.1.Resolution no. 40, March 2006
Resolution no. 40 of the Council of Ministers, dated March 2006, provides the baseline mandate for how agencies should approach information and data management to secure an interoperability solution for the delivery of electronic services to the users of government.
1.6.2.YEFI is a Living Framework
YEFI is a living framework subject to formal review cycles. To minimize impacts brought about by changes to YEFI, all reasonable efforts will be taken to provide agencies with upfront communications about changes and requisite responses.
1.6.3.Yesser Interoperability Committee
YEFI and any recommended changes are subject to approval by the members of the Yesser Interoperability Committee (YIC).
1.6.4.Use of Open Standards
Wherever possible, YEFI will build upon international open standards. Where these standards do not exist or do not meet the needs for KSA, existing best practices and local industry standards may be adopted. The intention of this principle is that YEFI does not “re-invent the wheel”.
1.6.5.Publication
All materials, which constitute the latest version of YEFI, will be published on the Internet and will be freely available to the public including stakeholders involved in interoperability projects or strategies.
1.6.6.Do not reinvent the wheel
Any experiences relating to Interoperability standards and/or policies relevant to YEFI and arising from work that a government agency has already conducted will be reviewed and incorporated where possible. The intention of this principle is to not re-invent the wheel.
1.6.7.Government should not be adversely affected
Where an organization is negatively affected by the adoption of YEFI, a Working Group may be appointed to work directly to resolve any issues.
1.6.8.Reference to Other International Interoperability Frameworks
Interoperability frameworks from other countries will be used as reference where applicable. Regular checks for compatibility with other countries' interoperability frameworks should be part of the revision cycle for YEFI
1.6.9.Change Control
All major changes to YEFI shall be subject to a change management and consultation process with all stakeholders, businesses and YIC members. Minor changes shall be subject to change management process and consultation with YIC members.
1.7.Document Structure
This document has the following structure:
Section / Description- Introduction
- Summary
- Policies
- Technical Standards
- Other Standards
- Choosing Standards
- Acknowledgements
Table 1: Document Structure
1.8.Document Assumptions
This document makes the following assumptions:
Assumption 1
MCIT and YIC have people available to review and critique this document before it is distributed for wider review across government.
Assumption 2
Delivery of this document is part of the consultation phase for Version 1.0. It is expected that the consultation phase may take up to 4 months to complete pending the amount of feedback and revisions needed to formalize the final version.
Assumption 3
YIC is the body that formally accepts the YEFI as delivered.
Assumption 4
This document will be replaced by a web-based HTML and/or PDF version available via either the Yesser website or the new, yet to be developed, YEFI portal.
Assumption 5
Delivery of this document to MCIT and YIC signals the end of the Technical Standards stream for the current YEFI project.
1.9.Glossary
Abbreviation / DescriptionYIC / YEFI Interoperability Committee
YEFI / YEsser Framework for Interoperability
Table 2: Glossary
2.Summary – Standards Snapshot
It is clear that in order to achieve cross-governmental integration and data sharing, a standards framework defining common technical policies and standards is necessary.
In the context of e-Government, the standards framework will be encompassed and delivered by the YESSER Framework for Interoperability (YEFI) which will provide the necessary standards required to guarantee interoperability, integration, portability and reusability of systems. YEFI shall be a foundation framework for achieving the overall e-Government strategy and help to ensure that all government systems, processes and electronic services (i.e. e-Services) are fit for their purpose.
Snapshots
The remainder of this section provides a snapshot list of the proposed Technical Standards for YEFI.
The standards are described in detail in Section 3 and have hyperlinks to the respective authoritative sources for each standard.
2.1.Classification
The standards are grouped in to four categories:
- Approved
Those Standards (International or De Facto) agreed by YIC for inclusion in the YEFI
- Candidate
Standards waiting YIC approval for inclusion as Approved Standards in the YEFI
- Emerging
Standards and/or protocols coming through either the standardization process or are market driven and that bear watching by the YEFI team
- Deprecated
Those standards and/or protocols that should not now be used
2.2.Approved Standards
Presentation & User Interface / Acronym and VersionHypertext Mark-up Language / HTML 4.01
Extensible Hypertext Mark-up Language / XHTML 1.0
Joint Photographic Experts Group / JPEG
Graphics Interchange Format / GIF
Portable Network Graphics / PNG
Tag Image File Format / TIFF
ECMA Script / ECMA 262 Script 3rd Ed
Atom / Atom 1.0
Web Accessibility Initiative / WAI
Table 3: Presentation & User Interface approved standards
Multimedia / Acronym and VersionMPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3 / MP3
Advanced Audio Codec / AAC
Windows Media Audio / WMA 9.0
Real Audio / Real Audio
MPEG-4 Part 2 / MPEG-4 Part 2
H.264/MPEG-4 part 10/AVC / H.264/MPEG-4 part 10/AVC
Real Video / Real Video
Windows Media Video / WMV 9.0
Moving Picture Experts Group 4 / MPEG-4
Advanced Systems Format / ASF
Table 4: Multimedia approved standards
Web Based & Electronic Services / Acronym and VersionExtensible markup language / XML 1.1
Simple Object Access Protocol / SOAP 1.1
Web Services Definition Language / WSDL 2.0
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration / UDDI 2.0
E-business Extensible Mark-up Language / EbXML 1.0
Extensible Mark-up Language Schema / XML Schema 1.0
Extensible Stylesheet Language / XSL
Business Process Modeling Notation / BPMN
Electronic Document Interchange / EDI
Web Services Interoperability / WS-I
Table 5: Web Based & Electronic Services approved standards
Information & Data Exchange / Acronym and VersionUnicode / UNICODE ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000 5.0
Unicode Transformation Format 16 bit / UTF-16
Unicode Transformation Format 8 bit / UTF-8
Rich Text Format / RTF 1.6
Text / .txt
Portable Document Format / PDF
Microsoft Office 1997 / MS Office 97 binary formats
OpenDocument Format / ODF 1.1
Unified Modeling Language / UML
Extensible Metadata Interchange / XMI
Universal Business Language / UBL
XML Path Language / Xpath
ISO 11179-5 / ISO 11179-5
Core Component Technical Specification / Core Component Technical Specification
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative / DCMI
Extensible Name and Address mark-up Language / XNAL
ISO 639 - Language Codes / ISO 639
ISO 4217 - Currency Codes / ISO 4217
ISO Country Codes / ISO 3166-1, 3166-2
Table 6: Information & Data Exchange approved standards
Connectivity / Acronym and VersionSecure / Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions / S/MIME 3.0
Post Office Protocol / POP 3.0
Internet Message Access Protocol / IMAP 4.0
Hypertext Transfer Protocol / HTTP 1.1
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol / HTTPS
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol / LDAP v3
Domain Name Server / DNS
File Transfer Protocol / FTP
File Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer / FTPS
Internet Protocol / IP v4
Transmission Control Protocol / TCP
User Datagram Format / UDP
Wireless Channel G / IEEE 802.11g
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol / SMTP
Virtual Private Network / VPN
Table 7: Connectivity approved standards
Security / Acronym and VersionPublic-Key Cryptography Standard / PKCS #7 (RFC 2315) 1.5
Internet Protocol Security / IPsec
Secure Socket Layer / SSL 3.0
Transport Layer Security / TLS 1.1
Triple Data Encryption Standard / TDES
Advanced Encryption Standard / AES
RSA Algorithm / RSA
Security Assertion Mark-up Language / SAML 2.0
Wi-Fi Protected Access / WPA 2
Web Services Security / WS-security
Table 8: Security approved standards
2.3.Candidate Standards
Application Integration candidate Standards / Acronym and VersionExtensible Business Reporting Language / XBRL
Table 9: Application Integration candidate Standard
Information Access and Interchange / Acronym and VersionExtensible Hypertext Mark-up Language for Mobile Profile / XHTML Mobile Profile 1.1
Saudi Post National Address File
Table 10: Information Access and Interchange candidate standards
Interconnectivity / Acronym and VersionMulti-protocol Label Switching / MPLS
Table 11: Interconnectivity candidate standard
Security / Acronym and VersionExtensible Mark-up Language Encryption / XML Encryption
Extensible Mark-up Language Signature / XML Signature
Table 12: Security candidate standards