EEA EIONET the Telematic Network European Environment Information and Observation Network *** European Environment Agency European Commission DGIII - IDA.

EEA

EIONET the Telematic Network

European Environment Information and Observation Network

***

European Environment Agency

European Commission DGIII - IDA Programme

European Commission DGIA - Phare Programme

Finsiel SpA., European Dynamics S.A.

EEA

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.

• Here we only speak of the latter. – It became operational in 1997.

EEAGeneral Business Requirements for EIONET

• Support integrated analysis of state of environment and reporting on it

• Streamline dataflows, remove duplication

• Public access to documents and databases

• Vehicle for coordinating international and national initiatives

• Integrative platform for applications and linking to other economic sectors

• Project coordination, manage info overload

EEAFrom Data to Decisions:The Famous Pyramid

of Information

Decision

Analysis (Indicators)

Integration (Ontology)

Data-bases

Data &Observations

Judgment

DATAINFOTEXT1 6 84 1 9 7 3 1

VALUESVALUES

TOOLSTOOLS

Documentmanagement

DataWarehouse

DSS

EEA

Multiple EIONET Projects

• EIONET began as Intranet (IDA-1 1995-97)– Virtual Private Network on public Internet

• EIONET became an Extranet (1998-)– Accommodate new partners flexibly, integrate– Connect with suppliers and customers

• EIONET on public Internet (IDA-2)– Public access to best available information– Improve information by exposing it

EEA

Phasing of EIONET

• 15 Member State NFPs 1996-1998

• 9 European Topic Centres 1997-1998

• 3 EFTA country NFPs 1998-1999

• 13 Phare countries 1997-1999

• Capacity building for national EIONETs 1998-

• Applications through DGXIII 1999-

EEAEIONET Zones

EEA

NFP

Phare

ETC

NRC

ETC Part-ners

Con-tractors

EU Insti- tutions

International institutions

R&D projects

Special Interest Networks

PublicCore Extranetof 40 nodes

Full EIONETof 600 nodes

Scientists

Media

Semi-public

Internet

Public www-services

and newsbroad-casting

Phare Topic Links

NGO

EEAEIONET the Mother of Intranets

EEA

ETCPhareNFPNFP

NRC

ETC Partner

Contractors Euro-Intranet

NRC

NRC

Extranet: Password access

Intranet: Replication of data and physical network security

Phare Topic Link

EEALinking National and European Interest Groups

CIRCLEEEA

NRC

Replication of selected data

EIONET Extranet

National Environmental Extranet

Document sharing

Document sharing

NFPCIRCLE

Data warehousing

EEANRC

Public server

Extranet CIRCLE server

RouterInternet Fire-wall

Local

LAN

NFP DirectoryEmailNewsgroupsDocument managementOn-line database

Electronic publicationsState of environment reports

Public discussion foraLinks to other nodes

Search engines

General public

Set-up at each EIONET node

ETC

EEA

Phare

EEATechnologies Selected

• Internet backbone– From public Internet to TEN-34?

• UNIX Computers of Digital, HP, IBM, Sun

• Routers of Cisco

• Firewall of IBM

• Netscape Communicator/Composer

• Netscape SuiteSpot servers

• IRC/CIRCLE from European Dynamics

EEA

Wires Boxes

DNS

TCP/IP

CORBAHTTP IIOPZ39.50SMTP

Databases

Directories

Certificates

ConferencingMessaging

Calendar

Project Management

Web

Document Sharing

Cataloguing and SearchingReplication

API

Data Modelling

Agents

Public NewsWebCasting

VerticalApplications

EIONET LAYERED SERVICES PUZZLE

LDAP

Data Warehousing

CIRCLE

EEACIRCLE Interest Groups

EEACIRCLE Services

EEA

Messaging“If the only tool you know is a hammer, the world soon looks like nail.”

• Email contributes to information overload– Encourages unstructured communication– Organisation of material left to recipient

• EIONET was not built for email,although email has an important role in time-critical announcements and distributing URLs– Mailing lists @eionet.eu.int

• nfp, etc, ittag, ittag-etc, ittag-nfp, sysadmin

– Functional mailboxes at nodes

EEA

User PublishingDon’t print, don’t email, but...

• …upload - share - search!

• EIONET has become a major document management project– One-button publishing with CIRCLE

• Users control content– Especially for drafts, bypass the webmaster– Faster turnaround, quality assurance easier– Project homepages (interest groups in CIRCLE)

EEA

ConferencingAfrican village metaphor: “The world is one big meeting.”

• New ways of working together needed– Meetings are very resource-consuming– Communication needs escalate– Virtual conferences and videoconference help

• Connecting discussions with documents– Announce postings in newsgroups– Conduct threaded discussions on documents

• Done with CIRCLE NNTP interface

EEA

Directory ServicesThe ultimate solution for the address database problem

• Distribute to NFPs and beyond– Address database, CDS, and DS integration– How to manage external contacts problem

• LDAP an essential part of CIRCLE– Usernames/passwords in a common pool– Created and maintained at each node– Replicated between sites

• Certificates via TrustFactory (1999)

EEA

ReplicationBandwith is a problem - the missing European backbone

• Mechanism to transport selected files from one server to another automatically

• Built-in in directory services and CIRCLE

EEA

NFP

NFP

NFP

NFP

EEA

Search

• When we have 40 nodes and several projects on each of them, how do we find information?– On each IG there is a search facility– Across IGs there is currently nothing, – To search multiple nodes there is only CDS– Push technology pilot by Tieto

EEA

After the training the users...."

• Four levels of helpdesk– 1st level is IG leader/secretary: allow users, control

access, structure library and discussions– 2nd level at EEA [email protected]– 3rd level at European Dynamics– 4th level by vendors

• Training programme

• EIONET Newsletter appears 3 times year.

Helpdesk and training

EEA

Online Databases• Improving by exposing

– Generate lots of hits– Legacy databases from CORINE are receiving

web front-ends, new ones built direct to web

• Data Warehousing– Consists of data extraction, cleaning, mining

for patterns, web access

EEAEIONET Distributed Data Architecture

ETC

NFP

EEA

OperationalDatabases in Member Countries

DistributedData Warehouses

ReportWarehouse

“Data - Information- Knowlegde”

EEA

Currently: Ad-hoc overlapping dataflows on email, floppy, fax, letter

EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP

NFP and other National Authorities

The Public and Decision-Makers

ETC

DG

DG

NRC

EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP

NFP and other National Authorities

The Public and Decision-Makers

ETC

DG

DG

NRC

EEA1999: Report to Data Warehouse

on NFP EIONET Server

EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP

NFP and other National Authorities

The Public and Decision-Makers

ETCDG

NRC

DG

EIONETServer

EEA2001: Automated Dataflows between Data Warehouses on Multiple EIONET Servers

EuroStat EC EEA OECD UNEP

NFP and other National Authorities

The Public and Decision-Makers

ETCDG

NRC

DG

EIONETServer

EIONETServer

EIONETServer

EIONETServer

DatabaseServer

EEA

EIONET Interface to Other Networks

• Integrate to the networks of other sectors

• Provide a platform for participation

• Avoid duplication of work

• Host activities that complement EIONET

• EEA coordinates, locates, links, supports,…

• Users identified but not restricted

EEAOther Networks to Integrate with

• Telematics Applications Programme of DGXIII– 26 applications in FP4: including IRENIE– FP5 to start in December 1998– EIONET can provide an intergrative platform

• Networks of energy, agriculture, forests, ...

EEA

More Other Networks

• Special Interest Networks may carry “Best Available Information”: Quality control?– BALLERINA

• International conventions– Clearing-House Mechanism of the

Convention on Biological Diversity in Europe

EEA

Information Locators“Best Available Information”

• EIONET Directory Service

• Catalogue of Data Sources

• G7/GELOS

• EDEN

EEA

Situation with www.eea.eu.int

• Present EEA homepage is a document store– 300,000 hits per month (January 1998)

• What is the balance between electronic and paper publishing? 200%– Languages and translations– All deliverables direct to web

• Online database access sorely needed!• Beyond documents into news broadcasting

EEA

Reference Centre

• One-stop-shop for electronic information

• Link to information held by others

• So far, web has been an afterthought just used for wider dissmination of paper-based products

• Towards continuous updating

• Topical arrangement

EEA

SUMMARY

• There are multiple EIONETs– Gradually opening up, merging with Internet

• Core services now around Internet-based document management -- success

• Existing ad hoc dataflows are being tackled

• Information for the citizens next