Recently in INSPIRE Category

Following on from my pre-event bloggage  I thought I'd sum up my thoughts on the three days I spent at the Brussels OGC TC ...

Firstly this TC (Technical Committee) continued the pattern of the last three, more new faces, more content and a bewildering amount of parallel sessions on all things standards. In the last couple of years the OGC has been developing more and more standards and as a result its membership continues to grow (particularly in Europe).  

Hosted at EUROCONTROL in Brussels, this OGC TC had a distinct Aviation feel about it, which pretty much kept Debbie and I busy for the first three days.  Not just that but this was the first TC that Snowflake sponsored and I'm pretty proud that we were able to do our bit to help our friends at the OGC out.  

Starting early Monday morning, I attended a really great session on INSPIRE in the amazing Europa conference hall at EUROCONTROL. For those of you who haven't been to EUROCONTROL, the Europa hall is a small version of the UN voting chamber with the speaker in the middle with rows and rows of attendees sitting in a circle around the speaker. They even have translation booths at the back (note to the EU - I didn't see a Welsh one).  

Chaired by Athina Trakas from the OGC, Michael Lutz and Ioannis Kanellopoulos from the JRC INSPIRE team gave an update on the current state of Network Services, Data Interoperability and finally the concept of INSPIRE Compliance.  I was due to give a talk on Snowflake's experience of INSPIRE but given the really active discussion and questions there was major overun and my talk got bumped onto the following day at the Europe forum.  You can get a copy of my slides on Slideshare.

The discussion during the Monday INSPIRE session was really interesting and included my two biggest issues with INSPIRE:

1) Is a standalone Transformation Service required?

2) What is INSPIRE compliance?

Firstly, in addressing the requirement for the Transformation Service the JRC made it very clear that a standalone Transformation Service is an optional requirement and its up to member states on whether they want to implement such a thing. As long as organisations create data in accordance with the Implementing Rules then it doesn't matter how its done. The JRC team even went as far as saying they don't expect to update the Transformation specification - so in my mind we probably won't see a data transformation service get stood up as every implementation I've seen so far either embeds the transformation inside the Download Service or performs some offline ETL prior to upload to a Download Service.  Interestingly, the JRC mentioned that they clarified that exact same question with the UK, which led to a question from the audience asking why clarifications are not made public. I couldn't agree more with this and personally think that this would help greatly to stop the rumor mill.

Secondly, the really tricky subject of INSPIRE compliance.  Interestingly this has also come up on the AGI INSPIRE Action Working Group that I sit on.  The problem stems from the fact that the INSPIRE Implementing Rules and the Technical Guidance are not normative documents and so organisations can never really know when they have fully met their INSPIRE obligations and achieved the nirvana of INSPIRE compliance. So what is INSPIRE compliance? Is it when your data is valid to an Annex I, II or III schema and your Network Services pass the appropriate OGC compliance tests? Or, is it more than this and includes Data Completeness and not to forget Data Quality? Unfortunately there wasn't anything that really cleared this up and the most common answer seemed to be ...when you adhere to the Implementing Rules. But given that the implementing rules are not normative it looks like INSPIRE compliance can pretty much mean anything you like as long as it's aligned with the Implementing Rules. In my view, this lack of normative compliance is going to have to change otherwise interoperability is going to suffer badly if not fail altogether.

Okay, onto Aviation. On Monday afternoon I led a two hour session on the Aviation WFS Guidance document that Snowflake (Debbie) has been editing as part of our work in OWS8-AIM testbed.  After much deliberation we've now agreed a way forward to make the final changes to the Web Feature Service (WFS) specification in order for it to support the Temporality Model needed for Aviation. Now that all sounds very detailed (and it is) but we're now at the level of ironing out the last remaining issues for the WFS 2.0 specification to be used in an operational context within the the Air Traffic Management (ATM) industry.  Given that this is the same standard utilised for INSPIRE that's a great message for OGC: the same data standards, the same service standards but two totally different domains.

On Tuesday morning I did some demos of the 3D Globe Aviation Viewer that Snowflake is developing with the University of Southampton using NASA WorldWind, followed in the afternoon by our first face to face get together of the MOSIA consortium. Led by SINTEF, the MOSIA consortium is a group of companies working as Associate Partners on the Single European Sky ATM Research programme (SESAR Joint Undertaking).  For Snowflake, playing one of the lead roles in MOSIA is a massive win for us. We've worked really hard over the last two years to build momentum in the Air Traffic Management (ATM) industry and so being a part of this flagship research programme really puts us in a great place to further develop and grow in the ATM space. We've got some great ideas and I'm really looking forward to getting started in the new year ... should be fun!

Finally on Wednesday, Debbie and I attended the last Aviation DWG session of the TC.  Primarily consisting of results from OWS8-AIM testbed Snowflake got quite a few mentions, firstly in the core OWS8 Engineering Report, then in the Single Authoritative Resource Security ER and finally in the AIXM 5.1 Benchmarking Technical Report - note you'll need to be an OGC member to access it.  If you're into data compression the benchmarking results were fascinating. Developed by AtosOrigin and Atmosphere, the benchmarking work tested delivering AIXM 5.1 over low bandwith comparing numerous compression techniques namely EXI vs FastInfoSet vs gzip vs WinZip.  Now I can't do this excellent piece of work justice in a blog (so please read the report), however, here's my one sentence summary... if you have a small number of coordinates and simple data models then EXI comes out on top, but if you have lots of coordinates and complex models then plain old gzip comes out on top.

For me Wednesday was my last day at the TC, I wish I could have stayed longer but I needed to get back to Snowflake to welcome our new Marketing Manager Cat Stormont. Now Cat seems to be settling in nicely as she's already hassling me for this blog post.

Ian

Press Release

Snowflake Software, a participating organisation in the Annex II & III data specification testing, announced its support for testing at the INSPIRE Conference in Edinburgh.

Taking a multifaceted approach, Snowflake aims to support participants in Annex II & III testing with their ‘You do it; we do it; we do it together’ philosophy, with an emphasis on supporting organisations through the testing process in a way that best suits their needs. Testing runs for four months from 20 June to 21 October 2011.

The new service complements Snowflake’s existing ‘INSPIRE as a Service’ model and offers a number of options for organisations to transform their data into INSPIRE compliant data:

• You do it – Participants can make use of a free, fully extended GO Publisher licence to carry out their own data specification testing;
• We do it – Snowflake will perform the data transformations on behalf of the participating organisation;
• We do it together – Participants can attend a testing workshop which includes practical sessions to perform the data specification testing and required transformations.

Ian Painter, Managing Director of Snowflake Software comments:
“In terms of implementation, Annex II and Annex III really widens the reach of INSPIRE. Where in Annex I the majority of the data can be sourced from National Mapping Agencies and larger government departments, data in Annex II and Annex III impacts pretty much all government inclusive of local, provincial and central; from big departments to small teams; from data in enterprise databases to data in spreadsheets.”

He adds:
“In my view, this poses a real challenge for INSPIRE from both a budgetary and technical point of view. To address this, Snowflake launched its 'You do it, we do it, we do it together' campaign to cover the Annex II & III testing and a wider bureau service for Annex I implementation.”

Snowflake Software is well placed to support organisations with data testing having been actively involved with the Annex I data specification testing and with Debbie Wilson (Snowflake Software INSPIRE Domain expert) being an INSPIRE Editor on the Annex III Area Management theme.

Participating organisations looking for support with Annex II & III testing should contact Snowflake Software on 0044 (0) 23 8023 8232 or info@snowflakesoftware.com.

More information can be found on the website: www.snowflakesoftware.com/inspiretesting/

This year Richard, Debbie and I headed to the 2011 INSPIRE Conference in what turned out to be a sunny Edinburgh. Snowflake has had a stand for the last 3 years and this year was no exception. Aside from our stand Debbie was running an INSPIRE: Back to Basics workshop and Richard was talking about the work our partner Epsilon Italia has been doing within the EU Nature SDI programme - leaving me to kick back - I mean work the stand and network.

What is INSPIRE?

From the positive feedback I received, it seems Debbie's talk found a gap in the conference Agenda by answering the fundamental question - What is INSPIRE? 

Debbie's talk was a subset of our INSPIRE Fundamentals training course mashed up with the results of the INSPIRE Quiz we ran last year.  The thing is with all this implementation work kicking off, INSPIRE people forget that new organisations continue to come across INSPIRE for the very first time.

Looking at the agenda there was talk after talk about experiences, lessons learned and progress made but nothing going back to the start and explaining the basics. Interestingly I was talking to a lady from Canada about Debbie's talk and she mentioned she was over to see if the best practices of INSPIRE could be reused within Canadian SDI initiatives. Looks like people are looking to implement INSPIRE principles even if you they don't have to under EU legislation.

Implementation experiences

I didn't go with the team to Poland last year, but the numbers were certainly up from Rotterdam, I heard gossip of somewhere between 650-800 attendee - which is a big increase. The general theme this year was implementation experiences, which is reassuring, as this year was the first time an implementation deadline had passed (initial Annex I metadata and View Services). 

Practical experience

Richard's talk on Thursday was about our experience within the Nature SDI programme. Sharing the stage with our good friend Giacomo Martirano from Epsilon Italia, Richard and Giacomo explained how Epsilon Italia used GO Publisher to create INSPIRE data valid to the Protected Sites schema, subsequently deploying an Advanced Download - Direct Access service via our WFS 2.0 implementation.  

The main story we were getting across was that all this could be done without coding, using a COTS product out of the box.

Annex II & III testing

Aside from practical experience, the other big news was the release of the INSPIRE Annex II and Annex III schemas.  We know this all too well, with Debbie being an INSPIRE Editor on the Annex III Area Management theme. She's been working flat out with the drafting team to get the first cut of the model and schema out in time for the conference.  In terms of implementation, Annex II and Annex III really widens the reach of INSPIRE. Where in Annex I the majority of the data can be sourced from National Mapping Agencies and larger government departments, data in Annex II and Annex III impacts pretty much all of government inclusive of local, provincial and central, from big departments to small teams, from data in enterprise databases to data in spreadsheets.

In my view, this is real challenge for INSPIRE, getting the little guys to join in was always going to be a hard task both from a budget point of view and from a technical point of view.  To address this Snowflake launched its 'You do it, We do it, We do it together' campaign to cover the Annex II & III testing and a wider bureau service for  Annex I implementation. This new offering provides a number of options for organisations to transform their data into  INSPIRE compliant data:

1) You do it, by using GO Publisher directly (we're providing it for FREE for all registered Annex II & III testers),

2) We do it, you throw your data our way and we'll transform it (for a fixed fee per dataset), or

3) We do it together by running a joint workshop with the aim of transforming your data together.

There you go, three simple options to tick the INSPIRE box.  

Finally, let's talk testing and standards with Steven Ramage

So after a busy 5 days it was time to pack up and head down down South. Before I caught the plane back I caught up with my good friend Steven Ramage from Open Geospatial Consortium and we had a quick chat on all things standards and OGC test beds. You can catch our 10 min video here: http://blogs.snowflakesoftware.com/news/2011/07/talking-testbeds-and-standards-with-steven-ramage-from-ogc.htm

Until the next time....

The INSPIRE Conference is always an important date in our Events Calendar, and this year is no exception. Here's a brief compilation of how you can meet Snowflake in Edinburgh.

Meet us in the Exhibition Hall

Not only will you be able to meet with our team of INSPIRE experts at the Snowflake Software stand, but we'll be offering our range of new services to support the recent call for INSPIRE Annex II & III testing.

If you've got a question about INSPIRE, pop by the Snowflake Software stand and ask one of our experts (Ian Painter and Richard Rombouts will be hosting the exhibition stand); If you don't have a question, pop by anyway, Ian and Richard would love to hear from you.

Attend our workshop & presentation slots

There's so much to see and do at INSPIRE sometimes it's difficult to cover everything. I attended INSPIRE last year and I found it really useful to plan my itinerary before I went (albeit on the plane journey over). If you're planning what sessions to see and workshops to attend, be sure to consider the following sessions from Snowflake:

Monday June 27th - 14:00 - INSPIRE Back To Basics Workshop

This interactive workshop, taken from the accredited Snowflake Software training course - ‘INSPIRE Essentials’, offers a comprehensive introduction to INSPIRE and provides a level of understanding that sets delegates up for the rest of the conference. Anyone who wants to start from the beginning or who needs to understand the requirements of transforming and publishing data to conform to the requirements of the INSPIRE Implementing Rules should attend.

• Presented by Debbie Wilson (INSPIRE domain expert and INSPIRE Theme Editor)
• Kilsyth Room
• Download the full abstract: INSPIRE Essentials; Back To Basics

Thursday June 30th - 15:00 - Data Harmonisation & Publications For Nature Conservation

This paper demonstrates how partners of the Nature-SDI project overcame objectives to achieve results in excess of the original requirements by utilising standards based, commercial-off-the-shelf data transformation tools to perform Data Harmonisation and Data Publication (via web services).

• Presented by Richard Rombouts (Technical Sales Manager)
• Moorfoot Room
• Download the full abstract: Data Harmonisation & Publication for Nature Conservation
• Add this presentation to your calendar:  Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar

Useful resources

If you want to keep on top of the activity and get involved with the conversations at the conference you might find these resources useful too:

• Twitter - We'll be 'tweeting' from our own @sflakesoftware account and we'll be using the event hashtag #inspireconf2011 . You might also find the event hosts a useful resource to follow @inspireconf2011.

• LinkedIn - We'll be joining the discussions in various forums on LinkedIn including the official JRC INSPIRE Interest Group.

• INSPIRE Forum - We'll be discussing hot topics and posting updates to the INSPIRE Forum as well as networking in the INSPIRE Conference Virtual Meeting Place

• Facebook - We will try and post photos and updates as well as track the interesting conversations that are taking place on the INSPIRE Conference Facebook Page.

See you there!

Melissa Burns | Head of Marketing | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com | www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware

BRAND NEW PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

Snowflake Software, Silver Sponsors at this week’s AGI GeoCommunity ’10 conference, has announced a brand new service for INSPIRE in the UK; starting with support for Annex I INSPIRE datasets.

INSPIRE as a Service is a new offering from Snowflake to assist UK organisations in achieving INSPIRE compliance. Whilst the UK Location Programme (UKLP) INSPIRE initiative offers support for INSPIRE, there are still steps that organisations need to take in order to ensure compliance and maximise the benefits:

• Understand INSPIRE legislation and how it applies;
• Understand the INSPIRE Annex I data models and how they apply to data;
• Train staff in new INSPIRE technologies;
• Purchase a hardware platform to run an INSPIRE solution on;
• Dedicate resource to install, build, operate and maintain INSPIRE commitments;
• transform data to the appropriate INSPIRE Annex I datasets.

INSPIRE as a Service

To help organisations overcome these challenges, Snowflake has come up with a set of flexible consultancy and hosting services called ‘Bundles’. If you need to create INSPIRE data to one or more of the Annex I themes, Snowflake offers a service. From doing it all for you to providing you with the support you need to manage it yourself:

Create INSPIRE data with the Theme Bundle:

we’ll create your INSPIRE metadata; transform your source data to the relevant Annex I theme; create a report highlighting the mapping and any issues; and host a one day INSPIRE workshop to discuss the results.

View INSPIRE data with the View Bundle:

We’ll upload your data to our server; deploy a secure INSPIRE View Service; and host and support the View Service for you.

Download INSPIRE data with the Download Bundle:

We’ll upload your data to our server; deploy a Secure INSPIRE Download Service; and host and support the Download Service for you.

The bundled services are fixed cost per INSPIRE theme so there’s no hidden extras along the way.

If organisations don’t need a complete solution, but need some help and support to achieve compliance, Snowflake also offers support in the way of ‘Agile Consultancy Sprint Packs’. The sprint packs can be bought in two weeks bundles.

Ian Painter, Managing Director comments:

“‘Agile’ is a new software and project management technique that we’ve adopted. It gives us flexibility to react quickly to your changing needs and gives you complete transparency throughout our working relationship – something we’re really passionate about.”

Debbie Wilson, Business Consultant and INSPIRE domain expert added;

“The new bundled services offer organisations transparency and flexibility to meet the criteria of the INSPIRE framework, in a way that suits their business and organisational needs. And all the while being able to control costs whilst maximising productivity.”

Anyone wishing to find out more about INSPIRE as a Service from Snowflake Software should contact info@snowflakesoftware.com or visit the website: www.snowflakesoftware.com/iaas/.

Attendees at the AGI Conference can also visit the exhibition stand and talk to a member of the team.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com | www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware