Transcript Meeting on the Management of Statistical Information Systems (MSIS 2010) Daejeon, Republic of Korea, 26-29 April 2010 The European Census Hub project Francesco Rizzo,

Meeting on the Management of Statistical
Information Systems (MSIS 2010)
Daejeon, Republic of Korea, 26-29 April 2010
The European Census Hub project
Francesco Rizzo, ISTAT, Italy
Adam Wronski, Eurostat
1
Main objective of the Census Hub project
 The dissemination of the result of the censuses in EU
should provide the users with an easy access to detailed
census data that are methodologically comparable
between the MSs and structured in the same way
2
Census Hub starting point and governance




Eurostat Census Task Force
Eurostat Census Working Group
List of IT Census Hub contacts
Eurostat Census Hub IT Working Group (first meeting on
June 2010)
3
The Census Hub architecture
 SDMX standards
 Pull mode and Data sharing
 Hub
4
The Census Hub Project
National Statistical Institute
SDMX Infrastr.
Eurostat Census
Hub
National Statistical Institute
SDMX Infrastr.
5
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The SDMX Service Infrastructure:
just a zooming
SDMX
Query Parser
Web
Service
Provider
Data
Retriever
SDMX Data
Generator
7
Aims and objectives of the pilot phases
 To develop the central applications hosted in Eurostat
– Hub
– Tool to allow the MSs to update the LAU code list directly
 To support the implementation of the MSs’ SDMX IT
infrastructures
– Advice on how to implement a SDMX infrastructure
– SDMX training and IT technical workshops
– Technical IT Working Groups
 To facilitate the sharing of software between all the
countries involved in the exercise
– Developed and made available for free download a SDMX
NSI service infrastructure by Eurostat
– Financed the ESSnet on SDMX
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Benefits in participating to the pilot project
 The SDMX Infrastructure built for the Census Hub
project could be used in other statistical domains with
few or no changes
 If felt beneficial the NSI SDMX infrastructure built for
Census Hub can be used for dissemination of all the NSI
2011 Census data (as opposed to hypercubes
earmarked for the European Census Hub), with the
added advantage of using standards recognized at
international level;
 Participants are part of a project that will allow sharing
experiences among the different actors, both
statisticians and IT personnel, at different levels
(planning, production, etc.).
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Costs in participating to the pilot project
 Costs for implementing an SDMX infrastructure needed
for the Census Hub project are very limited.
 The use of an XML-based data format will help to
reduce costs of implementation as follows:
– many NSIs are already using, or planning to use XML as
the basis for their data management and dissemination
systems;
– a wide selection of IT commercial applications and tools
are available to work with XML-based data;
– expertise for working with XML is readily available and will
often be available in-house;
 Development costs can be reduced by using software
provided by Eurostat
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Census Hub Pilot project – statistical aspects
 The hypercube used in the pilot is very simple one to let
NSIs producing it in a short period;
 Data are not expected to be exact, just simulated to ensure
a proof of concept;
 Data must comprise the following dimensions:
–
–
–
–
Sex
Age
Current Activity Status
Territory
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The Census Hub pilot project phase I




Verified the feasibility of the project
Developed the central hub software (Eurostat)
Developed 4 NSI SDMX infrastructures (DE, IE, IT, PT)
Produced the “Census Hub Web Service
Implementing Guidelines version 1.0” by Eurostat
 Produced the “Census Hub Web Service Security
Guidelines version 1.0” by Eurostat
 Produced the specification for the pilot phase II
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The Census Hub pilot project phase II
 Involved other Member State in the project (14 countries)
 Provided technical advice through bilateral meetings
 Designed a generic reference SDMX service infrastructure for
NSIs
 Developed of SDMX service infrastructure components
 Developed and tested additional functionalities for the central
hub application
– New GUI
– Cache system
– Off-line queries for bulk requests
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The Census Hub pilot project phase III
 Enhancement of the overall Census Hub IT architecture
 Provide more technical advice to the interested MSs
 Design and develop an alternative infrastructure for all those
MSs that will not create their SDMX service infrastructure
 Enhancement of the central Data Hub with the introduction of
the multi language support
 Development of a web application to allow MSs to manage
and update directly their geographic code list
 Launch of a series of Census Hub IT Working Group with all
the countries that have already asked to participate to the pilot
exercise
 An SDMX technical workshop for IT designers and developers
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Conclusion
 Census Hub pilot project phase I has demonstrated the
feasibility of the proposed architecture
 Census Hub pilot project phase II has represented a
consolidation of the entire project, both from a technical
and a participation point of view
 Census Hub pilot project phase III will represent an
enhancement of what it was done in the previous
phases and transition to implementation
 As the Pilot has been planned as simple as possible in
order to let all the NSIs participate with a minor effort,
this project is a good occasion for all those who want to
start using SDMX
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Census Hub Demonstration
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