1. Health & Consumers DG SANCO Unit A.4 Information systems
Web Services Exchange as concerns organisations
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

2. TRACES Seminar Palermo
Contents
Background
Objectives
Functional overview
Technical overview
Current status
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

3. TRACES Seminar Palermo
Background
TRACES DBs contain a plethora of reference data (countries, regions, cities, businesses…)
Many duplicates (e.g. Gothenburg, Göteborg, Goteborg…)
Constant clean-up operations ongoing in TRACES DBs
A better way is necessary
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

4. TRACES Seminar Palermo
Objective
One reference database, which is shared by multiple applications’ dedicated DBs
Responsibility for a certain type of data at the appropriate level
For purposes of TRACES, we will provide this for cities and for business organisations
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

5. TRACES Seminar Palermo
The Target Audience
The user will be a Member State Authority (central or regional)
Every MSA is responsible for managing its cities and businesses
An MSA can not add reference data to an area outside its area of authority
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

6. Functionality offered
Secure connection
Query, view
Add
Delete
Download lists:
City – authority – GIS coordinates
businesses
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

7. Accessing the exchange
Via web UI: allows for manual access to the webservices exchange
Via webservices API: allows for automated access to the webservices exchange
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

8. TRACES Seminar Palermo
Exchange Web UI
Search cities
Add a city
Manage your requests
Download list for
offline processing
Delete a city
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

9. Some technical details
Submissions from Member States in pre-defined XML format
XSD schemas available for cities
Something on the internals:
Builds on DG SANCO’s “XMLGate” platform
XMLGate is the single entry point for Web services between Member States and SANCO
XMLGate is used by several SANCO applications (RASFF, ADNS…)
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

10. TRACES Seminar Palermo
Exchange request flow
XML
XML
queue
result
result
sync, update
extract
result
update
The processing is asynchronous, processing a
request takes in the order of 15 minutes
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

11. Handling business organisations
This is more a complicated case:
More fields
Duplicates and similarities are inevitable
Subject to frequent changes (start up, closure, change of activity…)
The exchange will need to handle all these aspects
Extensive pilot testing needed
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

12. Handling businesses peculiarities
Abundance of businesses:
allow batch upload
Detect duplicates: Levenshtein’s distance for similarity calculation
Considering offline tool to allow MSA batch processing (e.g. of duplicates)
Linked to “SancoClean”
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

13. Initial Load – synchronising the databases
MSA reference DB
TRACES reference DB
Merge with approval
number from MSA
In TRACES not in MSA:
inform
In MSA not in TRACES:
add
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

14. Keeping the list up-to-date
Different options are possible:
Periodic upload (daily, weekly…): pattern will be similar to the ‘Initial load’ (but with a delta only)
Triggered upload (immediate for every added or modified business)
The Exchange will be able to handle both these scenarios
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

15. TRACES Seminar Palermo
TRACES interface
Creating a business will depend on:
Member State (“automated” or “non-automated”)
type of activity
Status “Prevalid” will no longer exist for an “automated” country
Depending on type of activity
A “non-automated” MSA can not create a business in an “automated” MS
An “automated” MSA can create a business in a “non-automated” MS
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

16. TRACES Seminar Palermo
Current status
Exchange for cities
exchange available for deployment
pending infrastructural adaptations
Target deployment: Q1 2010
Exchange for businesses
development progressing
pilot run foreseen
still some unclear areas
Target pilot run: Q2 2010
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo

17. Questions & Discussion
October 28-30, 2009
TRACES Seminar Palermo