System Integration Process of
Government Information
Systems
Ahto Kalja
Department of State Information
Systems/
Tallinn Technical University
Tallinn, Estonia
ahto@cs.ioc.ee
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Introduction
Government Information Systems status and construction
in Estonia have two times fully changed in last ten years.
* The first changing period started in the beginning of 90s
when paper documents based folder and register system
comes to the end and the DBMS-based development begin.
* The second changing period has begin ten years later
(and continues till now) where all stand alone databases
moved to common over Internet accessed data resource.
This last change is described in my talk.
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Situation with databases
Estonia started the developing public sector databases ten years
ago after gaining the independence. The process of developing
starts from clear place. There were no special data base management
systems in use in Estonia before 90s.
Such situation haves plusses and minuses.
The biggest minus was that we don’t have good DB developers
and IT-companies with large practices in beginning.
The plusses includes that we have had possibilities to use
immediately the modern DBMS and hardware. Compare to
highly developed Western countries Estonia does not have a
mountain of COBOL program and old type IS, which need
restructuring by needs of modern DBMS.
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Estonian registers and databases (II)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Population register
Business register
Cars database
Driving licences database
Passports register
Land register
Buildings register
Ships register
…
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Problems
The specialists have estimated that technically all Estonian large
databases haves standard solutions. The largest databases haves
special interfaces over the Internet. At the same time these interfaces
have organized for different databases in very different way. Today
situation shows that it is not so easy for the user to learn all possible
interface details, to remember all PIN codes or to manage all special
agreements with different database management companies. From
such situation has been risen an idea to develop the environment,
where all mentioned problems can solve only once for all databases.
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1. Aim:
The aim of the X-road project is to develop software,
hardware and organisational methods for standardised
usage of national databases.
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2. Importance of the project:
The purpose of launching the X-road program
had several different reasons.
• First, different databases had reached the level of development,
where the increasing amount of data manipulation operations needed
more and more connections between different databases. Different
development projects from different ministries and counties include
very similar solving algorithms: one database queries data from another
database over the Internet. Developing a standard set of data
manipulation operations, which process data over the Internet, can
solve such problem. It means, that the government orders one set of
program components and every governmental organisation can use this
set of software in suitable to him collection.
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• Second reason for developing such a set of standard program
components lies in developing standard interface facilities.
This interface allows organising the dialogue between the user
(citizen, civil servant, entrepreneur) and databases.
The same software guaranties the interface between databases and
application programs.
The standardised user interface saves resources and the
communication line between the end-user and the database can
very often exclude the need for a special civil servant.
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• Third reason lies in the standardised authentication service.
At the moment we have solved the authentication problem
by using the Internet-bank services for citizens who are customers
of Estonian commerce banks.
The other group of users are people who have
the Estonian citizen ID-card.
Authorisation services are solved by every information system.
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Vision for 2003
The citizen can get information from national databases, a common data storage,
within his or her limits of authority 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.
The civil servant can use all national databases in the decision-making process within
his or her limits of authority.
The entrepreneur can use information included in national databases for carrying
out business.
The state has become more transparent, integral and intelligible for the citizens.
The administration and development costs of databases have decreased by 30%
in total, thanks to the unified user interface it is easier to use databases.
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X-road project participants:
• Public sector
• Private sector
– Estonian MTC DSIS
– Data protection
inspection
– Estonian Informatics
Centre
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Softshark Ltd.
Cybernetica Ltd.
IT Meedia Ltd.
Cell Network Ltd.
Andmevara Ltd.
Reaalsüsteemid Ltd
AA Arendus Ltd.
Commercial banks etc.
X-road finance
Year
2001
Budget
5.8 (6.8) M. crowns
2002
13.5 M. crowns
2003*
6.6 M. crowns
 ~27 M. Crowns= 2 Mill. US$
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Environment
“Gray area”(X-road closest surroundings)
Classifiers
ID-card
Digital signature
Electronical documents
E-citizen
SYSTEM(X-road)
“Information
society”
Citizen
portal
E-busines
r
M-busines
Legislation
Information systems
.
Public
Databases
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www
Users:
-citizen
-civil servant
-entrepreneur
4. Technical assumptions
Most of Estonian databases and registers have been developed by
using standardised Oracle, Informix, Sybase, Progress etc. software
and they use standardised SQL-query language. MS Windows,
Linux and Solaris are in use as operating systems.
The connections between databases are organised over the Internet.
All these components together build up the first level support for
second (or service) level solutions, which include the X-road
software components for application services design.
Technical solution for the X-road is not one large server or one
large DBMS database.
The solution includes a network of securely connected databases
and information systems over the Internet.
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5. The project results and
users:
The X-road project solutions include different real and virtual results:
- software components, which can be used for solving data manipulation
and query operations by using data from different databases and
information systems. It means dialogue operations between a webbrowser and a user and batch processing between application programs
and databases. The authentication and authorisation for all users can be
realised.
- a set of typical turn-key solutions (as special test services for project
2001 version) for database operations in Ministry of Internal Affairs. A
set of turn-key solutions for other ministries (in 2002 and 2003).
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-a set of general services for citizens (developed in co-operation
with other projects like e-citizen, e-election etc.) on the Internet.
By the end of 2001 every citizen has had a possibility to view
his/her personal data from the Population Register
in a Netscape or MS Explorer browser window.
-a special service centre and team, who manages agreements,
gives licenses, gives consultations etc.
-all everyday activities of citizens will become more and more
paper-free in the future, and will be based on virtual activities
over the Internet.
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(X-road) development has included a set of
different steps:
• Developing of the functional model and detail
specification
• System realization, installation and
maintenance
• Teaching of users
• Developing of a service centre
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Authentication
Citizen
CA of
citizens
Civil
servant
Portal
Local
monit. st.
CA of
servers
Security
server
Central
monit. st.
Database
Database
processors
Users
Security
server
Civil
servant
Encrypted
SSL
Internet
channels,
digitaly signatured data
communications
Central
Central
server
server
Adapterserver
MISP
Security
server
Local
monit. st.
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Security
server
IS of an
organizat.
Local
monit. st.
Special citizen’s web portal with standard DB-services
Authentication
Users
CA of
servers
CA of
citizens
Portal
Citizen
Central
Central
server
server
Adapterserver
Database
Database
processors
Security
Security
server
server
Internet
SSL channels,
digitaly signed
encrypted messages
Security
Security
server
server
MISP
Civil
servant
Central
monitoring
Local
monitoring
Local
monitoring
Functional scheme
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IS of an
organizat.
www.riik.ee/ristmik/
http://www.riik.ee/ristmik/
User manuals:
X-road manuals:
Central server user manual
Developer requirements
Proving of queries
Portal installation manual
Portal user manual
Security server user manual
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X-road training materials:
List of training materials
Central server administration manual
Developer requirements
Portals installation manual
Portals user manual
Proving of queries
Overview of the system
Security server administration manual
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X-road Technical documentation :
Environment description
Structure of the configuration
Communication protocol
Software architecture
Security log
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