ICT and Civil ProtectionSenigallia, 18-19 June 2007 A Service-Oriented Middleware for EU Civil Protection cooperation Regione Marche

ICT and Civil Protection Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

Senigallia, 18-19 June 2007

A Service-Oriented Middleware A Service-Oriented Middleware forfor

EU Civil Protection cooperationEU Civil Protection cooperation

Regione Marche


Contents

The Regione Marche Civil Protection Dept. ICT Needs in EU Civil Protection A Service-Oriented Middleware for ICT integration The REIS scenario The Storm Tracking DSS scenario Conclusions


Security and Civil Protection Integrated Policies Department (SCPD)

Marche Region SCPD carries out planning, prevision and prevention activities related to risks.

In emergency situations it coordinates interventions and defines how the Regional Government has to attend the emergency


SCPD Organization Chart

ICT and Civil Protection


ICT and Civil Protection



ICT Needs in EU Civil Protection

Main limitations for EU civil protection collaboration: lack for knowledge sharing systems heterogeneous and inelastic organizations proprietary technologies

These ICT issues cannot be solved enforcing the adoption of a unique standard solution It is a hard goal to reach also among organizations within a

countries A EU civil protection ICT interoperability platform must

be developed independently by single countries interoperability platforms


A inter-national ICT system among civil protection organizations can save thousand of lives e.g., communications in the Asian tsunami of 2004

Despite using a vertical approach to solve the interoperability problem our proposal is to: use a distributed ICT middleware to realize a generalized

support for interoperability realize opportunistic and dynamical Virtual Organizations

(VO’s) rather than strong connected organizations

ICT Needs in EU Civil Protection

Interoperability in current EU Civil Protection Organizations

Service link Organization

Legend

Interoperability using a Service-Oriented Middleware



How the middleware can be realized?

We exploit the Web Service technology to realize such a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Services, database, systems and instruments can be wrapped by this general and standard framework

The Internet is no more used as a Web of information but as a network of open services


SOA


Basic services that can be developed: DataService: a set of services to connect database resources

among organizations e.g., meteorological data, DSS data etc.

WharehousingService: a set of services to share datawarehouse e.g., GIS maps, photos, documents etc.

ResourceService: a set of services to share and optimize usage of resources e.g. computational power Grids, clusters, storage etc.

VirtualOrganizationService: a set of services to allow virtual collaboration among organizations e.g. Videoconference systems, Groupware tools, Collaborative

work and project management systems etc.

How the middleware can be realized?


Project Proposals The middleware we present so far it is not a

project proposal per se It is an infrastructure where more focused

projects for Civil Protection can be proposed We present two usage scenarios for the

middleware in order to define two project proposals: A knowledge management system (REIS) A Decision Support System (DSS) for Storm

Tracking


REIS

The Risk Event Information System (REIS) is a interactive data warehouse employed to improve the knowledge about risks and to refine risk management practices

It is currently used by the Marche Region in order to acquire the “implicit knowledge” about risks in the territory It reduces administrative practices for “emergency status

declaration” It helps to speed-up resources distribution It allows to obtain continuously updated reports about

events


REIS proposal REIS could be easily adopted by the partners

organizations by means of the service-oriented middleware support

A EU-REIS will imply a share of best practices, knowledge and experiences beside a share of technologies

Data about risks acquired by means of REIS can also be useful for other goals For instance, we are developing a new version of REIS that

uses events data in order to study how climate changes affect meteohydrogeological hazards at local scale


Storm Tracking DSS Decision Support System (DSS) and Expert

Systems can be employed in order to realize a storm tracking system

The service-oriented middleware in this case has a fundamental role in data transfer in meteohydrological sensor sharing in computational power increasing


Why is this middleware strategic?

It is a flexible system that can be tuned for specific call for proposal

It is aimed to realizes a concrete instrument that can be used in effective European emergencies

It can be the premise for standard ICT practices for civil protection interoperability in Europe

Once it is defined, we can (re)use it to implement other projects that focused in various specific fields


Example of other usage scenarios

Other project that can be realized relying on the proposed middleware may involve: Climate change studies Wide areas pollution monitoring Epidemiological simulations Earthquakes simulations GIS related projects (e.g., vehicle tacking) …


Conclusions

The areas of interest that we can address with the proposed middleware are various: Climatology Meteorology Civil Protection Pollution Grid systems Hydrology


Conclusions

Rather to propose a specific project or technology today we have proposed an “open project” The service-oriented middleware and the projects we

propose can be refined and integrated with partner experiences

The realization of the middleware in a future project will allow to realize a working infrastructure that connect partner organizations Other ideas and EU projects can be developed starting from

such a connection infrastructure

Documents

ICT and Civil ProtectionSenigallia, 18-19 June 2007 A Service-Oriented Middleware for EU Civil Protection cooperation Regione Marche