Result of the Industry Consultation on the Interoperability Framework for Egovernment

1
Result of the Industry Consultation on the
Interoperability Framework for E-government
H C Pang Chief Systems Manager Information
Technology Services Department
Plenary Meeting of the IIAC 9 April 2002
2
Agenda

• Objectives of the Interoperability Framework
  (I/F)
• Principles for determining the scope and
  specifications of the IF
• Result of the industry consultation
• Our way forward

3
Objectives of the IF

• Serves as guidance for developing joined-up
  E-government systems with specific aim to achieve
  interoperability
• Applies to G2G, G2C and G2B interactions (no
  binding effect on electronic interactions among
  members of the public themselves)
• Documents the collaboration mechanisms for
  joined-up services
• Captures the key infrastructure/architecture for
  E-government

4
Principles for Defining the Areas of
Interoperability

• What to Include
• areas where there is a business need to do so
• areas where we have a choice on what
  specifications to adopt
• industry-specific areas where Government is one
  of the stakeholders (respective
  bureaux/departments (B/Ds) should take the lead
  to liaise with the industry on industry specific
  standards)
• Focus on the interactions between computer
  systems, e.g.
• data interchange between two discrete application
  systems
• interactions between central infrastructure
  services and business-specific applications using
  the infrastructure
• document exchange formats
• security specifications for stated purposes under
  a security policy

5
Principles for Choosing the Specifications for
an Area

• In general, we propose to adopt
• Open standards where they are mature and widely
  used
• Specifications that are vendor and product
  neutral as far as possible
• Specifications that are well aligned with
  Internet standards. The Internet is going to be a
  major channel for delivering E-government
  services
• Specifications that will allow Government to
  build scalable systems

• The industry should be involved when determining
  the specifications or schema to be adopted for a
  particular industry
• Local, regional and international developments
  should be taken into consideration
• While only mature standards will be adopted,
  prominent emerging standards should be closely
  monitored for potential adoption in future

6
Principles for Choosing the Specifications for
an Area (cont.)

• In relation to implementation, we consider that
• For any particular purpose, the allowable
  specifications should be limited as far as
  practicable in order to minimize the cost for
  B/Ds to support those specifications
• Limiting the choice of allowable specifications
  should not cause undue inconvenience to members
  of the public
• On top of the specifications promulgated to the
  members of the public, B/Ds may adopt additional
  specifications among themselves as necessary to
  facilitate collaboration among B/Ds

7
The Consultation Key Dates

• Issued industry consultation paper 3 Dec 2001
• Briefed IIAC Members on the IF 20 Dec 2001
• Industry consultation ended 14 Jan 2002

8
Responses

• Industry generally welcomes the initiative to
  specify the IF
• 26 written responses from
• IIAC Members
• Associations (HKASPIC, HKGISA , HKIE , ISIA,
  WTIA)
• Consultancy / Research Firms (Accenture ,
  Deloitte, Gartner, Ovum)
• Vendors (3Com, CA, Compaq, Ecquaria , ecVision,
  HP, IBM, Microsoft, Novell , Oracle, Progress
  Software)
• Others (Hospital Authority, HKPC)

9
Results of The Consultation

• Comments/suggestions received in 5 key areas
• Addition of new areas, e.g. spatial /
  geo-referenced data
• Structure of the interoperability standards, e.g.
  mapping on the E-government architecture
• Issues in specifying the IF, e.g. stating
  up-front the principles for selecting specific
  specifications among competing ones
• Detailed standards, e.g. defining the format and
  structure of commonly used data sets for use
  across B/Ds
• Implementation approach, e.g. defining meta-data
  for documents to facilitate retrieval of
  information

10
Suggestions Addition of New Areas

• Spatial / geo-referenced data
• Hardware standards for networking equipment (we
  will review these along with the Government
  Network Architecture)
• Security for Web Services
• Wireless technology (Bluetooth)

11
Suggestions Addition of New Areas (cont.)

• Application development environment such as J2EE
  or database access standards (our view the IF
  needs to assure interoperability of applications
  developed in different application environments)
• 3G (our view the IF will ride on various kinds
  of mobile services, the variety of mobile
  services will be transparent to the IF)
• Payment gateway standards like SET (our view
  the IF will allow various types of popular
  e-payment methods offered by financial
  institutions)

12
Suggestions Structure of the Interoperability
Standards

• Map the specifications on the E-government
  architecture
• Show which specifications are relevant to members
  of the public
• Link the security and PKI standards to stated
  purposes under a security policy

13
Suggestions Issues in Specifying the IF

• Specify up-front the principles for defining the
  interoperability-related areas and for selecting
  the standards
• Articulate the areas according to open protocols,
  open interfaces and open file formats and
  disallow proprietary standards
• Scrutinise the specifications carefully if they
  are to be tied with procurement rules
• Take note of existing environment, business /
  information needs, and technology advancement
• Consider the practical use of solutions, e.g.
  Enterprise Application Integration or Message
  Oriented Middleware

14
Suggestions Issues in Specifying the IF (cont.)

• Monitor developments in the wider Chinese
  community
• Adopt open standards and have fewer alternatives
  for interoperability to work
• Consider an architectural roadmap
• Use native XML formats as standards allow
• Adopt the Web Services model
• Consider digital identity management
• Include digital divide considerations

XSIG
SOAP
WSDL
15
Suggestions Detailed Standards

• State the versions of the specifications, where
  relevant
• Specify the encryption level of Wireless LAN
  standards
• Define the format and structure for commonly used
  data sets
• Suggestions on specific specifications for
  consideration

16
Suggestions Implementation Approach

• Adopt open source software because open source
  has proven to be an effective way of establishing
  open standards
• Set out an implementation and promotion plan to
  facilitate adoption of the IF
• Use an agent to disseminate changes and to
  promote awareness within the industry
• Define meta-data for documents as far as possible
• Involve the industry when defining
  industry-specific data exchange formats
• Adopt the UK's GovTalk for schema management
• Put in place a change management process for
  managing XML schema

17
Our Way Forward

• Specify the technical specifications and
  annotations
• Promulgate the first version of the IF
  specifications in the 3rd quarter of 2002
• Set up an IF Coordination Committee in ITSD to
  manage the IF on an on-going basis and take into
  account the operational experience of the B/Ds
  and feedback from the IT industry as well as
  members of the public

18
Thank you