Interoperability of IT systems and services is essential in improving the management of natural disasters. International standards are the key enabler to achieve this goal. The European research project ORCHESTRA has now reached an important milestone: The ORCHESTRA architecture has got Best Practice status at OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). This status means that OGC recognizes and supports the good use of its standards carried out in ORCHESTRA with the final goal of enabling interoperability.
"The ORCHESTRA architecture contains innovative elements that pave the way towards a smooth inclusion of new service paradigms such as semantic web services into a revision of the OGC architectural work.", stresses Thomas Usländer, project manager of Fraunhofer IITB and editor of the ORCHESTRA architecture specification.
A few highlights of the ORCHESTRA architecture are:
- It is based on current relevant standards (ISO, OGC, W3C, OASIS).
- It is technology- and policy-neutral to ensure its application in different technologies and service platforms of choice.
- It is applicable to all types of disaster risks (natural and man-made) and designed for cross-border situations.
"It is the first time that such an architecture reaches this status at OGC. This will heavily strengthen the impact and the uptake of the ORCHESTRA result on the IT market for environmental software products" emphasises José Esteban, manager of the NATURE area at Atos Origin and project coordinator of ORCHESTRA.
"Such a generic architecture, systematically derived from user requirements, has been missing for a long period of time ! Due to its platform neutrality, it will survive the next wave of middleware technology that is sure to come in the next years.", feels confident Prof. Denzer, Environmental Informatics Group, Germany, who originated and managed the architecture work.
Successful ORCHESTRA implementations are currently being carried out for forest fire and flash flood risk assessment in Catalonia (Spain), for the assessment of natural disasters such as landslides on road networks in the French-Italian border, for risks caused by heavy ship traffic in the German Bight, and to assist European experts evaluate forest fire and flood risks in the EU Member States.
The knowledge acquired in this project, as well as the experience gained during its implementation underline Fraunhofer IITB's position as leading institute for applied research in the field of innovative ICT solutions for environmental and security applications based on international standards.
The Reference Model for the ORCHESTRA Architecture (RM-OA) and related materials can be obtained free-of-charge at the ORCHESTRA web site at
http://www.eu-orchestra.org
or as OGC Best Practices document 07-097 at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/bp .
The ORCHESTRA project has been co-financed by the European Commission, DG Information Society & Media, Unit H4 "ICT for Sustainable Growth", within the 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.
Contact:
Dipl.-Inform. Thomas Usländer
Informationsmanagement
Fraunhofer IITB
Fraunhoferstraße 1
76131 Karlsruhe
Germany
thomas.uslaender@iitb.fraunhofer.de
Tel. +49 (0) 7 21/ 60 91-4 80
http://www.eu-orchestra.org
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/bp
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