Biosafety Clearing-House Solutions for National Participation First Regional Advisors Meeting, Delhi, INDIA, 26 April 2007 Philippe Leblond Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Agenda – First Session Release Plan (15 minutes) Version Numbering Scheme Change History Support Lifecycle Overview of recent changes BCH Web Service (version 3.0) (15 minutes) Documentation and Quick Starts BCH Web Service Utility

Agenda – Second Session Hermes Hosted Application (30 minutes) Introduction and design considerations Support and sustainability Creating a NBCH based on Hermes (demonstration) BCH Ajax Plug-In (15 minutes) Integrating the Plug-In to a National Web Site Integrating the Plug-In to the Canadian Application Hands-On Session on Hermes (30 minutes)

Driven by COP-MOP decisions Major releases match COP-MOP meetings Current version of the BCH is 3.4 MOP2 v2 MOP3 v3 MOP4 v4 MOP5 v5 Release Plan

Release Plan (continued…) The SCBD development work plan is based on quarterly releases March, June, September & December History of changes is available in the news section of the BCH Central Portal Recommendation from the BCH-IAC

Release Plan (continued…) BCH Interoperability Services changes are categorized into minor and major versions Version 3.4 is the current version Version 4.0 is the next major version For upward compatibility, interface of the BCH Web Service does not change between minor versions

Support Lifecycle Maximizes resources by reducing the amount of code to maintain and support Recommendation from the BCH-IAC Current and previous versions are supported Deprecated version is phased-out after one year Previous Version Current Version Deprecated Version

Support Lifecycle (continued…) Concretely, this means that version 2.0 will be phased-out one year after the release of the version 4.0 Version 4.0 will be released after COP-MOP/4 around 2009 Version 2.0 will be supported at least until 2010 The SCBD will develop and make available migration guidelines Version 3.0 Version 4.0 Version 2.0

Questions? Next: Documentation of the Interoperability Services

Documentation The Secretariat has recently recently put a lot of effort into improving and making more accessible the documentation of the Interoperability Mechanisms The documentation of the version 3.0 of the Interoperability Mechanisms is available at:

Documentation (continued…) Common Formats XML Schemas, diagrams, links to CV Web Service Methods, SOAP messages Quick Starts Samples in C#, VB.NET, Java, Python and Perl for every method Articles Learning tool – BCH Web Service Utility

Questions?

Agenda – Second Session Hermes Hosted Application (40 minutes) Introduction and design considerations Support and sustainability Creating a NBCH based on Hermes (demonstration) BCH Ajax Plug-In (15 minutes) Integrating the Plug-In to a National Web Site Integrating the Plug-In to the Canadian Application Hands-On Session on Hermes (45 minutes)

Overview Hermes is an application developed by the Secretariat which provides the building blocks of a national BCH website. Hermes instances are hosted on the Secretariat’s servers.

Overview Hermes is an application developed by the Secretariat which provides the building blocks of a national BCH website. Hermes instances are hosted on the Secretariat’s servers.

Hermes provides Content Management System (CMS) Simple wiki-like syntax Interoperability with the BCH Central Portal Support for all common formats Advanced search functionalities Security (SSL authentication)

Hermes CMS Allows end users to create and maintain their national website online Does not require any technical skills

Hermes wiki-like syntax Hermes provides an easy wiki-like syntax for providing content Simpler than HTML Does not required any IT knowledge Eases changes tracking and translation Ensures style consistency

Interoperability Fully interoperable with the BCH Provides support for all common formats Maintained by the Secretariat Transition to next version of the interoperability services will be transparent

Security Provides easy user management Shares accounts and passwords with the BCH Provides secure authentication (SSL)

Support % uptime through redundancy Real-time monitoring On-site and off-site backups Assistance through SCBD and RAs

Questions? Next: SCBD Hosting Services

The Secretariat offers free web hosting for solutions based on Hermes or on the Canadian Application. Although the hosting services are offered by the Secretariat, the national site can be placed under any domain name. E.g. Country is responsible for obtaining the domain name The Secretariat offers DNS services

Infrastructure – Equipment SecurityReliabilityScalabilityAvailabilityPerformance % uptime

Infrastructure – IP Network Direct 100 Mbps Fibre Optic link to Internet backbone

How to proceed ? Hermes Instances are setup by the Secretariat MOU is not required (may be optional) Canadian Application Instances are setup by the GOC A three-party MOU needs to be signed between the country, GOC and SCBD

Questions? Next: Creating a National BCH based on Hermes (demonstration)