1. GSBPM, GSIM, and CSPA

2. Overview
Acronyms
Background

3. Acronyms It’s all about acronyms:
UNECE- United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
CES – Conference of European Statisticians
HLG – The High Level Group…
GSBPM – Generic Statistical Business Process Model
GSIM – Generic Statistical Information Model
CSPA – Common Statistical Production Architecture
DDI – Data Documentation Initiative
SDMX – Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange

4. Organizational Acronyms
UN/ECE – The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Based in Geneva (Palais de Nations)
Not strictly European in Scope
CES – The Committee of European Statisticians
Coordinates statistical activity among national and supra-national statistical agencies
HLG – The High Level Group for the Modernization of Statistical Production and Services
What do you think?

5. Acronyms for Standards and Models
GSBPM – Generic Statistical Business Process Model
Conceptual process model
Originally produced by the METIS Workshop
Now a product of the HLG (version 5.0)
GSIM – Generic Statistical Information Model
Conceptual information model
Produced by HLG
Now in version 1.1
CSPA – Common Statistical Production Architecture
Shared architecture for interoperable services
DDI – The Data Documentation Initiative
Implementation model in XML
Produced by the DDI Alliance
Now in version 3.3
SDMX – The Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange
Implementation model in UML, XML, and other formats
Produced by the SDMX Initiative
Now in version 2.1

6. Background

7. The Perceived Problem
In the age of Google, “Big Data”, and Open Data, statistical agencies fear they may become irrelevant
The demand for data is huge, but traditional statistical production is relatively slow, and very expensive
Budgets are shrinking, but the legal requirements for official data are not changing

8. Addressing the Problem
The HLG was formed to address this problem
New sources of data
Increased use of registers
Possible use of “big data”
Modernization of statistical production
Based on standard models
Get away from hand-crafted statistics
Emphasis on metadata-driven processes
Shared software
“Plug-and-play” services
Shared architecture

9. GSBPM

10. A Reference Model for Process
Over the past few years, the CES community produced a “reference model” describing the statistical production process
GSBPM – the Generic Statistical Business Process Model
Very effective in allowing statistical agencies to describe their processes, and to communicate among themselves
Defines a non-linear process model, with clear terms and definitions

11. GSBPM

12. GSBPM Detail
GSBPM 5_0.docx

13. GSBPM Implementation
More than 50 statistical agencies have implemented GSBPM
Used as the basis for analyzing the processes which are used for statistical production locally
Additions, edits, and deletions are made to the standard GSBPM to produce a national version
For example, The “Norwegian Statistical Business Process Model”
Sequence of steps may be ordered to produce a linear description of processes

14. Using GSBPM with Other Standards
GSBPM can be implemented directly using DDI XML Lifecycle Events
These link to an external process model
The DDI Alliance has even taken GSBPM and used it to describe longitudinal research: LGBPM
GSBPM can be implemented using the SDMX Process Model
Process Steps link to specific GSBPM steps

15. Success Leads to Success…
Following the GSBPM model. The HLG decided to create an information model…
GSIM – the Generic Statistical Information Model
One year to produce version 1.0 in a series of “sprints”
Version 1.1 delivered December 2013
A reference model for data and metadata

16. GSIM

17. GSIM
Version 1.0 was organized into four areas:

18. GSIM History
GSIM first developed in 2012 through a series of 2-week “Sprints”
Development timeline was a year
3 sprints: Slovenia, South Korea, Netherlands
Lots of conference calls
Produced GSIM 1.0 in December 2012
GSIM was revised in 2013
1-year timeline
Conference calls and sprint in Geneva at UN/ECE
Produced GSIM 1.1 in December 2013

19. Version 1.1 Version 1.1 re-organized and simplified the model:
Task-based models
Identifying statistical needs
Managing statistical programs
Designing and running statistical processes
Collecting, processing, and disseminating statistical information
“Foundational” information
Concepts, populations, codelists and classifications, variables, data sets, quality metadata
Neuchatel Classification model is now part of GSIM
DDI 4 is aligning with the GSIM model
Some parts of DDI 3.2 and 3.3 were influenced by GSIM

20. Aligning with GSBPM
GSIM models all of the information needed for the statistical production process
It therefore provides full support for GSBPM
It does not require the use of GSBPM
It can function as a stand-alone model or with any business process model

21. “Full” GSIM Model

24. Resources
There is an easy-to-use “Clickable GSIM” available on the UN/ECE site:
Users can add “views”
Specification is available
Includes some profiles of DDI for implementing GSIM (more to come)

25. RAIRD: An Example of a GSIM Implementation

26. CSPA

27. Statistical Architecture
To increase efficiency, statistical agencies want to share IT development resources by sharing services
CSPA – Common Statistical Production Architecture
“Plug and play” services using standard interfaces
Standard architecture model was developed
CSPA Services Catalog has been developed

28. Services today are hard to share and reuse!
Canada
Collect
Process
Analyse
Disseminate
Sweden ?

29. …but if statistical organisations work together?
HLG sponsor project: Desired Project Outcomes
Increased:
interoperability in Official Statistics through the sharing of processes and components
ability to find real/genuine collaboration opportunities
ability to make international decisions and investments
sharing of architectural/design
knowledge and practices

30. This makes it easier to share and reuse!
Collect
Process
Analyse
Disseminate ?
Sweden
Canada

31. CSPA: Three Major Parts
CSPA Architecture
Now in version 1.1
CSPA Services
Produced by many different countries
Same service shared/implemented by multiple stats agencies (“plug and play”)
CSPA Services Catalog
So agencies can see what services are being developed using the CSPA architecture

32. Three Levels of Abstraction

33. CSPA Architecture Very much a “service-oriented architecture” (SOA)
Individual pieces of application functionality implemented as services
Services are loosely coupled
Functionality uses GSBPM to describe what functions a service performs
Interfaces (inputs, outputs) are described using GSIM

34. CSPA is Platform-Independent
Like many SOA architectures, CSPA is intended to work for any technology platform
Standard interfaces implemented in platform-independent syntaxes (XML, JSON)
Communications between services are handled by the implementing agency omn whatever platform they choose
Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.

35. Services and Communication Platform

36. CSPA Services Development
2013 – Initial year-long proof of concept
2014 – Year-long production prototyping
2015 – Initial full production services development
CSPA is developed using the same “sprint” mechanism as GSIM
1 or 2-week meetings, with delivery at the end of the year

37. Roles for Developing CSPA Services

38. CSPA Proof of Concept
A number of shared services were developed in 2013
Based on DDI interfaces
“Wrapping” existing production processes
The POC was a success!
Proved the idea is feasible
Feedback to DDI is being incorporated into the DDI 4 development

39. Prototyping More complete services were developed
Feedback from 2013 incorporated into a revised CSPA architecture
Provided additional confidence in the idea
Initial services catalog was developed

40. Looking Forward HLG has now focused on two areas:
Big Data (from a statistical office perspective)
More CSPA services
Several are now being developed, based not only on DDI but also on SDMX
Emphasis is on production
DDI-related work is now being coordinated by the Modernization Committee on Standards
Emphasis is placed on having standard profiles and mappings from GSIM to DDI
Work now being organized for 2014
DDI Alliance is represented on this committee
CSPA is also working on a GSIM-based implementation model

41. CSPA Services Catalog - Layers

42. The Catalogue

43. Questions?