Introduction to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Information Infrastructure CRAES Beijing, China September 20, 2012
Presentation Outline • • • • • • •
EPA Data Centers Program Data Systems System of Registries, Data Standardization Centralized Services (Central Data Exchange) Exchanges with states, tribes (Exchange Network) Exchanges with regulated entities (CDX, EN) Questions?
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EPA Data Centers • Consolidated EPA Data Centers • Main National Computing Center (NCC) supports environmental information http://www.epa.gov/oaintrnt/facilities/rtp_ncc.htm
• Consolidation on-going from remote data systems into the NCC. • Virtualizing environments in NCC cuts costs • Moving to the Cloud 3
Program Data Systems Major regulatory programs have data systems that support required reporting information for compliance and environmental performance monitoring • Built at different times • In various stages of modernization • Often have some common but mostly unique data fields with others in the agency
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Program Data Systems • Air Quality Subsystem (AQS) AQS • Greenhouse Gas EIS ICIS • Emission Inventory System SDWIS (EIS) • Integrated Compliance STORET RCRAInfo TRIPS Information System (ICIS) • Hazardous Waste • Toxic Release Inventory (RCRAInfo) Processing System (TRIPS) • Safe Drinking Water • Toxic Substances (MITS) Information System (SDWIS) • Vehicles and Engines • STORET (STOrage and (Verify) RETrieval) water quality 5
System of Registries Registries of commonly used for data standards, components, services • Environmental Data registry (data elements, XML tags, and value domains) – over 800 standard data elements
• Substance Registry System – over 100,000 chemical substances
• Facility Registry System – 2,970,057 unique facilities
• Resuable Components Services – services, code, data sets, and other tools 6
Data Standardization • Allows system independence of program data systems – Data field in older data systems remain the same yet map to the standard exchange template used by other systems for that exchange
• CDX, Exchange Network publish XML schema for each prospective exchange – Schema are developed for each exchange type (e.g., Discharge Monitoring Report [DMR] data) – Leverages Data, Substance, Facility Registries
• Schemas part of Data Exchange “Template” – Data Exchange “Templates” Describe format of data being exchanged • Consist of XML schema • Draw upon industry data standards (e.g., Geospatial) • Reuse existing XML schema components (shared schema components) where possible Identify services to be used
Centralized Services • The Central Data Exchange (CDX) is the central point for Agency environmental data exchanges. Leverages core services used for various data exchanges. • EPA’s Node on the Environmental Information Exchange Network (Inflows and Outflows of Data to Partners). 8
Centralized Services Exchange Network A standards-based machine-to-machine approach for exchanging environmental data among trading partners Key Components • Standard Protocols • Nodes • Templates (XML Schema) includes data standards
Federal (Open Gov)
International
EPA Node
State / Tribes
Public / Private
Submit
Publish & Query
Background: Types of Data Exchanges EPA-to-State
State-to-EPA • • • • • •
• • • •
Facility Data to FRS Water Quality Data to WQX Drinking Water Data to SDWIS Haz Waste Data to RCRAInfo Air Emissions Data to EIS Air Monitoring Data to AQS
Intrastate •
Industry-to-EPA & States • • •
• •
TRI Data submissions Renewable Fuels to EMTS Water Discharge Monitoring Data to NetDMR, eDMR
•
State-to-State • • • •
Water Quality Data Hazardous Waste Transporters Air Quality Data Homeland Security Data
TRI Data Submissions Chemical Data Facility Data from FRS Air Quality Data Environmental Data to Health Departments Drinking Water Labs to States Homeland Security/ Law Enforcement C County Water Data
International • 11
Hazardous Waste Notices between Canada, Mexico, US
Generic Data Validation Process, Service Well-form Check XML Doc
XML Parser
Schema validation
Rule validation
Schema Validator
XSLT Processor
Schemas
Schematron Rules
Error Report
Background: Status of CDX Web and Node Utilization • 260,000+ user registrations; 50,000+ active users • 50 States and 9 tribes (w/nodes) on the Network using a suite of central services provided by CDX • Estimated 800,000 data transactions this year • 60+ Flows in production, 10 more in planning/development
• Averaging 2M CDX Web hits per month for calendar year • Averaging approximately 2,000 unique visitors / month for calendar year • Averaging 1M CDX Node transactions / month 13
CDX Managing for Change Data Volume
Technology Costs
Transactions
EPA is improving Technology, Services, Business Processes to • Manage expected change • Provide more cost-effective, relevant services • By a wider user community/ more partners
Questions?
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For Further Information: Roy Chaudet (
[email protected]) Wayne Davis (
[email protected]) USEPA Office of Environmental Information Washington, DC USA http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/oei.html
Draft for Discussion Purposes Only
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Background: Reusable Services Centralized, Shareable Web Service Components 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Registration (Network) Authentication and Authorization (NAAS) Secure Document Exchanges Data Reporting Data Querying Messaging (status, error) Quality Assurance (validation) Web Service Management (Monitor Services) Internal Services: Archiving, Logging, Routing, Distributing, etc.
Reusable services access through the Exchange Network Discovery Services (ENDS) 17
Background: Registry of IT Services Reusable Component Services Reusable services, code, data sets, and other tools • REST Web Services • SOAP Web Services • Widgets1 • XML Schema • Code Libraries (APIs)2 • Data Sets • Software Tools • Data Dictionaries 1Small
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application that can be installed and executed within a web page by an end user specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other. It serves as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction
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Background: Standardized Web Services • Small set of standardized services facilitate communication over the Exchange Network – Services to be supported by every participating node on the network are documented in the Exchange Network Specification
Authenticate, Submit, Query, GetStatus, Notify, Solicit, Download, NodePing, GetServices
Background: Exchange Network Specification, Protocol • Network members agree to use the network technology standards as described in the Blueprint • The Network Node Functional Specification describes – Actions performed by the node – How node functions are invoked – Expected node output
• The Network Node Exchange Protocol defines – Types of valid messages a node should receive – The format for sending messages among nodes
• The Common Network WSDL allows us to build meta data driven tools that can immediately consume any new service that conforms to these specifications. This is a very important concept.
