Project
Issued Date/Version
Document type
Eionet – Extranet development
21.02.2002 v0.3 19.04.02 Final v1.0 08.11.04 v1.2 27.01.2005 v2.0
Final Report
Client
Info
Reference/ Page / 1 (10)
EC Environment DG B-1
Final Report for OzoneWeb project under the EINRC framework
EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE-GENERAL ENVIRONMENT
IDA-Programme –Framework Contract No 501 998 – Specific Agreement-7
Einrc – Eionet
Development of EIONET Extranet Management and Integration with national and other networks
EINRC/Specific Agreement No 7
Final Report for OPS / Ozone Web project
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 2(10)
VERSION HISTORY
Version 00 01 02 03 1.0 1.2 2.0 Date 11.01.02 17.1.02 20.2.02 21.2.02 19.04.02 08.11.04 27.01.2005 Author(s) Ander Tenno Eeva Palosuo Ander Tenno Eeva Palosuo Ander Tenno Eeva Palosuo Description Draft outline for the Final Report Ozone Web draft for final report Next draft with Eeva’s input Near-final version Final version approved by ENRC Mgt meeting Updated to reflect changes done under SA7 / OPS project Status updated for Final after CMT’s approval
APPROVAL PROCEDURE
Reviewer Framework mgr Project leader CMT’s review Version(-s) 1.2 1.2 1.2, 2.0 Start Date 09.11.04 08.12.04 08.12.04 Finish Date 11.11.04 10.12 04 27.01.05 Required modification/Approval/Comments Approved after incorporating modifications Approved CMT’s approval
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. 2.
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 4 SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS ..................................................................................................................... 4 2.1 DEVELOPMENT OF NEAR REAL-TIME ON-LINE DATA PILOT OZONE WEB ......................................................... 4 2.1.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1.2 Brief Description of the Ozone Web System ................................................................................................ 4 2.1.3 Benefits and Features of Ozone Web .......................................................................................................... 6 2.1.4 Technologies Used (see Annex for Details)................................................................................................. 6 2.1.5 Changes in SA7 / OPS ................................................................................................................................. 6 2.1.6 Generic Reusable Solution .......................................................................................................................... 7 2.1.7 Future Development Needs and Possibilities .............................................................................................. 7 2.1.8 Key Lessons Learnt ..................................................................................................................................... 7 ANNEX 9: TECHNICAL SUMMARY OF OZONE WEB......................................................................................................... 8 Links .......................................................................................................................................................................... 9
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 3(10)
Purpose of this document
This final report describes the results obtained under the IDA- Programme Framework Contract No 501998 for developing the Ozone Web system. The purpose of the final report is to describe the achievements, the experiences, and to point out the lessons learnt.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 4(10)
1. INTRODUCTION
This final report will be published as an annex of the Final report for the EINRC framework contract in the series of EEA’s Technical Annexes.
2. SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS
2.1 DEVELOPMENT OF NEAR REAL-TIME ON-LINE DATA PILOT OZONE WEB
2.1.1 Introduction
National environmental data requested by European and international reporting obligations often do not sufficiently cover the present state of the environment, since they usually refer to time spans covering the previous year(s). There is a clear need for more up-to-date or even on-line, real-time, internationally coordinated public information, especially in areas of short-term concern and changing conditions such as air quality, offered via web sites. Hence, the objective of this pilot project was to create a simple common tool to broadcast near-real time air quality information on the Internet. The pilot concentrates on ground-level ozone.
2.1.2 Brief Description of the Ozone Web System
The system can be logically divided into two parts: The Ozone Web visualiser pilot system. This covers the design and development of the following: Geographic and temporal visualiser application for public access (see screenshot below). This application runs on a web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape. A clickable map-interface is implemented that provides a quick overview of latest, past (up to two weeks), and predicted (up to three days) ozone levels in selected measurement stations in Europe. The actual maps are retrieved from EEA’s Map Service (http://map.eea.eu.int/help/). Database where the ozone data is stored. Necessary administrative tools for running the visualiser pilot system. These cover administering users (data suppliers), links to background information on ozone, ozone warning levels, and multilinguality.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 5(10)
The Ozone Web information supply system between the national source/-s and the Ozone Web visualiser system. This covers the design and development of the following: XML-based data exchange format for transferring air quality information between national data source/-s and the visualiser pilot system Server-side software that receives the data in specified XML format, parses and validates the XML, and adds the data to the database. Instruction material for data suppliers including documentation and code samples for helping in setting up their side that gets the data from the local database, formats it according to the agreed XML format, and sends it to the server. Ozone Web clients in supplier countries: Each country joining the suppliers of Ozone Web data sets up the Ozone Web client in his country. This will automatically deliver the hourly ozone measurement data to the Ozone Web server’s database
The main page of Ozone Web. The Ozone Web server software is currently running on EEA's server at http://ozone.eionet.eu.int/ with seven countries supplying data from numerous stations. More countries are expected to join during the year 2005.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 6(10)
2.1.3 Benefits and Features of Ozone Web
Ozone Web is a service for the general public on ground ozone levels. Everybody is able to instantly see the current ozone levels in participating countries, with the information often being no older than one hour. In addition to current country averages, averages and values in individual measurement stations can be displayed for desired date and time during the last 14 days in the past and three days to the future (if predicted values are supplied). The map interface is very simple to use. Charts (with some country/station background information) are also available for country averages and stations for the above-mentioned time period. Background information on ozone, as well as links to interesting documents and web sites are also provided. In addition, links to national air quality sites with more detailed national ozone information are provided. Thus Ozone Web is an example of a ‘Neighbourhood system’. The user interface can be translated to different languages by system administrators.
2.1.4 Technologies Used (see Annex for Details)
The entire user interface, including the administrative part, runs in a web browser. Commonly used browsers are supported. The software, along with the database containing the data, runs on a web server, generating the web pages and maps that the users see on their screens. The measurement data is delivered by the participating countries in agreed XML format using automatic data delivery mechanisms at their end. After validation it is, again automatically, saved to the Ozone Web database and is available for viewing through the user interface. With automated delivery mechanisms high updating frequency of the database is possible. Currently, seven countries send hourly updates each day including the weekends. The system uses EEA's Map Service (EMS) for actual map production on demand. The solution is programmed in Java and runs as a servlet, communicating with EMS via HTTP. Data transfer is done in XML, in a format specified by the EEA.
2.1.5 Changes in SA7 / OPS
Under SA7 / OPS project, the following changes were made: Minor improvements to date display, logging, and averages’ calculation. Two bugs were investigated and fixed. Support was provided to new countries joining the system. Five new countries joined during 2004. 7-8 days of future development needs were identified.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 7(10)
2.1.6 Generic Reusable Solution
The entire application design and development has been carried out with future extension with other air quality data in mind. The XML data sending format, application software and database design can be used, with minimal or no changes, for displaying various other air quality data. With minor changes the system can be transferred to visualising any data measured in station networks in Europe. The same technology can naturally be applied for developing similar data collection and visualisation system inside the country from all measurement stations in that country. The produced code for clickable maps using EEA’s Map Service for retrieving the actual maps will act as a reusable skeleton for coming projects needing clickable maps functionality.
2.1.7 Future Development Needs and Possibilities
Under SA7 / OPS, 7-8 days of future development needs were identified, mostly dealing with improving the display of the data. For details, see the links section. The most urgent next challenge is to get the system in full operation with good European coverage. EEA will orchestrate and organise the joining of other countries to data suppliers. ETC/ACC will give practical help to the new supplier countries when putting up their Ozone Web clients. EEA also tests the system operations with multiple suppliers. EEA’s Map Service itself will likely need further enhancements; it has several times been unavailable for Ozone Web (‘too many simultaneous requests’ error).
2.1.8 Key Lessons Learnt
XML serves as a very convenient and efficient data delivery mechanism. Using XML Schema, data delivery format can be agreed exactly. A good design of data delivery format is crucial. A lean-and-mean solution that is still reasonably general works best. Using a bloated format leads to testing and implementation difficulties. All implementations using maps need a performance evaluation to ensure they are quick enough. For instance, as a part of Ozone Web continuation project, image pre-creation should be implemented to further speed up the map display.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 8(10)
ANNEX 9: TECHNICAL SUMMARY OF OZONE WEB
The Ozone Web architecture is based on TCP/IP as network protocol Web Browser as user interface HTTP Server as service interface XML as standard data exchange solution XML Schema as document structure standard XSLT as transformation language between XML documents, and from XML to HTML documents The Ozone Web system is designed according to object-oriented principles. The logical Ozone Web architecture (see figure below) consists of three tiers: Presentation layer for providing the user interface Application layer for implementing the Ozone Web functionality Data layer for storing Ozone Web data.
Ozone Web clients in countries Data Upload Application HTTP: XML Data Upload Application Data Upload Application
Java Runtime Environment EEA's Map Service Map info
Map generation logic
Business logic
HTTP server
DB handling
MySQL
JDBC
System architecture of the Ozone Web system. The core part of the infrastructure is the application software that written in Java programming language and therefore the whole application will run in Java Runtime Environment (JRE). As for the communication basis between the Java code and the database – it is based on Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) driver. The message formats used to exchange data from working databases to the consolidated database conform to XML standard, sent to the database on regular intervals via HTTP POST. A common
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
HTML generation logic
HTTP: HTML
Visualiser application (WWW Browser)
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 9(10)
message structure for all the Ozone Web messages is defined. The exchange and processing of data utilises the common structure. Logically, the application software can be divided into five parts: Database handling logic is responsible for performing the basic database operations, like SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT and DELETE operations. Business logic is responsible for validating the message for correct structure, extracting the data from the message and feeding the imported/updated data to the Database handling logic. HTML generation logic: Handles the generation of various web pages that are served to the clients, mainly pages for the Ozone Web site. HTTP Server handles communication between the system and its clients. As the HTTP Server will also have to provide Java servlets for the clients, it must have compatibility with a Java Servlet Running Engine supporting JSDK 2.2 (Java Servlet Development Kit) and it is going to run in Java Runtime Environment. Map generation logic: Handles the generation of ozone maps using EEA’s Map Service (EMS). This works as follows: o Ozone Web performs a query from its database to retrieve the data (including lat/lon coordinates and caption) for the items that will be drawn on the map. These items are either measurement stations or country averages. o An XML file is produced in an XML-RMC conformal format specified by EEA containing item IDs, lat/lon coordinates and captions. o The file is sent to EMS via HTTP POST. o A request is sent to EMS, asking for pixel locations of the items on the map. (The lat/lon coordinates of the items were sent to EMS in step 3.) EMS sends back an XML file containing this information. o The XML file is processed and image-map built, allowing the items to be clicked on in the client side. o At runtime (on user’s screen), EMS is asked to produce a raster map using the information supplied previously. In addition the central server, an Ozone Web client is needed in each participating country that takes care of the following tasks: Fetches ozone measurements data from a local database on regular intervals. Builds an XML file from the data according to Ozone Web schema. Sends the file to the central server via HTTP POST.
Links
Running application: http://ozone.eionet.eu.int/ Future development needs:
http://nmc.eionet.eu.int:8980/Members/irc/eionetnmc/einrc/library?l=/einrc_sa7_2004/ops/phase_changes_webdoc/_EN_1.0_&a=i
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc
Final Report for Ozone Web under Specific Agreement-7 IDA/EINRC/EIONET 10(10)
Program source code is in EEA’s CVS Detailed Design for Ozone Web: document:
http://nmc.eionet.eu.int:8980/Members/irc/eionetnmc/einrc/library?l=/einrc_sa4_year_2001/nolp/nolp_dd_071201v01/_EN_1.2_&a=i
Information package on Implementing data upload to Ozone Web :
http://nmc.eionet.eu.int:8980/Members/irc/eionetnmc/einrc/library?l=/einrc_sa4_year_2001/nolp/sendingsxmlzip/_EN_1.0_&a=i
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Print Date 07/07/2009 IDA-Programme -Framework Contract No501 998 - EINRC b066dc10-0900-4c97-b36b-183328d02535.doc