Last update: 04/2005
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What are Architecture Guidelines?
Objectives
How do they work?
Achievements
Who benefits?
The role of IDABC
Technical information
Documentation
What are Architecture Guidelines?
The Architecture Guidelines are an IDABC service offering a framework for the establishment of other IDA services, namely TESTA, CIRCA and PKI, and for users who wish to interoperate with IDA and IDABC networks. It also offers general advice on issues related to interoperability between these services and with national applications of the Member States. The Guidelines supplement the generic rules and specifications of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) on a technical level.
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Objectives
The primary aim is to contribute to technical convergence of European network infrastructures for administrations and achieve interoperability through harmonisation of design.
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How do they work?
The IDA Architecture Guidelines describe concepts and references to standards and specifications for a trans-European eGovernment service built on a well-defined common architecture. This architecture is the basis for a trans-European infrastructure that will enable easy and reliable interchange of data, achieve a high interoperability within and across different administrative sectors and, also, with the private sector and the citizens.
The guidelines are regularly updated changing along with the constantly evolving architecture and its components. The current version 7.1 offers a large amount of information on middleware technologies, an area that will be further extended in the next version. As a central platform and publishing tool, the guidelines offer access to a variety of information sources and documents that are related to the architecture. As HTML and PDF formats, these references are facilitated by hyperlinks. Divided into a number of sections, part 1 (Main document) contains general guidance and part 2 (Annexes) is the technical handbook .
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Achievements
The new version 7.1 of the Guidelines is an update of the version 6.1 published in June 2002. Compared to former releases, the more recent editions are focus on the real business requirements of IDA projects and actions. Version 6.1 in particular has introduced detailed roadmaps covering areas from the analysis of business requirements to the implementation of the applications.
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Who benefits?
The guidelines address those responsible for planning, design and procurement tasks for horizontal actions and measures of a trans-European nature. They may use this document to base the development of specific, detailed requirements for the necessary network services supporting IDA and IDABC projects. The guidelines are also aimed at those who develop specific, sectoral projects for interchanging data between administrations. The architecture concepts and associated references in the guidelines may help define the specific project architecture, and integrate these technical specifications into the projects.
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The role of IDABC
The IDA Programme has funded and manages the Architecture Guidelines as one of its horizontal actions designed to support interoperability. They are intended to be a technical supplement to the European Interoperability Framework (EIF).
The Interoperability Framework and the Architecture Guidelines also represent the IDABC roadmap on how to build pan-European eGovernment services. Both documents will be further developed and harmonised under the IDABC programme.
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Technical information
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Project start date
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1999
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Project completion date
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Ongoing
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IDA budget
IDABC budget
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2000 -2004 € 297,000
2006 € 500,000
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Responsible service
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DG Informatics - IDABC Unit
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Project coordinator
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Barbara Held
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Contact
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idabc@ec.europa.eu
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Countries involved
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All EU Member States
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Documentation on Architecture Guidelines
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Other Horizontal Actions and Measures
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