ITALO (Telematic interchange between Administrations) in Spain

Acronym of the case:

ITALO

Web address of the case:

https://oficinavirtual.mityc.es/Energia.ITALO...

Country of the case:

Spain

City/region:

Spain

Posting Date:

1 April 2011

Last Edited Date:

02 May 2011

Author:

Pablo Burgos Casado (MITYC)

web services | interoperability | electronic files

Type of initiative

Project or service
Strategic initiative

Case Abstract

ITALO is a web application based on web services that makes possible the exchange of administrative information (electronic procedures) between public administrations, sending information about electronic files from the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade to other organisms and agencies in the energy sector such as the National Energy Regulator, OMEL or CORES.

All this by ensuring, of course, appropriate and safe interoperability established by Law 11/2007, as well as the standards' development: RD 3 / 2010, National Security Scheme in the area of eGovernment and RD 4 / 2010, National Interoperability Outline in the field of eGovernment.

The goals pursued by ITALO, from the moment of conception have provided the necessary security conditions in communication between agencies. To that end, measures taken have as follows:

Define an XML format for exchange between agencies using XSD to detail the precise information to be exchanged.
Establish a secure communication channel for communication between these agencies. The channel should offer guarantees of authenticity between the final destinations and confidentiality of communication. For that reason the SSL authentication technology client and server applications have been chosen.
Use of server certificates in both the server machine and the client machine in order to have complete assurance of authenticity at the time of establishing the communication channel.
Signing of the information provided through the application using the Electronic Certificate of the Secretariat of Energy. This will ensure the source of information, authenticity, not repudiation and integrity of the communication.

Of course, in addition to appropriate safety measures in time of application, analysis clearly defined the objective of greater social and environmental commitment mainly through the reduction of paper and fuels used to allow communication between agencies, which now required to exchange letters through traditional mail.

To this must be added the "immediacy " as achieved by this channel of communication between agencies, enabling the use of electronic means for communications between public administrations as much as possible, as defined by the 11/2007 Law.

Description of the case

Domain

eGovernment

Topic

eIdentity and eSecurity | Interoperability

Sector

Communication (infrastructure) | Electricity/Gas | Other

Start date - End date

January 2010 (Ongoing)

Date operational

October 2010

Target Users

Administrative | Other

Target Users Description

Faced with ever more increasing demand for shipping information between Public Administrations and agencies, ITALO arises to facilitate this communication and provide specific applications to assemble the entire architecture necessary for this shipment. Therefore, the first beneficiaries of the application are Ministry developers themselves, who will be limited to the action of establishing communication with the ITALO interface. Moreover, the managers of both the Ministry and the agencies ITALO connected through clearly benefit from the advantages the use of telematic procedures to a process that until now was done via paper and with the characteristic delay of the use of courier services. Finally, citizens also benefit from greater efficiency in communication processes between governments and agencies, achieving greater agility in their relationship and benefit from a more effective and efficient Administration. l The important environmental benefits are also worth noting implying the elimination of paper as well as fuel reduction as a result of substitution of telematic processes at the expense of the role and processes traditional messaging.

Scope

National

Status

Operation

Language(s)

Spanish

Policy Context and Legal Framework

Law 11/2007, on electronic access of citizens to public services has created a
considerable shift to the administrative model of Spain. This shift has been particularly important in how the government should communicate. Since, as cited in Article 41 of the relevant Law, Public Administrations use information technology in their relations with other administrations and citizens, through computers ensuring technological update, organization, security and an appropriate level of technical, semantic and organizational interoperability, the role of ITALO is extremely valuable in the exchange between public administrations, in this case between the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade and agencies in the energy sector such as CNE or CORES.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

IT infrastructures and products

Overall Implementation approach

Public administration

Technology choice

Standards-based technology | Mainly (or only) open standards

Funding source

Public funding national

Project size

Implementation: €15-49,000

Yearly cost:

€1-49,000

Implementation and Management Approach

ITALO ensures an appropriate level of technical, semantic and organizational interoperability. The role of ITALO is therefore valuable in the exchange between public administrations, in this case between the energy sector and agencies of MITyC, establishing a secure communication channel for these agencies. The channel should offer guarantees of authenticity between the final destinations and confidentiality of communication. ITALO allows MITyC developed in requiring the disclosure of certain information to certain agencies, sending it comfortably and easily. To do this, applications have to connect to ITALO deployed in the Ministry which, in turn, connects via SSL to the ITALO components installed in the respective agencies with which MITyC has to communicate. This connection, as mentioned, is secured through a SSL channel that guarantees the confidentiality of information. It also establishes a channel with end to end authentication through the use of server certificates on both the client and the server side. Finally, the authenticity and integrity of messages is guaranteed by signing the Electronic Certificate of the Secretariat of Energy.

Technology solution

The application has been developed in C # and ASP.NET, under the development environment Visual Studio. NET 2005. The deployment has been carried out on a Server Web IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003 Advanced Server. The persistence of data is accomplished, partly by a Manager SQL Relational Database Server 2005 on Windows 2003 Server. To fulfill its functions, the system makes use of the following components:

Validation System certificates. To ensure the identity of the developers who run the application, as well as the validity of server certificates of the recipient agencies.
System SRX MITyC electronic signature. To permit the firm documentation submitted, using the Electronic Certificate of the Secretary of State for Energy.

As already mentioned, ITALO has two basic components:

On the one hand, the component for sending via Web Service, information to various organisms.
In addition, the Administration Web platform characteristics for the communication of each application with the respective agencies.

Communication applications with the MITyC ITALO component deployed in the Ministry, and the communication of this component with the components deployed in the various ministries, are carried out through Web Services, with the significant benefits it entails.

As for the information exchanged between the MITyC and agencies, it has been defined based on the XSD schema to be validated by all those that wish to refer information to the agencies. Information interchange between agencies is based on XML language. Applications to connect with ITALO must define the specific data to be sent, the organisms to communicate with ITALO has a Management window, accessible via web and via certified digital authentication or username / password by application developers.

Measures taken:

Definition of an XML format for exchange between agencies using XSD to detail the precise information to be exchanged.
Establishment a secure communication channel for communication between these agencies. The channel should offer guarantees of authenticity between the ends and confidentiality of communication. For that reason the SSL authentication technology was chosen for both client and server.
Use of server certificates in both the server machine and the client machine in order to have complete assurance of authenticity at the time of establishing the communication channel.
Signing of the information provided through the application using Electronic Certificates. This will ensure the authenticity, not repudiation and integrity of the source of information. To do this, applications have to connect to ITALO deployed in the Ministry which, in turn, connects via SSL to the ITALO components installed in the respective agencies with which MITyC has to communicate. This connection, as mentioned, is secured through a SSL channel that guarantees the confidentiality of information. It also establishes a channel with end to end authentication through the use of server certificates on both the client and the server side. Finally, the authenticity and integrity of messages is guaranteed by signing the Electronic Certificate of the Secretariat of Energy.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

ITALO is important thanks to advances made to enhance the telematic channel offering:

Automation and immediacy in sending information to other agencies instead of shipments going through the process of traditional mail with the consequent delay in communications.
Centralized and integrated management of the information received by a channel, telematics, thanks to the previous definition and cataloging of all information provided, allowing for better and easier processing.
Secure transmission: end to end authentication and confidentiality through the use of SSL client and server identification, as well as integrity, authenticity and non-repudiation of message, through the use of the Electronic Seal Certificate of the Secretary of State for Energy.

With these three elements, it seems clear that the general government, in this case the MITyC, come largely benefited by this development

Track record of sharing

More than 20 procedures use this application that allows electronic interchange between agencies in the energy sector avoiding all use of paper between them.
The system can also be used for other electronic interchanges as an example.
As it its based on xml language and web services, it is interoperable and could include other tags for future interchange of information.

Lessons learnt

The managers of both the Ministry and the agencies connected through ITALO clearly benefit from the advantages of the use of telematic procedures to a process that until now was done via paper and with characteristic the delay of courier services.
Finally, citizens also benefit from greater efficiency in communication processes between governments and agencies, achieving greater agility in their relationship and benefiting from a more effective and efficient Administration.
The important environmental benefits are also worth noting implying the elimination of paper as well as fuel reduction as a result of substitution of telematic processes at the expense of the role and processes traditional messaging.

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