14 04 factsheet 8 swim pioneers v00 01 00

N° 08/2011

SWIM Pioneer (NOP B2B - Business to Business) Summary - SWIM Pioneer System Wide Information Management (SWIM) introduces a complete change in how information is managed along its full lifecycle. This is true across the whole of the European ATM system. SWIM is a key enabler for the future SESAR systems. The implementation of SWIM will enable direct ATM business benefits by ensuring that commonly understood quality information (the right information) is delivered to the right people at the right time, so enabling the concept of net-centric ATM operations.

As explained in the SESAR SWIM Factsheet N.01/2011 – What is SWIM – major SWIM principles have been adopted:  separation of information provision / consumption in order to decouple producers of information from the possible consumers;  loose system coupling where each of its components has, or makes use of, little or no knowledge of the definitions of other separate components;  using open standards and mainstream IT technologies;  based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles driven by analysis of business processes and needs functionality, packaged and implemented as a suite of interoperable services that can be used in a flexible way within multiple separate systems from several business domains.

Today, information is already exchanged but in a manner that involves many custom communication protocols, each with their own self-contained information systems and data formats. Some recent developments have however already been made based on SOA principles and making use of existing state-of-the-art standards and mainstream IT technologies. Even if these recent developments have not resulted from the SESAR Development work programme, they are nevertheless complying with the major SWIM principles defined within SESAR. One such development is the Network Operations Plan (NOP) B2B interface. This is the CFMU web interface for system to system interoperability. This CFMU web interface separates the information provision from the information consumption, is based on open standard (AIXM) and mainstream IT technologies (Web Services) and is fully SOA compliant.

Therefore, it can be considered as a SWIM pioneer.

What is the purpose of the Network Operations Plan?

The NOP serves two main purposes:  monitoring of the real-time status of air traffic, airspace and air traffic flow and air traffic capacity management measures;  planning of pan-European operations in a collaborative way from the strategic to the tactical phases, hence optimising the use of available ATM capacity.

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The NOP allows partners to anticipate or react more efficiently to any event. It provides a means for all actors, civil and military, to increase their respective knowledge of the situation from the strategic phase to real-time operations. Its extensive reporting facilities are a solid foundation on which future operations planning and the performance monitoring and reporting functions of the Network Manager will be built.

In summary, the NOP provides full transparency of the current and foreseen European air traffic situation thanks to constantly validated information and strong collaboration processes.

What are NOP B2B Web Services?

The NOP B2B Web Services provide access to NOP and CFMU information via a system-tosystem interface over the internet. This allows stakeholders to exploit, share and use the information in their own systems according to their own business needs and their own technical constraints.

The short-term goals of the NOP B2B Web Services are to simplify access to the information held by the CFMU, to facilitate the integration of such information into the stakeholders’ own business processes, and to improve the quality and accuracy of the exchanged data.

The long-term goal is to support the interoperability required in the future ATM systems as an enabler for SWIM. Supporting interoperability implies the use of standard technologies in the service provision. The NOP B2B Web Services are entirely based on Web Standards which SWIM is expected to adopt or further develop in the context of SESAR. The current offer of services is directly in line with the DMEAN objectives to improve and facilitate flight plan filing, to improve consistency in pre-departure and management of flight plans after departure.

Targeted stakeholders for these services are currently ATS Reporting Offices (AROs), Aircraft Operators (AOs) and Computer Flight Plan Service Providers (CFSPs) with delegation from AOs, together with military through airspace management. Foreseen extensions will address Airports, Flow Management Positions (FMP) and other ATM actors.

Which services are accessible via B2B Web Services?

The provided NOP B2B Web Services have been grouped over 4 domains:  Flight Services (flight preparation, flight plan filing and management)  Airspace Services (management & publication of airspace information)  General Information Services  Flow Services (flow & capacity management).

Operational NOP B2B Web Services are:  Flight Preparation  Electronic Airspace Management Information Message (E-AMI)  ATFM Information Message (AIM)  ATFM Notification Message (ANM).

NOP B2B Web Services under Pilot phase:  Flight Plan Filing and Management  Operational Airspace Data  Airspace Management.

Most of these information exchanges are compliant with the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) standards.

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How do NOP B2B Web Services Work?

For interoperability and cost efficiency reasons, the NOP B2B Web Services are based on open standard web technologies that do not require a specific installation or software at the stakeholder’s site. The NOP B2B Web Services are provided in two “flavours”: Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web Services; and Representational State Transfer (REST) Web Services. The payload is always XML. The data exchanged follows standard data models when available. For example airspace data (model and format) is fully compliant with AIXM 5.1. Furthermore all services are exchanging the information securely, making use of the standard HTTPS protocol.

The NOP B2B Web Services are accessible via the internet and, in the future, they could also be made available through the Pan-European Network Service (PENS). Confidentiality and security are guaranteed by a strong authentication mechanism and by the use of HTTPS. A user authentication mechanism defines which NOP B2B Web Services can be accessed by each individual stakeholder.

The CFMU modular service architecture is such that it would support further evolution, in particular to maintain compliance with the future SWIM specifications done by SESAR.

Figure 1: SOA architecture connecting Customers to the CFMU services

How does NOP B2B comply with the initial SESAR SWIM definitions?

As highlighted above, some recent developments have been made based on Service Oriented Architecture principles and making use of existing state-of-the-art mainstream IT technologies. These developments (such as ICOG, EAD and CFMU NOP) and lessons learned from them have been used as a starting point for defining the SESAR SWIM concept.

Although the SESAR SWIM concept is still under development, some initial definitions have been set in order to characterise SWIM Technical Infrastructure (TI). SWIM TI is composed of a set of capabilities deployed either locally (such as Messaging, Recording, Interface Management, High Availability, local Supervision, Security) and at a federated level (such as Supervision, Security, Registry). SWIM TI is composed of a several Nodes that allow suitable ATM application to use and share information with each other. SWIM TI nodes are thus the cornerstone for the interoperability between all ATM applications.

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As such, NOP B2B complies with these initial definitions and design options both from local and federated capabilities. The Service Layer defined for the NOP B2B architecture (fig 1) can be seen as a SWIM Node which is part of the SESAR SWIM infrastructure.

Statistics about the operational use of NOP B2B Services The NOP B2B Web Service is in operation today with increasing number of users/access.

Below you find 2 figures showing the monthly trend in terms of number of customers and number of requests.

Figure 2: B2B Web Services Customers

Figure 3: B2B Web Services Requests

Conclusion Although there will remain a significant challenge for the ATM community to develop and deploy the SWIM concept, several of the building blocks are already available today. The CFMU NOP B2B is one of those elements that can be labelled as “SWIM Pioneer� which is already used in operation. It is an initial demonstration of the added value and the power of the service orientation principles as well as the use of mainstream IT technologies.

Therefore, the CFMU NOP B2B can be considered a first step on the way to the full deployment of the SESAR SWIM concept.

Further general information:

SESAR Joint Undertaking 100 avenue de Cortenbergh 1000 Brussels Belgium Email: info@sesarju.eu Tel: +32 2 507 80 00 http://www.sesarju.eu/

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