A Virtual Organization Development For Environment

A VIRTUAL ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION USING ROEDUNET INFRASTRUCTURE

Mariana Marinescu, conf. dr., Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Hydrotechnical Faculty

Sorin Dumitrache, asist. drd., Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Hydrotechnical Faculty

Viorel Marinescu, prof. dr., Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Hydrotechnical Faculty

Elena Dumitrache, asist. drd., Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Hydrotechnical Faculty

Because the environment is an important component of the sustainable development, it is foreseen the initiation of a study linked to the supply of economical environmental information in the context of the sustainable development (damage assessment, environmental investments, etc.)

The paper proposes few aspects that are focused on design a virtual organisation for the integrated monitoring of the environment in Romania over the administrative institutions (national, regional, local). Creation of a pilot for a virtual environment organisation includes VPN for the environment system in Romania. The beginning of creating the virtual organisation including the Hydrotechnical Improvements and Management of Water Resources – Applied Informatics Team from Technical University Civil Engineering Bucharest and two or three environment protection agencies will demonstrate the possibility (by real example) of concerning all interested actors to this virtual organisation. We propose the use of VPN for the environment because at present this represents an adequate solution for ensuring of security and inter-operability between different components of the same unitary system.

The paper made a general description of a pilot for a virtual environment organisation. Also, the paper presents designed structure of a VPN for the environment protection in Romania over RoEduNet, which will be linked with European Environment Agency (EEA) and European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET). The data to be sent/received/processed by the future virtual system are in the range of terabytes or petabytes, which can be optimally processed and transferred using Internet technologies and a large infrastructure like RoEduNet.

1. General frame

Achieving the general objectives concerning environment protection and quality, human health protection, judicious using of natural resources, environment integration in sustainable development, demand transfer of large and relevant volume of information from multiple sources that is processed and used distributed. For acquisition, transmission, analyses, processing and capitalization of large amount of information are used proper methods, techniques and equipment that could be developed and implemented using new advantages of IT&C. Also, introduction and usage on a large scale of IT&C advantages for environment surveillance and protection have an important contribution at development of environment information system (SIM) in Romania.

Concerning this, creation of a virtual organization for environment protection in Romania will contribute to information and reporting system realization in a standardized form that will permit automatic processing and environment information transfer between implicated actors in environment protection in Romania as well as their connections with European Environment Agency and other international agencies, institutions related with environment protection. As well as, through this virtual organization for environment protection will be ensured access at information, civil society participation in environment decisions.

The paper aims to initiate researches for the creation of a virtual organization that will include the institutions of the central and local authorities directly implied in the environment protection activity and their links with other governmental or non-governmental organizations, including the population.

Proposal for environment protection virtual organization in Romania

Main objectives of virtual organization for environment protection are:

Environment state (evaluation and control);

Pollutants transport and distribution on large scale;

Climate forecast in time and space;

Information providing for pollution effects estimation (human health, flora and fauna);

Environment risk estimation generate by pollution sources;

Reports elaboration and other information as regards environment state which is transmitted to EEA and other international institutions which Romania is part of;

Environment economic information providing in context of sustainable development;

Access to information and civil society implication.

General presentation of the actual structure of environment protection in Romania

Developing a virtual organization for environment protection assume analyze of environment surveillance and protection actual state in Romania. Using this analyze will could be included the institutions of the central and local authorities directly implied in the environment protection activity and their links with other governmental or non-governmental organizations, including the population.

Now, in Romania organizational structure from environment protection field contain few participants’ classes:

Environment public local and central authorities: 34 local environment protection agencies (APM); 8 regional environment protection agencies (ARPM); Biosphere reserve authority “Delta Dunarii” (ARBDD); Environment protection national agency (ANPM); Environment and management of water resources ministry (MMGA); The Romanian Waters National Administration.

Research institutions: The national research-development institute for environmental protection (ICIM); National institute “Gigore Antipa”; National institute “Delta Dunarii”.

Other authorities and companies: National Meteorological Agency (ANM); National Institute of Statistics (INS); Environment fund administration (AFM); Environment guard (GM).

Health institutions;

Polluting economic agents;

Organizations implicated in emergencies situations;

Educational institutions;

Civil society: non-governmental institutions; other organizations.

International environment organizations: European Environment Agency (EEA); European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET).

In figure 1 is presented geographical distribution of local and regional environment protection agencies, which are environment public authorities below of MMGA authority. Those together with ANPM, head office in Bucharest, represent the core for environment protection activities in Romania.

Figure1 – Geographical distribution of local and regional environment protection agencies

2.2 General description of a pilot for environment virtual organization in Romania

From presentation made at 2.1 we could observe that organizational structure for environment protection is very complex and include a lot of institutions, governmental institutions or non-governmental organizations distributed in entire country. Consequently, for the start, the authors propose researches initiations for development of environment virtual organization pilot.

Because the core of environment protection activity is composed from 34 local agencies, 8 regional agencies and environment protection national agency, our team proposes development of an environment virtual organization pilot consisting of: two local agencies; one regional agency; environment protection national agency.

At level of different authorities and institutions (including research-development ones) there are archives of data and information (on different supports: paper, magnetic, CDs etc.) concerning environmental factors and components of the bio-diversity. There exist also non-governmental organizations that have preoccupations on these subjects. The data to be sent/received/processed by the future virtual system are in the range of terabytes or petabytes. The authors’ team proposes that information flow between virtual organization components to be transmitted using VPN connections over national education network – RoEduNet.

3. Propose types of VPN for environment protection in Romania

The authors’ team proposes VPN connections over RoEduNet for environment protection virtual organization because in this moment represent an adequate solution for: geographical area connectivity expansion; increased data security; work opportunities in a global network.

Choosing between different types of VPN and different types of equipments is quite difficult especially for the particular case of environment protection. Follow-up of analyses that was made, we propose three types of VPN:

an intranet VPN (named environment intranet network), which will permit connectivity between different geographical locations of class A organizational components;

a remote access VPN, which will permit individual connectivity of employees from environment intranet network, because environment protection activity implicate great mobility;

an extranet VPN dedicate to connections between a part of environment intranet network and organizational components from B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I classes.

Proposed VPN types are shown in figure 2.

Choosing and implementing a VPN technology consist in two major problems solving: security and performance.

Figure 2 – Proposed VPN types (Intranet, Remote Access, Extranet) for environment protection virtual organization

For data security, proposed VPN types must ensure four basically functions: authentication (ensure that data comes from proper source); access control (deny unauthorized users); confidentiality (blocking of data reading and copying unauthorized attempt from public network – RoEduNet); data integrity (ensure that there is no interference with other data from public network – RoEduNet).

A virtual private network well designed uses some methods that maintain secure connection and data: firewalls, encryption, IPSec, AAA server (authentication, authorization and accounting)

A VPN tunnel implies using protocols like: transport protocol (used in data transport network); encapsulating protocol (GRE- Generic Routing Encapsulation, IPSec, L2F-Layer 2 Forwarding, PPTP- Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, L2TP- Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol) that encapsulates original data; original routed protocols (IPX, IP).

VPNs are reliable through data encryption and encapsulation, which are transmitted through public network (in our case RoEduNet). Those two security possibilities, encryption and encapsulation, form the basis of implementing the environment protection VPN in Romania. Encryption and encapsulation are achieved by a lot of specific technologies combined in different implementing topologies. The authors’ team already initiates researches for choosing the proper VPN technologies and topologies for environment protection in Romania.

For the next stage we hope to collaborate with IT specialists from RoEduNet for choosing and implementing a VPN solution inside environment virtual organization pilot described in 2.2.

4. Conclusions

For information storage, processing, transmission and capitalization, as well as quality of services assurance for other activities field, it is necessary to create an environment protection virtual organization that must include VPN and to use RoEduNet infrastructure.

If administrative point of view environment surveillance (by measurements) is made pyramidal – local agencies (APM), regional agencies (ARPM), ANPM – complex processing and data capitalization obtained from measurements are made using other criteria that depends by the environment factors. Because of that, the system must be treated in a unitary way even that all agencies type are separate legal persons. For maximum efficiency concerning storage, transmission and processing, the data format must be compatible with EEA standards. In this context, proposed virtual organization answer to necessities like: data storage and primary processing to be made distributed (local and regional) and complex processing and data capitalization to be made unitary (at national and European level).

Reference

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