Proceedings

Abstract:

The SDMX initiative - a joint effort by seven international organizations (OECD, BIS, ECB, Eurostat, World Bank, IMF, and the UN) - has just released version 1.0 of the SDMX standards. These standards describe W3C XML Schema and UN/EDIFACT formats (SDMX-ML and SDMX-EDI)for exchange of aggregated statistical data and related structural metadata. They also provide a meta-model for describing aggregated statistical data from any domain.

SDMX is a case study in using meta-model design to support interoperability and sophisticated code generation. The formats are all driven from a dedicated structural description based on a common meta-model. The model is expressed as a processable XML instance or EDI message. As a result, dedicated XML schemas, transformations, and other types of application-specific code can be automatically generated for specific data sets and to meet specific use-cases. Agreement at the level of the meta-model allows interoperability across this family of related format expressions. SDMX is also designed to be used with web-services technology, and includes guidelines for use with them.

From a business perspective, SDMX offers governmental and other organizations a standard for modelling and exchanging aggregated statistical data which is not domain-specific, and which supports the use of existing metadata vocabularies for statistical concepts. Formats are primarily designed around time-series views of data, but cross-sectional views are also supported. Several large-scale implementations are already planned.

In coming versions, efforts will be made to support descriptive metadata modelling and exchange, the use of a services-oriented architecture based on web services and registries, and more complete support for cross-sectional data and hypercubes. SDMX will also be working to support the harmonization of statistical concepts in future, as it relates to statistical data and metadata exchange.