(Feedback from GSIM Revsion Group meeting on 18th September, 2017)

It is confusing to people that there is GSIM and LIM. It is hard to know why there are two models and when they should be used, especially when we refer to CSPA LIM.
There are several countries who are developing logical level models for systems they are building that are not necessarily going to be CSPA compliant, but they could be in the future.
There is nothing in GSIM that says it is only a conceptual model. In fact in some areas it is at a logical level.

The proposal is to include in GSIM the additional details that have already been developed as part of CSPA LIM. This is mostly the process and variable areas, but could include others.

GSIM is reviewed once every 5 years. Work on the logical level would continue based on the needs of countries. This work would be considered for inclusion in GSIM as part of the next review.

If we decide to do this, we should also think how we want to distinguish conceptual and logical levels (or whether such distinction is needed at all).

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2 Comments

  1. InKyung Choi

    (Feedback from Alistair Hamilton on 20th September, 2017)

    From my perspective it depends on what is sought from GSIM (and LIM) in future

    • In most industry models I've looked at (eg telecommunications, banking, schools, health) the level of detail for a logical model tends to "paired" with more detailed business and application frameworks because the logical model is intended to support particular ways of doing business and application architecture (eg services rather than monolithic).  This would suggest LIM within CSPA may be the logical place for it - although there is an issue if it is not getting appropriate attention in that context.
    • In a number of cases in the ABS our logical model differs from direct logical application of GSIM (for reasons of ABS business strategy, application strategy or business user/customer preference) but we usually check whether the way we have modelled things logically could be "recast" to match GSIM (ie we have equivalence conceptually) even though we don't think direct logical application would work for our context.
      • If LIM is folded into GSIM, it should be spelled out whether "applying GSIM" comes with an expectation that the "locally appropriate and applied logical model" will
      1. be LIM, or
      2. be mappable to LIM

    "1" makes a lot of sense in the case of LIM for CSPA shared services, it probably is more contentious if it is supposed that LIM "should be" the logical model ever agency should implement for everything.  (To even get close to that there would be a lot of debates that keeping GSIM at a "conceptual"/"reference" level avoided.)

    • Logical models tend to be more daunting for "generalist" consumers.  (GSIM itself is daunting enough to many, but clickable helps a lot.)
    • The above two points mean that if LIM is folded in then I'd lean toward being able to view/explore/apply GSIM at a "conceptual" level (could be simplified compared to current spec in some cases) in regard to the supplementary question.
    • If LIM is folded in then the gap in level of detail between GSBPM and GSIM becomes even greater than it is currently.  If the two products are intended to complement each other in real terms is this appropriate?  Alternatively, does GSIM become a relatively detailed "Industry Information Model" while GSBPM is less of a (pigeon) "pair" with GSIM?        

  2. user-8e470

    Meeting 17 October: agreed that the additional logical details already developed in LIM (information objects) would be incorporated into GSIM.