A. Di Pasquale, E. Isocrono, L. Possenti, M. Cianella, C. Di Francesco, V. Caporale

Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise "Giuseppe Caporale", Teramo. Italy

The paper presents the evolution of the Italian Animal Identification and Registration system: from a simple collector of data belonging to variegated local systems, to a centralized national web system and, in 2002, to a system based on the interoperability between the national database and the local decentralized ones. The use of the new interoperability system strongly contributes to the overcoming of drawbacks characterizing the previous versions, i.e., misalignments among the different distributed databases and the low quality of managed data. Indeed, it saves the peculiarities of single regional realities and assures, at the same time, a unique data validation system. In 2002, the system was one of the first Italian system based on the web services technology involving the whole national territory. Nowadays, it is commonly used by thousands of users. Hence, it can be considered as an example of successful interoperability system having to provide service to the entire nation and working under heavy work load conditions.