Schengen: migration from the Schengen Information System (SIS 1+) to the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II). Regulation
In accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 1104/2008 and Council Decision 2008/839/JHA, the Commission presents a progress report describing the work carried out form January 2012 to June 2012 concerning the development of the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) and preparations for migration from SIS 1+ to SIS II.
Overview of progress during the period under review: following the testing of the national and central systems' components in the previous semester, the focus of activity concentrated in the first half of 2012 on intensive testing of the central system and its increasing interaction with the national systems. The intensive preparations for the last major testing rounds and subsequent data migration have culminated with the validation of the second Milestone test and the start of the comprehensive test.
The second Milestone test (M2): the highlight of the reporting period was the execution of the second Milestone test. The core of the second Milestone took place between 2 and 7 May with the involvement of the national systems of eleven Member States. The central system and the national systems exchanged uninterruptedly over two million standard transactions, thereby exceeding in five days the load of SIS 1 over an entire month as well as the requirements set out in the June 2009 Council Conclusions. In essence, the second Milestone test demonstrated the stability of the SIS II Central system under operational conditions. The Milestone’s objective (i.e. to prove the stability, reliability and performance of the Central System) was met. The entry, execution and exit conditions were satisfied. All twelve success criteria were passed. The Commission officially informed the European Parliament about the outcome of the test.
The Comprehensive test: since the objective of the comprehensive test is to test the performance of the system from end to end, substantial engagement of the Member States is required. Following contractual constraints faced by the French administration not allowing appointing a SIS 1 contractor (as initially foreseen), a Member State expert was appointed as Member States' Test Manager for the Comprehensive test. However, at the request of Member States, the Commission agreed to contractually cover support services of the SIS 1 contractor.
The formal part of the Comprehensive test started on 19 June with the first group of eight Member States, to be followed by another three groups during the next semester. The first round of the test was completed on 27 June.
According to a preliminary analysis, no major difficulty was identified either with the central or national systems.
The report notes that several Member States took advantage of the extended schedule to complete their Compliance tests - extended (CTE) national campaigns. As the successful completion of this testing phase constitutes to be a prerequisite for participating in the Comprehensive test, the remaining issues at national level have been progressively dealt with by Member States and the Commission as a matter of urgency.
Planning the migration: the Commission proposed in May 2012 an amendment to the legal framework governing the actual data migration (the migration instruments) (please refer to NLE/2012/0033A and NLE/2012/0033B). The goals are to align the legal provisions with the technical approach as agreed with Member States in 2011 and to provide an additional financial facility to Member States for well-defined migration related activities. The adoption of the proposal is expected in the second half of 2012 after the European Parliament has also been consulted.
The Commission is working closely with the Member States in writing the Migration Manual, a document setting out in detail the steps outlined in the Migration Plan. The Manual will define roles and responsibilities throughout the process and describe the detailed schedule for the migration. This task, which commenced in December 2011, must be finalised by the end of 2012.
The migration legal instruments provide that the Member States participating in SIS 1+ shall conduct a test on supplementary information (functional SIRENE tests). The Commission continued to support Member States in their preparations to review the technical specifications of data exchange between the SIRENE Bureaux, and in the elaboration of the detailed test description for the SIRENE Functional tests, an activity to take place in the second half of 2012.
SIS II budget: by the end of the reporting period, the total budgetary commitments made by the Commission on the SIS II project since 2002, amounted to EUR 149 811 765. The corresponding contracts include feasibility studies, the development of the Central SIS II itself, support and quality assurance, the SIS II network, preparation for operational management in Strasbourg, security, biometrics preparations, communication and experts' mission expenses. Of this amount, EUR 109 899 337 had actually been paid between 2002 and the end of June 2012. The main expenditure items were development (EUR 62 364 845), the network (EUR 27 379 985), support and quality assurance (EUR 11 207 827) and preparation for operational management in Strasbourg and Sankt Johann im Pongau (EUR 7 279 228).
Additional financing for Member States' national development: in order to support the completion of national projects development through the European External Borders Fund (EBF), a significant reallocation of resources towards SIS II national projects was undertaken within the framework of the 2011 programming for the EBF. The Community Actions part of the EBF has been made available to eight Member States with constraints to accommodate their extra needs in their annual programmes for 2011. These projects commenced at the end of 2011 and are due to be completed in the late summer or early autumn of 2012.
Accordingly, the SIS II project remains on track for the planned go-live in the first quarter of 2013. With considerable progress achieved in terms of maturity of the system, the report notes that the ground has been prepared for three key actions to be taken during the rest of 2012 in order to prepare for the migration between SIS1+ and SIS II. These are the completion of the comprehensive test, the SIRENE Functional test and the adoption of the migration instruments.