The PLAIN (Platform Analysis and Information System) ecosystem platform creates the conditions to ensure that federal ministries and subordinate authorities do not have to reinvent data products from scratch every time, but can move more quickly from concept to implementation. Reusability is key here: if data pipelines, dashboards or analysis modules are built in such a way that other organisational units can adapt them, this creates genuine economies of scale within the federal government. This is precisely where Materna, as a certified PLAIN ecosystem service provider, comes in. Materna provides support in defining the scope of the technical requirements, establishing robust data pipelines and implementing use cases, right through to going live and making reusable artefacts available within the ecosystem.
PLAIN (Platform Analysis and Information System) is a data analysis and AI platform offered as a managed service. It was initiated within the Federal Foreign Office; its development and operation are carried out by the Federal Printing Office on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office. The aim is to enable the public administration to carry out high-performance and sovereign data analyses, for example to support political decision-making processes. To this end, digitally sovereign and secure tools are made available centrally. In a technically accessible manner, this allows, for example, a wide range of data sources – from freely available information (e.g. the internet and social media) through to classified administrative data and professional information providers – can be efficiently connected, analysed and used to derive actionable results, for instance for situation assessments or crisis preparedness.
At the heart of PLAIN is a pre-integrated ‘modular system’: end-users select the building blocks they need for their project from a service catalogue, such as data storage, development and programming environments, or visualisation. “Figuratively speaking, PLAIN thus provides the ‘brushes and paints’. What is painted – that is, which use case emerges, what data is fed in and what the finished data product looks like – is decided by the organisation itself,” explains Dr Marco Kremer, Head of the Data Engineering and Data Management Competence Centre at Materna. Because the components are pre-configured and can be provisioned automatically, integration and operational overheads are significantly reduced. This leaves more time for the technical work and enables a faster path to a productive outcome.
Ministries, public authorities and subordinate departments benefit from a shared, scalable platform that can be rolled out gradually to other organisations.
Data labs are provided with a robust development environment in which to rapidly set up data pipelines, analyses, dashboards and AI functionalities.
Decision-makers benefit indirectly because data products – such as situation reports, map applications, dashboards or AI assistance functions – can be developed more quickly and integrated into work processes on a permanent basis.
PLAIN also sees itself as an ecosystem: implemented solutions can be showcased in a ‘showcase’ and serve as a blueprint for other organisations. In the long term, a shared registry is also planned, through which reusable artefacts could be made available. Objective: to reduce duplication of effort and provide a faster path from idea to scalable solution (taking into account technical and legal frameworks).
Materna is listed as a certified service provider within the PLAIN ecosystem and supports clients in realising their data and AI projects on PLAIN – from defining the use case, through setting up data pipelines, to delivering a usable data product. “Materna’s strength lies in consultancy, integration and delivery on the managed service infrastructure provided. We are also happy to provide demo access within the ecosystem,” says Dr Marco Kremer.
Getting started and orientation: potential analysis, use case workshop and selection of the appropriate platform components.
Implementation: data integration, pipeline engineering, analytics/visualisation and AI integration – with a focus on a specific data product.
Scaling and consolidation: Handover to the organisation or data labs, governance and support for reuse initiatives
Anyone setting up a data lab or looking to move data and AI initiatives from the concept phase into implementation will find PLAIN an attractive foundation: the platform handles much of the infrastructure and integration work, is designed for processing classified data and accelerates the path to productive results. Materna helps to prioritise suitable use cases, set up the pilot properly and build the solution in such a way that it can be operated and scaled within the organisation.
