Unisys is hoping to pick up some work linking national police databases with European Union centralized databases for border control and visa applications—and has chosen Microsoft as its software partner, the companies announced Wednesday.When the union databases enter service next year, some European countries will want to link their central police computers and immigration databases to them. Although the central databases are not yet ready, Unisys is already positioning itself for the integration work, and will push Microsoft’s BizTalk Server for that purpose, said Roberto Tavano, vice-president of homeland security programs for continental Europe at Unisys. “The game is beginning now. The specifications are still not completely defined,” he said.The two databases, the second generation of the Visa Information System (VIS) and the Schengen Information System (SIS II), will be stored in Strasbourg, France, with a backup system in Salzburg, Austria. The European Commission awarded the US$48.5 million contract to construct them to a consortium of Hewlett-Packard and French IT services company Groupe Steria SCA in April 2005. Separate contracts will be let to link national databases of visa applicants and undesirable people to those systems.The SIS II and VIS databases are the result of a tightening of European border controls in the so-called Schengen zone. In 1985, a group of European countries signed a treaty in Schengen, a small town in Luxembourg, promising to institute a common immigration policy and open their borders to one another. Those countries—some of them members of the European Union, some outside it—form the Schengen zone. In 1995, this agreement progressively entered force so that now, for example, it is possible to travel overland from Germany to Portugal, crossing the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain, without having to show identity documents.The members of the Schengen zone exchanged data about who was to be refused entry to the zone through the Schengen Information System (SIS). The original database contains only text, but later treaties resulted in the need to expand the capabilities of the original database, adding more records and new kinds of information, including biometric data. More recent signatories to the treaty will have access to the database, even if they haven’t opened their borders. Unisys wants to use Microsoft’s BizTalk Server to build connectors to link SIS II and VIS with the treaty signatories’ databases, making them interoperable.“Interoperability implies data interoperability. We communicate XML, but it also implies a higher level, the semantics of the processes. You have to make sure that the semantics of the process at a national level are compatible with the central system,” Tavano said.Unisys also pushes open-source software—but not for this application, he said.“We have chosen Microsoft technology because it’s very convenient and affordable,” he said. “Other technologies would have implied building the whole thing from scratch.”Unisys will charge “a few hundred thousand euros” for the BizTalk Server license, said Tavano. Integration work will cost extra. “This is very aggressive,” he said.-Peter Sayer, IDG News Service (Paris Bureau) Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP What goes well with Viña Concha y Toro wines? Meat, fish, poultry, and SAP Viña Concha y Toro, a wine producer that distributes to more than 140 countries worldwide, paired its operation with the SAP Business Technology Platform to enhance its operation and product. By Tom Caldecott, SAP Contributor Dec 04, 2023 4 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by Azul How to maximize ROI by choosing the right Java partner for your organization Choosing the right Java provider is a critical decision that can have a significant impact on your organization’s success. By asking the right questions and considering the total cost of ownership, you can ensure that you choose the best Java p By Scott Sellers Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Application Management brandpost Sponsored by DataStax Ask yourself: How can genAI put your content to work? Generative AI applications can readily be built against the documents, emails, meeting transcripts, and other content that knowledge workers produce as a matter of course. By Bryan Kirschner Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence feature The CIO’s new role: Orchestrator-in-chief CIOs have unique insight into everything that happens in a company. Some are using that insight to take on a more strategic role. By Minda Zetlin Dec 04, 2023 12 mins CIO C-Suite Business IT Alignment Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe