SDMX

SDMX, which stands for Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange is an international initiative that aims at standardising and modernising (“industrialising”) the mechanisms and processes for the exchange of statistical data and metadata among international organisations and their member countries.

The SDMX sponsoring institutions are the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Union), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), and the World Bank.

These organisations are the main players at world and regional levels in the collection of official statistics in a large variety of domains (agriculture statistics, economic and financial statistics, social statistics, environment statistics etc.).

In 2013 SDMX was approved by ISO as an International Standard (ISO 17369:2013). The latest version of the standard – SDMX 2.1 – was released in April 2011.

People who are new to SDMX are invited to consult the “Learning about SDMX Basics” page which will provide them with the necessary basic material for understanding SDMX.

Users who are already familiar with the SDMX standard will find on the SDMX.org website all material, such as the technical standards and guidelines necessary for properly implementing SDMX in a statistical domain.

Technical Standards

SDMX message formats have two basic expressions, SDMX-ML (using XML syntax) and SDMX-EDI (using EDIFACT syntax and based on the GESMES/TS statistical message). The standards also include additional specifications (e.g. registry specification, web services). Version 1.0 of the SDMX standard has been recognised as an ISO standard in 2005. The RDF Data Cube vocabulary implements the cube model underlying SDMX as Linked Data.

See also

• Data
• Economic statistics
• ISO
• Metadata
• Statistics
• UN/EDIFACT and UN/CEFACT
• XML

Free SDMX tools

• There exist a number of free tools for conversion, visualisation and validation of SDMX, as well as free implementations of the SDMX registry. An overview of the available tools by function and source is available in the tools section of the SDMX web site.
• SdmxSource is a Java implementation of the SDMX standard supporting SDMX-ML 2.1, 2.0, 1.0 and SDMX-EDI.

External links

• SDMX
• European Central Bank (SDMX tutorial)
• Eurostat main page
• Eurostat SDMX Info Space
• SDMX-HD (Health Domain)
• WHO Indicator and Metadata Registry
• RDF Data Cube Vocabulary

Modification de Statistical data and metadata exchange