TropicBird

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) was established under the Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, which entered into force on 19 June 2004. The Convention addresses long‑standing challenges in managing high‑seas fisheries, including unregulated fishing, over‑capacity, vessel re‑flagging, and insufficient multilateral cooperation in conserving highly migratory fish stocks.

As part of its mandate, the Commission’s Secretariat receives and disseminates information from members, vessel operators, and other key stakeholders. This information is maintained within its operational Information Management System (IMS). Additional datasets are sourced from external databases and integrated into the Secretariat’s TropicBird Data Warehouse (DWH). TropicBird enables the Secretariat to deliver timely and accurate analysis and reporting to the Commission on the status of the tuna fishery and on member performance against agreed Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs).

While the Secretariat focuses on analysis and reporting, the majority of data preparation and processing occurs at a deeper technical level. TropicBird relies on the AMS application for the extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) of all datasets into an enterprise‑grade SQL Server database with business intelligence capabilities. Now more than 30 months in continuous operation, TropicBird manages information on more than 11,000 fishing vessels, transshipment activities, catch discards, VMS daily positions and tracking devices for over 4,000 vessels, activities in special management areas, high‑seas boarding and inspections, and more.

AMS is a central component in both the design and daily operation of TropicBird. Standard procedures require monthly updates of all datasets, supported by checks and balances to maximise data accuracy. However, AMS also allows the DWH to be refreshed on demand, even multiple times per day. This flexibility gives Secretariat staff a clear understanding of data freshness and reliability, while also enabling rapid updates when required for Commission reporting.

TropicBird is primarily maintained by a single ICT staff member at the Secretariat, with escalated support available from its developers, including the AMS design team. The system requires minimal technical expertise from Commission staff to operate effectively. AMS has demonstrated more than 30 months of uninterrupted performance at WCPFC and continues to be supported by experienced developers and professionals.

Testimonial (March 2016)

Sam Taufao

ICT Manager

Update (May 2021):

TropicBird DWH remains a key facility for WCPFC and has expanded significantly in both scope and data volume since its introduction. AMS now provides additional capabilities, including unattended daily data‑warehouse loads with automated alerts to IT staff in the event of unsuccessful completion.

Albatross

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is an international body comprising 25 Members and an additional 11 countries that have acceded to the Convention. Guided by the best available scientific information, the Commission establishes conservation measures governing the sustainable use of marine living resources in the Antarctic region.

CCAMLR identified AMS as a suitable platform for implementing the ETL environment required for its new data warehouse. The AMS development team assisted CCAMLR in designing the warehouse structure and implementing several highly specialised data‑validation processes used within the ETL pipeline. Although CCAMLR evaluated Microsoft’s SSIS development environment, AMS proved to offer a more efficient and flexible development model, significantly accelerating the implementation timeline.

Testimonial (February 2018)

Tim Jones

ICT Manager

Update (May 2021)

The CCAMLR data warehouse built on the AMS platform was initially deployed as a prototype and proof‑of‑concept. Since then, several key ETL systems have been developed using AMS to support CCAMLR’s operational and scientific workflows.

A major focus of these systems is the processing of the extensive and diverse data collected by Scientific Observers onboard vessels operating in the CCAMLR Convention Area. Observer data is captured using complex Microsoft Excel workbooks, provided in four different languages. AMS reads, transforms, and loads this data into a structured SQL database.

A critical component of this workflow is an extensive data validation process, which checks incoming data against more than 700 business rules. This capability highlights one of AMS’s core strengths: providing robust, metadata‑driven data‑quality assurance as an integral part of the ETL pipeline.

Mackerel

Client : North Pacific Fisheries Commision - Tokyo, Japan