Local governments throughout Europe have been mandated by EU law to ensure that septic tanks are inspected regularly to avoid damage to the environment. Irish local government have central records detailing the number of septic tanks in each county, however, each county records the information regarding how many septic tanks have been inspected separately and in different systems.

There was a requirement to provide centralised and up to date details on how many septic tanks in each county had been inspected so that this information could be made available on request. This was complicated by the fact that each local authority in Ireland has their own data centre operation so this had to work securely across firewalls and open networks.

The Local Government Management Agency contacted Ostia to:

• Make the data from each council available in real time securely in a central location
• Show real time visuals in Excel
• Show real time visuals in Google Maps
• Ensure this and other data is available to other authorised sections of government

Local government in Ireland can now determine in real time what levels of inspection of sewage tanks has taken place and are planning to use the same solution to make other distributed data available in real time using similar analytical techniques.