ADRC Annual Report No.5 (2002)

2. Establishment of Network in the Asian Region

2-4. ADRC's Network of Information on Natural
Disasters and Disaster Management
2-4-1. Configuration and Hardware
One of the main activities of ADRC is “Information Sharing”. To accumulate and provide
disaster management information in full measure, strengthening of information services is apriority area to be considered. ADRC has chosen an appropriate network environment suitable
to the occasion and the purpose.
By taking advantages of the fiber optics connected to the building where ADRC is located,
ADRC currently uses “B Flet’s” services which can provide higher communication speeds at areduced cost. ADRC will seek other networking opportunities and will jump at the first viablenetwork that offers faster speeds and cost advantages. A platform is being built to share adiverse amount of information including still images and videos, which will enable easy accessfrom outside.
For the configuration and hardware of ADRC's network, please refer to Fig. 2-4-1-1.
Private IP Address
192.168.1.0/24 are allocatedfor internal machine.

Only open servers are allocated global IP
address. Private address is changed to global
IP by NAT for global information traffic.

Fiber optics

Fire Wall
DNS request fromexternal domain
Open ServerINTERNETInternet ServerGlobal DNS

Internal ClientsInternalDNS

Forwarding unresolvedInternal DNSDNS Request
Fig. 2-4-1-1

OCN

RequestThe configuration and hardware of ADRC's network

For security reasons, ADRC separates the internal and external networks, and has a firewall
between the two. The firewall is monitored to check for any illegal and/or abnormal volume ofaccess. The internal network is further separated into DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and LAN
networks. DMZ has web, email and DNS servers, whereas LAN consists of client machines forindividual researchers and servers for internal use. A private IP address, which is valid only
within the Center, is allocated to each machine connected to the DMZ and LAN. Whenattempting to access the DMZ server from outside, the firewall converts the global address tothe private address of the server to enable the connection. The firewall not only converts global
addresses to private addresses, but it also routes packet transfer in consideration of the protocol,
source and destination of the packet. As a result, all the inbound and outbound traffic passes
through the firewall, whereby restricting access to internal servers and monitoring any illegal
access attempts.

４６

ADRC Annual Report No.5 (2002)

2. Establishment of Network in the Asian Region

In addition to the security against illegal access, host-controlled anti-virus software resides
on the servers and client machines to prevent computer viruses and worms that are causing
significant problems all around the world. Furthermore, to block computer viruses that aredelivered via the Internet and may pass through the firewall, a server is located at the internet
gateway to detect and remove the virus attached to email, thereby preventing access to infectedsites or propagating the virus to non-infected computers.

2-4-2. ADRC's Website
As shown in Fig. 2-4-2-1, ADRC's website (URL http://www.adrc.or.jp/) consists of thefollowing 12 databases plus access to VENTEN, ADRC’s internet-based GIS: Recent Disaster
Information, Disaster Information from Member Countries, Training Information Database,
ADRC E-Net, Conference and Disaster Studies, Internet Exhibition, Glossary on NaturalDisasters, The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Database, ADRC Highlights, Archives,Disaster Reports from Member Countries, and Center Information. In addition, GLIDE Searchusing GLIDE (GLobal unique disaster IDEntifier number) and Suffered Area Image
Information systems are now in the pilot rollout phase.
As shown by Fig. 2-4-2-2, information is made available
through the diverse databases. When a request is made fromthe Internet, the information is retrieved from thecorresponding database and sent to the user in a hypertext
format based on instructions for determining display colorand layout. Because information is stored in the database andlayout is individually controlled by instructions,administrators are free of complicated layout settings andlayouts can be changed easily in batch to keep pace with userneeds and technological innovation. By managing databasesin this way, users are given two ways to access information:by content or by country. Therefore, a directory can beprovided to facilitate access.
As an example of information access, the following shows
how to access ADRC’s Recent Disaster Information database.
This particular database gathers and releases information on
ongoing natural disasters as rapidly as possible. It collects
web reports from relevant organizations such as the UN andthe media, summarizes the content and establishes a link tothe original text. As shown in Fig. 2-4-2-3, the information ismanaged in both the disaster event table and report table.
Information requested by the user (report requested) isextracted from these tables and a report is created in atextbook layout.
Remote updating is possible over the Internet as shown in Fig. 2-4-2-1 Homepage menu
Fig. 2-4-2-2. Currently, considering how
frequently information needs to be updated,
Database
the Recent Disaster Information and theUser
RequestConference and Disaster Studies databases
Disaster Info.
are designed for remote updating.
WebPage
Furthermore, the Topics and Links pages
accessed from the top page can also beView
updated remotely. With due consideration toInstruction
security, ADRC plans to upgrade the system
Color, Layout
to enable remote updating with all databases
to make the procedure easier and, as a result,provide even more accurate information.
Fig. 2-4-2-2 Linked Database Website４７

ADRC Annual Report No.5 (2002)

2. Establishment of Network in the Asian Region

Information on recent disasters is collected and recorded by ADRC staff in order to limit thelag time from when a disaster occurs until information is made available as short as possible. As
shown in Fig. 2-4-2-4, information can be updated remotely via the Internet. When a heat wave
occurred in India in 2002, there were more than 40,000 accesses to the ADRC website in oneday.
Data Server
T able :Th e L ate st In fo
ID D isasterC o un try Co de
N am e o f D isaste r
D ate
Re su m eToandfromUsers
L IN KT able :Re port
ID Re po rt
ID D isasterC ate goryT itleC o n te n tU RLInformation
itselfn u m berc o de
te xt
te xt
te xt

n u m bern u m ber
te xt
te xt
te xt
te xt

Addition and Editionof Information fromall over the world

Fig. 2-4-2-3 Recent Disaster Information
Database and Window layout

Fig. 2-4-2-4
the Internet

Remote updating overTo make the ADRC website
even more user-friendly, it wasredesigned completely in 2002.
The 4 main changes were:① easy-to-use menus for thethree categories of users(Professional,Academicand General),② a dual structure ofimage-embedded pages andtext-only pages which canbe selected in accordancewith the type of communication infrastructure
Fig. 2-4-2-5 Entry page
the user connects with,③ a dual structure of English and Japanese pages, and④ a platform that lets the user select the aforementioned ①-③ conditions. To make thesechanges, an entry page prior to accessing the top page was added (Fig. 2-4-2-5).
The top page of the ADRC website uses a clickable image map to facilitate easy viewing of
the latest disaster information. Due to the significant increase of data volume of the website, apowerful search engine is equipped to allow faster access to information on the ADRC website
and other linked sites (see Fig. 2-4-2-6).

４８ADRC Annual Report No.5 (2002)

2. Establishment of Network in the Asian Region

Fig. 2-4-2-6

FY2002 ADRC webpage access log
900,000

600

800,000500
700,000
600,000

400

500,000
300
400,000
300,000

200

200,000
100
100,000

Request Num.

Fig. 2-4-2-7

４９

Average Visitors

Changes in number of access

2003/3

2003/2

2003/1

2002/12

2002/11

2002/10

2002/92002/8

2002/7

2002/6

2002/50
2002/40
2002/3As shown in Fig. 2-4-2-7,both the total number ofinformation
requestsandaverage number of hits per day
have been increasing (although
they vary from month to month).
The average number of hits perday increased from 230 at thebeginning of 2002 to 330 at theend of the year, which meansthat the number of daily hits
increased by more than 100 in
one year.
According to Google, anInternet search engine provider,
the number of search requests
by keyword “Asian DisasterReduction Center” in theJapanese and English languages
was about 1,600 and 31,400,
respectively.

ADRC top page