Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know but you don’t want to ask!
Snap4City is the 100% open-source platform DISIT Lab developed with other institutions and companies. It provides a flexible method and solution to quickly set up an extensive range of smart city applications exploiting heterogeneous data and enabling services for stakeholders by IOT/IOE (Internet of things/internet of everything), data analytics, and big data technologies. Snap4City satisfies an extensive range of requirements of city officers, citizens, and tourists to developers, companies, and researchers as identified by ENOLL, EIP-SCC, Select4Cities PCP. Snap4City is 100% open-source, scalable, robust, respects user needs and privacy; easily replaceable tools and compliant with GDPR can be used as Smart City as a Services or installed on your premise and your preferred cloud. Snap4City is an official platform of EOSC, an official platform of Fi-Ware, E015, BeeSmart, SigFox, and others. Snap4City is providing services to several relevant cities/Organizations (complete list on https://www.snap4city.org/download/video/cov/ ) as Firenze and whole Tuscany, Helsinki, Antwerp, Lonato del Garda, Santiago de Compostela, Pisa, Prato, Pistoia, Lucca, Arezzo, Grosseto, Livorno, Siena, Massa, Modena, Cagliari and Sardinia, SmartBed, among others. These institutions are exploiting Snap4City capabilities to improve city services, security, and safety by offering a sustainable solution for smart city and Living Lab, by keeping under control the real-time city evolution:
- reading sensors
- computing and controlling key performance indicators, KPI
- detecting unexpected evolutions
- performing analytics
- taking actions on strategies and alarms
Snap4City is an official platform of FIWARE which you can use for free. It’s open-source and doesn’t require any licenses so that it can be integrated into your business without any hassle. You can also install the platform by using Dockers and/or Virtual Machine Appliances that you find at https://www.snap4city.org/471.
Snap4City uses FIWARE and the NGSI protocol for IoT and is compliant with a large number of protocols, more than 50. https://www.snap4city.org/drupal/node/65
Snap4City also produces several FIWARE NGSI devices: Snap4All IoT Button, Snap4City Arduino IOT device, IOT Edge Snap4City, LoraWAN Gateway IoT Edge, etc.
Snap4City provides many open-source tools that are not FIWARE registered and can be used with FIWARE devices.
Snap4City has produced a mutual authentication model and secure communication compliant with NGSI and IOT Orion Broker.
You will find the details about compliance/interoperability on https://www.snap4city.org/drupal/node/283.
Snap4City is also compliant with a large number of protocols, and being modular can exploit and be integrated with your legacy systems.
Please find out more at https://www.snap4city.org/467.
Snap4City started since Km4City former tool. A number of partners and companies have developed tools and processes. All those that have been accepted in the platform and are Open Source are posted on the GITHUB/DISIT, so that you can contribute directly on GITHUB or contacting us as you like.
The main partners are those of Snap4City: UNIFI, UNIMI and Snap SRL, Effective Knowledge, plus also former partners of Sii-Mobility for some aspects of Km4City. The whole activity is coordinated by DISIT Lab, a not for profit research lab (which is in place since 1994) of the University of Florence which is in place since 1300.
The rules for contributing to Snap4City are very simple. One can contribute with:
a new tool and the new tool can be integrated if it respects rules regarding: quality of the code, usability, interoperability with the rest of the platform, security, GDPR compliance, scalability, robustness, documentation in terms of test cases, responsiveness, etc.
You can propose a tool as External Service and in that case the requirements are strongly relaxed. Tools providing functionalities which are already present in other tools of the resent version can be also accepted.
New functionalities improving the present tools, for example starting from the source code on GitHUB and working on the source code. The improved version and new features can be proposed by posting them on Github as branches and presenting them via email snap4city@disit.org with a short document, slide and the possibility of testing them from some place.
Bug solving can proposed by proposed by posting them on Github as branches and presenting them via email snap4city@disit.org with a short note on the bug solved.
Dashboards, iot Applications, ETL, data analytics, etc. can be freely proposed and shared on both GITBHUB/DISIT and Resource Manager.
There are several cities in a trial/deploy modality, at different stages, the most of them with a new Organisation activated inside the platform: Florence, Tuscany (several cities, including Prato with two pilots, and Pisa), Lonato Del Garda, Sardinia (including the Cagliari metropolitan area), Helsinki, Antwerpen, Modena, Santiago de Compostela, etc. (20-10-2019).
You may register each user to only one Organisation at a time.
The registration is moderated since the private data of the Organisations can be there, and they may adopt different policies for data access and user registration. On the other hand, you can also register using DISIT Organisation to see the tools working on open data regarding Tuscany (many cities such as Firenze, Pisa, Lucca, Massa, Prato, Pistoia, Arezzo, Grosseto, Massa, etc.)
There are also on-premise IoT installations at several companies.
Snap4City started since Km4City former tool.
Several partners and companies have developed tools and processes. All those that have been accepted in the platform and are Open Source are posted on the GITHUB/DISIT to contribute directly on GITHUB or contact us as you like. The main partners are those of Snap4City: UNIFI, UNIMI, and Snap SRL, Effective Knowledge, and former partners of Sii-Mobility for some aspects of Km4City. DISIT Lab, a not-for-profit research lab of the University of Florence (active since 1994), coordinates all the activities.
The rules for contributing to Snap4City are straightforward. One can contribute with:
A new tool that can be integrated if it respects rules regarding: quality of the code, usability, interoperability with the rest of the platform, security, GDPR compliance, scalability, robustness, documentation in terms of test cases, responsiveness, etc. You can propose a tool as External Service, and in that case, the requirements are enormously relaxed. We can also accept tools providing functionalities already present in other tools of the recent version.
New functionalities that improve the present tools, for example, starting from the source code on GitHub and working on the source code. You can propose the improved version and new features by posting them on Github as branches and presenting them via email at snap4city@disit.org with a short document, slide, and the possibility of testing them from some place.
You can propose bug solving by posting on Github as branches and presenting them via email at snap4city@disit.org with a short note on the bug solved.
Dashboards, IoT Applications, ETL, data analytics, etc., can be freely proposed and shared on GITHUB/DISIT and Resource Manager.
Snap4City sustains itself by selling services over the platform.
The platform is a commodity, and services are:
Consultancy on setting up the smart city, data discovery and aggregation, data identification, living lab set up and management, data agreement, GDPR, etc.
Consultancy on technical aspects of the infrastructure design for the smart city, technical integration with the legacy solution, etc.
customization of the platform with new modules and plugins that, as a rule, will be released open-source (with possible exceptions)
customization of the platform with changes on the code that will be released open-source according to the license model of the tool
smart city as a service (see also EOSC marketplace): hosting data, providing services, etc., with the integration of all the above points
on-premise or cloud installation of the platform
maintenance of an installed Snap4City solution: on our cloud; on any other cloud; on-premise
Training operative personnel to use the platform, create dashboards, IoT Applications, install the platform, etc. This action can be personalized or cumulated in training days and weeks with other customers: it can be on our location or at your premises.
Extra help desk support on all the above aspects that exceed the onboarding already included.
Developing data analytics over those that are freely provided and/or setting up data analytics that needs learning phases at your premises.
Snap4City mobile Apps, web app, and MicroApplications have support in different languages: German, French, Italian, English, Finnish, Spanish.
English is the prevalent language on the development side (user interface, training, and technical documentation).
We can also provide some training in Italian and address any other language on demand.
For help desk and general contacts:
For problem reporting:
Registration on Snap4City is free. Each user may be registered/login to only one Organisation at a time. You may try multiple registrations to different Organizations using different email addresses and multiple logins.
The registration at the Organization may be moderated since the Organization may load private data and tools and may thus autonomously decide the policies to data access and registration.
We suggest, as a test, registering for Snap4City by selecting DISIT Organization to get access to the tools working on open data for several Tuscany public organizations (among them, cities such as Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Massa, Prato, Pistoia, Arezzo, Grosseto, Massa).
Snap4City is 100% open source.
The table with licenses and the links to access the source code on GITHUB is accessible from https://www.snap4city.org/drupal/node/7.
Documentation is also available on this portal, as well as on:
https://github.com/disit (almost everything)
Km4City.org
DISIT.org
Please read each tool’s documentation, and you will find the documentation links, tool by tool.
The solution is modular and capable of covering a broad spectrum of keys; you may need only a part of it.
We suggest you register into the snap4city.org portal, read the documentation, practice with the basic principles, and once conquered the essential steps with the online documentation and platform, please return to us if needed. In any way, you can contact us to request an offer on our additional services. You can also install the platform by using Dockers and/or Virtual Machine Appliances that you find on https://www.snap4city.org/471
Yes, we can help you design your smart city in the process of data identification and much more.
Snap4City has a consolidated methodology for setting un-smart cities exploiting what you have in place, and leveraging the services. Please see training courses to have an idea: https://www.snap4city.org/501.
To provide a quotation for these additional activities, we need to receive all the necessary details.