The critical role of open standards in SDIs and INSPIRE

Transcription

1 The critical role of open standards in SDIs and INSPIRE With input from Mark Reichardt, Steven Ramage and Carl Reed.

2 Agenda A few words about the OGC Interoperability and open standards The OGC addressing interoperability OGC Standards in use around the world Value, Return on investment and benefits Routes for participation

3 View on standards... Standards Development is boring... Or how others see them... Source: Source:

4 Reality check... the annual cost of waste due to inadequate interoperability among computer-aided design, engineering, and software systems in the construction industry to be $15.8 billion <in the US alone> NIST report titled "Cost Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities Industry," Image from OGC Web Services 4 Test Bed

5 Making Location Count...

6 A few words about the OGC 6

7 OGC at a Glance Founded in 1994, not for profit, consensus based and voluntary 415+ member organisations (industry, government, academia) (July 2011) adopted OGC Standards (some are ISO Standards) Several hundred software products, implementing OpenGIS Standards Cooperation with other standards organisations, foundations and projects

8 OGC at a Glance Europe: 199, North America: 157, Asia/Pacific: 54, Middle East 4, Africa 2, South America 2

9 The OGC Mission To serve as a global forum for and lead the development, promotion and harmonization of open and freely available geospatial standards.

10 Improving Knowledge Sharing and Transfer We are addressing critical issues, that need cooperation: Growth in urban centers and coastal areas Climate Change, Environmental Monitoring Water Resource availability and quality Emergency planning, preparedness & response Aviation Safety and many more

11 Standards Development is not easy! Requires understanding of differences Requires cooperation on a global basis Requires consensus by many organizations Requires give and take Requires certified, repeatable process

12 And does not exist in isolation A Critical Resource for Advancing Standards and others Making Location Count...

13 Where does OGC fit in the standards world? ISO/CEN Domains: Object / Abstract Models, Content, Vocabulary OGC Software Interfaces and encodings: Instantiate Domain and Dejure into Infrastructure OASIS/IETF / W3C Infrastructure: TCP, HTTP, XML, SAML Domain Infrastructure 13

14 Web Map Server What are OGC Web Services (OWS)? Just as is the dial tone of the World Wide Web, and html / xml are the standard encodings, the geospatial web is enabled by OGC standards: Web Feature Server Web Coverage Server Web Map Service (WMS) Web Feature Service (WFS) Web Coverage Service (WCS) CityGML Geography Markup Language (GML) Web Map Context (WMC) OGC KML Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Others Relevant to geospatial information applications: Cadastrial Information, Critical Infrastructure, Environment, Weather, Climate, Water, Homeland Security, Defense & Intelligence and others

15 Understanding OGC standards the ORM* OGC Reference Model What is the purpose of the ORM? Overview of OGC Standards Baseline Insight into the current state of the work of the OGC Basis for coordination and understanding of the OGC documents Resource for defining architectures for specific applications In Spanish * Do not confuse with the ORM in Walter Moers The City of Dreaming Books.

16 Interoperability and Open Standards 16

17 Interoperability?... a break-of-gauge adds delays, cost, and inconvenience to traffic that must pass from one gauge to another. Source: Source: Source:

18 Interoperability? The Fundamental Goal You know when you don t have it: Custom Integration High lifecycle costs Difficult to share information Difficult to rapidly mobilize new capabilities Duplication of effort Missed opportunities for improved decision making Source:

19 OGC Interoperability What the members say OGC members identify interoperability problems: We can't share maps on the Web. We can't deliver data to different systems easily. We don't have a common language to speak about our geospatial data or our services. We can't find and pull together data from our automated sensors. OGC

20 What is Interoperability? "The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units Source: OGC Abstract Specification Topic 12: Services. Derived from ISO

21 Interoperability and Standards Availability of geo data is crucial for the administration, businesses and citizens alike. But how to share data? Key factor for accessibility is standardisation. It is the definition of common interfaces to enable interoperability.

22 Standards are like parachutes: they work best when they're open.

23 Why Open Standards? Prevents a single, self-interested party from controlling a standard Lower systems and life cycle costs Encourage market competition Choose based on functionality desired Avoid lock in to a proprietary architecture What OGC brings to the table is everyone has confidence we won t take advantage of the format or change it in a way that will harm anyone Michael Weiss-Malik, Google KML product manager Stimulates innovation beyond the standard by companies that seek to differentiate themselves. Source: Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of Openness, April Committee For Economic Development.

24 What is an OGC Standard? A document, established by consensus, approved by the OGC membership (balance of interest, all members have an equal vote) Provides, rules, guidelines or characteristics Implementable in software Open standards does not mean open source software (Free Software). OGC/OSGeo Paper on Open Source Software and Open Standards: OGC standards are Open Standards Freely and publicly available No license fees Vendor neutral People want the government to be transparent, so why shouldn't the technology be? Jim Willis, Director of e-government at therhode Island Secretary of State Office

25 The OGC addressing Interoperability 25

26 Standards and the Digital Agenda Action on interoperability is essential to maximise the social and economic potential of information and communication technologies (ICT). This need was identified in the Digital Agenda for Europe [COM (2010) 245 final/2] one of the flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 Strategy. The Digital Agenda can only take off if interoperability based on standards and open platforms is ensured.

27 EU Digital Agenda Interoperability boosts competition, we need more of that. For devices or applications to be interoperable - to work together - all concerned parties must agree to a common way of doing things. Formal standards are one way to get there. More transparency in formal standard-setting can lead to more efficient outcomes. Public and private procurers of technology should be smart and build their systems as much as possible on standards that everybody can use and implement without constraints: this is good for the bottom-line because it promotes competition between suppliers and prevents vendor lock-in. Neelie Kroes, Open Forum Europe 2010: 'Openness at the heart of the EU Digital Agenda' Brussels, 10th June

28 Views on Interoperability Levels Source: European Interoperability Framework, Annex II, p 26

29 OGC addressing interoperability OGC Standards Program In the OGC Standards Program the Technical Committee and Planning Committee work in a formal consensus process to arrive at approved (or "adopted") standards. ( Standards Working Groups (SWG) Edit and approve a candidate standard for public comment, Consider official Change Request Proposals to an existing OGC Standard and make changes to the standard as necessary. ( OGC

30 OGC addressing interoperability OGC Interoperability Program (IP) The IP is a series of hands-on engineering initiatives to accelerate the development and acceptance of OGC standards. Process to test, verify and document user requirements. ( IP Initiatives ( Domain Working Groups (DWG) part of the OGC SP DWGs provide a forum for discussion of key interoperability requirements and issues, discussion and review of implementation specifications, and presentations on key technology areas relevant to solving geospatial interoperability issues. ( OGC

31 OGC addressing interoperability OGC membership ( OGC Consensus Process How the pieces fit together ( OGC Interoperability Program (IP) and IP Initiatives Alliance Partners - (...) we find that the OGC mission is aligned with the missions of many different organizations. (...) work with us toward common objectives. ( OGC

32 OGC addressing interoperability National and international policy positions adopting OGC standards ( OGC Spatial Law and Policy Committee - (...) the OGC Board of Directors chartered a committee of the board to specifically address "spatial law and policy issues" that will influence development requirements of the Consortium's technology process. ( OGC

33 OGC addressing interoperability Cultural / Social Interoperability OGC national and regional fora. Allow the dialogue within a single culture, language and/or political context. But there's no blueprint for all fora. They vary (at least) in the following points: i.e. language, specific regional culture. Examples: or OGC Global Advisory Council - The Council is a committee to advise OGC concerning its global outreach and organizational strategies. ( OGC Board of Directors ( OGC

34 OGC standards in use around the world 34

35 OGC-based Policy Positions European Union INSPIRE Directive emphasizing ISO and OGC standards for improved interoperability. Ordnance Survey GB distributes its MasterMap product using OGC standards. Dutch Policy on Open Standards and Open Source Software ( andards%3f) Canadian, Australian, US, Indian and other national Spatial Data programs recommend OGC standards as best practice for interoperability. 35

36 INSPIRE and OGC Standards Market Report on OGC Standards in INSPIRE provide examples activities underway around INSPIRE based on international standards, highlight overlap between OGC and ISO standards (e.g. ISO 19115) INSPIRE Legally Mandated Organisations (LMO): IGN (F), BKG (D), Finnish Meteorological Institute, Geonovum (NL), etc. INSPIRE Spatial Data Interest Communities (SDIC): OGC France Forum (F), SDI of Catalonia (ES), OGC Hydrology DWG Quotes: OGC WMS/SLD and OGC SE Symbology Encoding are the normative references in the view service technical guidance, C. Portele) Well established communication & collaboration between OGC & INSPIRE P. Baumann)

37 INSPIRE technical architecture underpinned by OGC standards INSPIRE Discovery service: OGC Catalogue Service for the Web (CSW) Query language: OGC Filter Encoding INSPIRE View service: ISO : WMS (Web Map Service) 1.3 (extensions) INSPIRE Download service: Direct access data with queries Web Feature Service: OGC WFS / ISO Filter Encoding: OGC Filter Encoding / ISO INSPIRE Coordinate Transformation service: An Application Profile of the Web Processing service (WPS) based on the Web Coordinate Transformation Service (WCTS)

38 View from the EEA OGC standards have been built out broadly in the international marketplace Adopted OGC standards as well as those in development are extremely relevant to EEA, its partners, and the broader international Environmental community Active involvement in OGC committees, working groups, testbeds, pilots and experiments will help prioritize standards needs and accelerate standards adoption Inclusion of OGC and complementary ISO standards in procurement policy will accelerate industry delivery of interoperable solutions.

39 EU funded projects: Examples ESDIN European Spatial Data Infrastructure Network Continuous cooperation with GEOSS AIPs (Architecture Implementation Pilot). and many more

40 GEOSS Interoperability Arrangements - From the GEOSS 10 Year Plan Reference Document - Interoperability through open interfaces Interoperability specifications agreed to among contributing systems Access to data and information through service interfaces Open standards and intellectual property rights GEOSS adopting standards; agreed upon by consensus, preference to formal international standards GEOSS will not require commercial or proprietary standards Multiple software implementations compliant with the open standards should exist Goal is that at least one of the implementations should be available to all implementers "royalty-free" Making Location Count...

41 Group on Earth Observation (GEO) Architecture Implementation Pilot ( Data Sharing Principles Implementation Architecture and Data Committee Data Sharing Task Force...

42 Landgate Perspective Why a common Standards Baseline Matters "When you are delivering spatial web services on behalf of 20 government agencies to more than a 1000 organisations running their own spatial systems, you need standards. Using the internationally recognised OGC and ISO standards for both the architecture and web services has been essential to our success " Kylie Armstrong Manager, Business Programs Landgate, Western Australia SLIP Shared Land Information Platform OGC

43 Disaster prediction and Warning Feng Chia University The success of our programs to monitor, detect, warn and respond to emergencies and natural disasters in Taiwan depends heavily on OGC standards. We use OGC Web Services and Sensor Web Enablement standards to rapidly mobilize monitoring, forecasting and warning networks, and to implement a diversity of sensor assets as part of these systems. This saves time, money and lives. Tien-Yin Chou, Director of the GIS Research Center Feng Chia University OGC

44 Participation in the OGC 44

45 Avenues for Public Input Carl über external community SIG 3D Public Domain Working Groups (DWG) Offer a forum for discussion and documentation of interoperability requirements for a given information or user community, informal presentations and discussions about the market use of adopted OGC Standards ( Aviation DWG Hydrology DWG Early Warning and Disaster Management Meteorology and Oceans DWG OGC

46 Avenues for Public Input (2) Requests for Information Requests for Comment Call For Participation OGC Network Change Requests and New Requirements Fast track process OGC