OGC Web Services, Phase 9

For more information please contact innovation@ogc.org

OWS testbeds are part of OGC’s Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on and collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate specifications into OGC’s Specification Program, where they are formalized for public release. In OGC’s Interoperability Initiatives, international teams of technology providers work together to solve specific geoprocessing interoperability problems posed by the Initiative’s sponsoring organizations. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include test beds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments and interoperability support services – all designed to encourage rapid development, testing, validation and adoption of OGC standards.

In OWS-9 participants developed and demonstrated the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) and the Weather Exchange Model (WXXM) in an OGC Web Services environment, focusing on support for several Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) project requirements as well as FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration) Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) and Aircraft Access to SWIM (System Wide Information Management) (AAtS) requirements. The Cross-Community Interoperability Thread built on the CCI work accomplished in OWS–8 by increasing interoperability within communities sharing geospatial data, focusing on semantic mediation, query results delivery, data provenance and quality and Single Point of Entry Global Gazetteer. The Security and Services Interoperability Thread investigated Security Management, OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard Application Schema UGAS (UML to GML Application Schema) Updates, Web Services Façade, Reference Architecture Profiling, and Bulk Data Transfer. The OWS Innovations thread explored topics that represent either new areas of work for the Consortium (such as GPS and Mobile Applications), a desire for new approaches to existing technologies to solve new challenges (such as the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) work), or some combination of the two. The Compliance & Interoperability Testing & Evaluation (CITE) Thread developed a suite of compliance test scripts for testing and validation of products with interfaces implementing the following OGC standards: Web Map Service (WMS) 1.3 Interface Standard, Web Feature Service (WFS) 2.0 Interface Standard, Geography Markup Language (GML) 3.2.1 Encoding Standard, OWS Context 1.0 (candidate encoding standard), Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards, Web Coverage Service for Earth Observation (WCS-EO) 1.0 Interface Standard, and TEAM (Test, Evaluation, And Measurement) Engine Capabilities.

On 15 January 2013, at the OGC Technical Committee Meeting in Redlands, California, the participants demonstrated their work at a well-attended OWS-9 Demo event.

Check out the results of OWS-9 at http://www.opengeospatial.org/pub/www/ows9/index.html , where you will find presentation slides and videos from the OWS-9 demonstration, as well as links to engineering reports documenting the work done by participants.

In OGC testbeds, sponsoring organizations provide requirements and funding. Participating technology providers provide standards development that is aligned with their product development programs. OWS-9 sponsorship totaled $2.85 million USD and attracted an in-kind contribution of more than $5 million. The ten OWS-9 sponsors from the US, Canada and Europe who shared the costs and contributed the requirements have missions ranging from environmental management and civil government mapping to maintaining common operating pictures in disaster zones and battlefields. Working on specific interoperability problems detailed in the sponsors’ use cases and scenarios, the 45 industry participants in OWS-9 have delivered extraordinary value:

– Aviation: Developed and demonstrated the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) and the Weather Exchange Model (WXXM) in an OGC Web Services environment, focusing on support for several Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) project requirements as well as FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration) Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) and Aircraft Access to SWIM (System Wide Information Management) (AAtS) requirements.

– Cross-Community Interoperability (CCI): Built on the CCI work accomplished in OWS–8 by increasing interoperability within communities sharing geospatial data, focusing on semantic mediation, query results delivery, data provenance and quality and Single Point of Entry Global Gazetteer.

– Security and Services Interoperability (SSI): Investigated 5 main activities: Security Management, OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard Application Schema UGAS (UML to GML Application Schema) Updates, Web Services Façade, Reference Architecture Profiling, and Bulk Data Transfer.

– OWS Innovations: Explored topics that represent either new areas of work for the Consortium (such as GPS and Mobile Applications), a desire for new approaches to existing technologies to solve new challenges (such as the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) work), or some combination of the two.

– Compliance & Interoperability Testing & Evaluation (CITE): Developed a suite of compliance test scripts for testing and validation of products with interfaces implementing the following OGC standards: Web Map Service (WMS) 1.3 Interface Standard, Web Feature Service (WFS) 2.0 Interface Standard, Geography Markup Language (GML) 3.2.1 Encoding Standard, OWS Context 1.0 (candidate encoding standard), Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards, Web Coverage Service for Earth Observation (WCS-EO) 1.0 Interface Standard, and TEAM (Test, Evaluation, And Measurement) Engine Capabilities.

If your organization is interested in learning more about OWS-9 or the upcoming OWS-10 Testbed, please contact Nadine Alameh (nalameh [at] opengeospatial [dot] org).

The OWS-9 sponsors were:

– AGC (Army Geospatial Center, US Army Corps of Engineers)

– GeoViqua-CREAF-European Commission

– EUROCONTROL

– FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration)

– GeoConnections – Natural Resources Canada

– Lockheed Martin Corporation

– NASA (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

– NGA (US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)

– USGS (US Geological Survey)

– UK DSTL (UK MoD Defence Science and Technology Laboratory)

The OWS-9 participants were: