Global Earth Observing System-of-Systems (GEOSS)Architectural Framework

Doug Nebert

FGDC, U.S. Geological Survey

ddnebert@usgs.gov

February 2008

Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO)

• 72 Member countries plus the European Commission • 52 Participating Organizations • GEO Secretariat (Geneva)• Committees:

– Architecture and Data– Capacity Building– Science and Technology– User Interface

What is GEOSS?Global Earth Observing System of Systems

• GEOSS is a distributed system of systems built on current international cooperation among existing Earth observing and data management systems – in situ and remote sensors and systems

• GEOSS enables the collection and distribution of accurate, reliable Earth Observation data, information, products, and services in an end-to-end process

• GEOSS recognizes and promotes the deployment of geospatial standards to enable broad access and interoperability among diverse systems – engages the space and environment community to adopt and expand Spatial Data Infrastructures

GEOSS infrastructure elements

• Components– Systems, projects, programs, initiatives

• Services– Web services, brokered services, linked with information

content for delivery

• Registries– “Yellow-pages” directories of common GEOSS resources

• Clearinghouse– Cross-GEOSS search capability for services and data

• Web Portals– User interface to access all GEO resources, search GEOSS

Registries and Clearinghouse

GEOSS Registries as common infrastructure

• GEOSS Components Registry– Systems, initiatives, programs and their operators

• GEOSS Services Registry– Web service interfaces and websites with links to all

relevant associated standards or practices• GEOSS Standards and Interoperability Registry

– Service interface standards, data formats, schemas, and other standards

– Non-standard community practices can be registered as “special arrangements”

• Best Practices Registry/Wiki – under development• Earth Observation (User) Requirements Registry – under

development

GEOSS registry system objectives

• To register components and have them approved by the GEO Secretariat,

• To register services and associate them with GEOSS-recognized standards – and special arrangements for implementations using non-recognized approaches,

• To register special arrangements and GEOSS-recognized standards. – Taxonomy of standards types is used to assist in the

discovery and classification of GEOSS service implementations.

• Best practices (wiki) and EO User Requirements• On-line access

– http://geossregistries.info/– http://seabass.ieee.org/groups/geoss/

GEOSS workflow

GEOSSComponent,

Service registry

Standards,Special

ArrangementsRegistries

references

Web Portal

searches

Offerors

contribute

CommunityResourcesaccesses

GEOSSClearinghouse

Catalogues

User

accesses

get catalogueservices

accesses

searches

invokes

1

2

34

56

7

8

ComponentSystem

Service(s)

GEOSS RegistriesThe Registries store organizational, system, and service information in the context of existing standards and practices within the GEO community.

Registering items

• GEO members and participating organizations are invited to register their offers for GEOSS participants to find

• Components and Service Registry created and hosted at George Mason University– Registered services include data access services,

WMS, metadata catalogs, order, data transformation, etc.

– Services should be standards-based but may alternately reference community practices or ad hoc standards, known as “special arrangements”

• Standards registry hosted by IEEE to provide official list of registered standards and special arrangements

Registration Process

EnterIndividual

Info

GEOAffiliation

EnterComponent

Info

Link to SBAs

EnterService

Info

Link to Standards

http://geossregistries.info

Done

Data format, metadata,Protocol, schema, Service specification

GEOSS Clearinghouse

• Clearinghouse is a broker to Community Catalogues• Searches GEOSS Service Registry to identify

services that can be searched• Community Catalogues may either be “harvested” in

advance or “searched” at the time of a user query • Searches received from GEO Web Portal,

Community Portals or any other external application acting as a catalog client

• Brief or full responses are marshaled and returned to requesting client as XML

Web Portal, Client, DS Client, Desktop application

2

1

4

5 3

Registercatalogs asservices

GEOSS Clearinghouse

OGC CSW 2.0.2

6 Collate response

7

GEO Web Site

Client Tier

Business Process Tier

Access Tier

GEOSSWeb

Portal

GEOSSRegistries

Services

Components

Standards

DirectBroadcast

OtherServices

DataAccess

Services

ModelAccess

Services

CommunityPortals

Decision-Support Applications

RequirementsCommunityCatalogues

PortrayalServices

WorkflowManagement

ProcessingServices

OtherServices

GEOSSClearinghouse

CSW/ISO23950

CSW/ISO23950

Get list

Register

CSW/SRU/UDDI

SensorAccess

Services

GEOSS Architecture – Engineering Viewpoint

Initial Operating Capability

• An Initial Operating Capability (IOC) was established for GEOSS in November 2007 largely as a result of a GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot, Phase 1. Several demonstrations portray the IOC functionality. – Users can access the GEOSS IOC functionality

through the GEOSS Web Portal Candidates, Community Portals and Decision Support Clients.

– Providers can register their services as part of the IOC at the GEOSS registry system.

– Developers can view a description of the GEOSS IOC architecture through the website: http://www.ogcnetwork.net/GEOSS_IOC

GEOSSComponent Registry

Service Registry

GEOSSStandards and

Special ArrangementsRegistry

references

GEO Portallinks

GEOSSClearinghouse

CataloguesServices

User

accesses

accesses

Accesses allRegistered Community Resources

searches

GEOSS Common Infrastructure

GEONETCast

Websites/Webportals

Catalogues

Registered components External resources

Websites/Webportals

GEO Web Sitelinks

Links to Other Community Resources

Register

Documents

RSS

CatalogQueryClients

GEOSS Common Infrastructure

For more information, contact:

Douglas Nebert

U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee

ddnebert@usgs.gov

+1 703 648 4151