OGC OWS-6 Testbed

The OGC Announces Call for Participation in OWS-6 Testbed

July 21, 2007. Wayland, Massachusetts, USA.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has issued a Request for Quotes/Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) for the OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) Interoperability Initiative, a testbed to advance OGC's open interoperability framework for geospatial capabilities. The RFQ/CFP will available at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/50 after 18:30 EDT, July 21, 2008.

The organizations sponsoring OWS-6 seek open standards for their interoperability requirements. After analyzing those requirements, the OGC Interoperability Team recommended to the sponsors that the content of the OWS-6 initiative be organized around the following threads:

Sensor Web Enablement (SWE)
Geo Processing Workflow (GPW)
Aeronautical Information Management (AIM)
Decision Support Services (DSS)
Compliance Testing (CITE)

The RFQ/CFP includes details of these threads as well as details of the bidders' conference, selection process and kickoff. Responses are due by September 5, 2008. If your organization is interested in participating, contact David Arctur at darctur@opengeospatial.org.

OWS-6 Sponsors

U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD)
GeoConnections - Natural Resources Canada
U.S. Federal Aviation Agency (FAA)
EUROCONTROL
EADS Defence and Communications Systems
Lockheed Martin
BAE Systems
ERDAS, Inc.

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 Initiatives' Sponsors. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include testbeds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments and interoperability support services — all designed to encourage rapid development, testing, validation and adoption of OGC standards.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 365 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at:

http://www.opengeospatial.org/

Contact

Sam Bacharach
Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc
35 Main Street, Suite 5, Wayland, MA 01778 USA
Tel: +1-703-352-3938
Email: sbacharach@opengeospatial.org

OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) Request For Quotation and Call For Participation

Excerpted from the RFQ/CFP text describing the OWS-6 Threads

1) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE)

The OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework has achieved a degree of maturity through previous OWS interoperability initiatives and deployments worldwide. OWS-6 will focus on integrating the SWE interfaces and encodings into cross-thread scenarios and workflows to demonstrate the ability of SWE specifications to support operational needs. Emphasis for SWE during this phase of the OWS test-bed will be on:

CCSI-Enabled CBRN Sensors into the SWE Environment

Build on Georeferenceable imagery accomplishments of OWS-5

Harmonize SWE-related information models: SensorML, GML, UncertML, MathML

Apply GeoRM, Trusted Services, and security models in SWE environment

Events-based architecture including Web Services Notification (WNS)

2) Geo Processing Workflow (GPW)

This GPW thread aims to build on the progress of previous testbeds with a focus on maturing the interoperability and capabilities of OGC web services in a service-oriented architecture with particular emphasis to address OGC web service security issues. To satisfy mission-critical goals, the architecture must not only provide for integration of a wide variety of service capabilities and resources, it must do so and ensure authenticity, integrity, quality and confidentiality of services and information. To meet these goals, the following task areas have been identified:

Asynchronous Workflow and Web Services Security

Data Security for OGC web services

Data Accessibility

WPS Profiles — Conflation; and Grid processing

GML Application Schema Development & ShapeChange Enhancements

3) Aeronautical Information Management (AIM)

The Aviation Information Management (AIM) subtask is a new thread within OWS to develop and demonstrate the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) in an OGC Web Services environment. The AIM subtask shall focus on evaluating and advancing various AIXM features in a realistic trans-Atlantic aviation scenario setting by devising and prototyping a Web Services Architecture for providing valuable aeronautical information directly to flight decks, Electronic Flight Bags (EFB) and hand-held devices (such as PDAs and Blackberries) while the airplane is at the gate or en-route to its destination (for the purposes of OWS-6, the aeronautical information in the latter case does not depend on the knowledge of the airplane's location).

AIXM was developed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Eurocontrol as a global standard for the representation and exchange of aeronautical information. It was designed as a basis for digital aeronautical information exchange and for enabling the transition to a net-centric, global aeronautical management capability. AIXM has been developed using the ISO 19100 modeling framework and has two major components: a conceptual model presented in the form of an UML class model and a data encoding specification which was developed using the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML). Both have been tailored to the specific requirements for the representation of aeronautical objects, especially the temporality feature that allows for time-dependent changes affecting AIXM features. More information about AIXM is available on www.aixm.aero. In support of the above objectives, the OWS-6 AIM thread shall perform tasks in the following areas while ensuring that the integrity of data is preserved throughout all data exchange operations:

Use and enhancement of Web Feature Service and Filter Encoding specifications in support of AIXM features and 4-dimensional flight trajectory queries

Prototype of Aviation client for retrieval and seamless visualization of AIXM, Weather and other aviation-related data, emphasizing time and spatial filtering in order to present just the right information into a given user context anytime, anywhere

Architecture of standards-based mechanism to notify users of changes to user-selected aeronautical information

4) Decision Support Services (DSS)

Decision Support Services having an emphasis on applications of geospatial and temporal information has been a recurring thread in previous OWS testbeds. This thread focuses on presenting and interacting with data obtained from the sensor web and geoprocessing workflows in the most effective ways to support analysis and decision making. The focus for DSS in OWS-6 builds on portrayal, WMS Tiling, and integrated client work from OWS-4, with additional work on 3D visualization and integration of the built environment and landscape. This thread will encompass these capabilities and task areas:

ISO 19117 and OGC SLD Portrayal

3D Portrayal of GML with Fly-through

Hosting CityGML data with WFS

Outdoor and indoor 3D route and tracking services

WMS performance (tiling)

Integrated Client for multiple OWS services

5) Compliance Testing (CITE)

Validating compliance with an OGC specification means verifying that a software product has implemented the specification correctly by testing the software interface for response and behavior that is outlined in the specification. Verifying compliance to the standard is necessary in order to achieve interoperability. As a result, geospatial application vendors desire to provide their potential costumers a means to verify adherence to OGC standards as a measurable discriminator for the interoperability of software products. Similarly, users desire assurance that acquired software components will interoperate with their existing investments in OGC-compliant technology. The Conformance and Interoperability Test and Evaluation (CITE) thread is intended to provide the geospatial industry (consumers and vendors) a methodology and tools that will test compliance with OGC web services.

The OGC Interoperability Program and the OGC Specification Program have achieved a great deal of momentum as a result of the multiple OGC web service specifications that have recently been published. Key consumers in the geospatial industry are modernizing their enterprises based on the applicability and interoperability of OGC web services. The major geospatial industry consumers require verifiable proof of compliance with OGC specifications in order to reach the desirable outcome of interoperability. Furthermore, as the OGC technology stack has matured, a group of interfaces has emerged that represents a baseline of technology needed to implement a fully interoperable, end-to-end spatial data infrastructure. The CITE threads in previous OWS projects have made significant progress towards having a complete suite of compliance tests for this baseline of interfaces.

A major focus of OWS-5 was on achieving consensus on the format and content of an Abstract Test Suite (ATS). The OWS-5 CITE participants agreed to follow the ISO guidance for writing Abstract Test Suites. The ATS are used to develop Executable Test Suites which are the scripts that the TEAM Engine runs to conduct an automated compliance test. A major focus of OWS-6 CITE will be in clearly documenting the approach to defining Abstract Test Suites. This will be a great benefit to the OGC community as the OGC Architecture Board (OAB) requires that new specifications be published with an accompanying ATS. In addition, a focus of OWS-6 CITE will be to expand the usability of the existing OGC compliance tests by "tailoring" these tests for specific schema profiles and/or data.

See the ZIP archive for OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ, or download the individual files:
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Main Body
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex A
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex B
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex C
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex D
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Template - Funding
OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Template - Proposal

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See also Geography Markup Language (GML).

SEARCH Advanced Search ABOUT Site Map CP RSS Channel Contact Us Sponsoring CP About Our Sponsors NEWS Cover Stories Articles & Papers Press Releases CORE STANDARDS XML SGML Schemas XSL/XSLT/XPath XLink XML Query CSS SVG TECHNOLOGY REPORTS XML Applications General Apps Government Apps Academic Apps EVENTS LIBRARY Introductions FAQs Bibliography Technology and Society Semantics Tech Topics Software Related Standards Historic	OGC OWS-6 Testbed The OGC Announces Call for Participation in OWS-6 Testbed July 21, 2007. Wayland, Massachusetts, USA. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has issued a Request for Quotes/Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) for the OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) Interoperability Initiative, a testbed to advance OGC's open interoperability framework for geospatial capabilities. The RFQ/CFP will available at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/50 after 18:30 EDT, July 21, 2008. The organizations sponsoring OWS-6 seek open standards for their interoperability requirements. After analyzing those requirements, the OGC Interoperability Team recommended to the sponsors that the content of the OWS-6 initiative be organized around the following threads: Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Geo Processing Workflow (GPW) Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) Decision Support Services (DSS) Compliance Testing (CITE) The RFQ/CFP includes details of these threads as well as details of the bidders' conference, selection process and kickoff. Responses are due by September 5, 2008. If your organization is interested in participating, contact David Arctur at darctur@opengeospatial.org. OWS-6 Sponsors U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD) GeoConnections - Natural Resources Canada U.S. Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) EUROCONTROL EADS Defence and Communications Systems Lockheed Martin BAE Systems ERDAS, Inc. 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 Initiatives' Sponsors. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include testbeds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments and interoperability support services — all designed to encourage rapid development, testing, validation and adoption of OGC standards. The OGC is an international consortium of more than 365 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at: http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Contact Sam Bacharach Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc 35 Main Street, Suite 5, Wayland, MA 01778 USA Tel: +1-703-352-3938 Email: sbacharach@opengeospatial.org OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) Request For Quotation and Call For Participation Excerpted from the RFQ/CFP text describing the OWS-6 Threads 1) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) The OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework has achieved a degree of maturity through previous OWS interoperability initiatives and deployments worldwide. OWS-6 will focus on integrating the SWE interfaces and encodings into cross-thread scenarios and workflows to demonstrate the ability of SWE specifications to support operational needs. Emphasis for SWE during this phase of the OWS test-bed will be on: CCSI-Enabled CBRN Sensors into the SWE Environment Build on Georeferenceable imagery accomplishments of OWS-5 Harmonize SWE-related information models: SensorML, GML, UncertML, MathML Apply GeoRM, Trusted Services, and security models in SWE environment Events-based architecture including Web Services Notification (WNS) 2) Geo Processing Workflow (GPW) This GPW thread aims to build on the progress of previous testbeds with a focus on maturing the interoperability and capabilities of OGC web services in a service-oriented architecture with particular emphasis to address OGC web service security issues. To satisfy mission-critical goals, the architecture must not only provide for integration of a wide variety of service capabilities and resources, it must do so and ensure authenticity, integrity, quality and confidentiality of services and information. To meet these goals, the following task areas have been identified: Asynchronous Workflow and Web Services Security Data Security for OGC web services Data Accessibility WPS Profiles — Conflation; and Grid processing GML Application Schema Development & ShapeChange Enhancements 3) Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) The Aviation Information Management (AIM) subtask is a new thread within OWS to develop and demonstrate the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) in an OGC Web Services environment. The AIM subtask shall focus on evaluating and advancing various AIXM features in a realistic trans-Atlantic aviation scenario setting by devising and prototyping a Web Services Architecture for providing valuable aeronautical information directly to flight decks, Electronic Flight Bags (EFB) and hand-held devices (such as PDAs and Blackberries) while the airplane is at the gate or en-route to its destination (for the purposes of OWS-6, the aeronautical information in the latter case does not depend on the knowledge of the airplane's location). AIXM was developed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Eurocontrol as a global standard for the representation and exchange of aeronautical information. It was designed as a basis for digital aeronautical information exchange and for enabling the transition to a net-centric, global aeronautical management capability. AIXM has been developed using the ISO 19100 modeling framework and has two major components: a conceptual model presented in the form of an UML class model and a data encoding specification which was developed using the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML). Both have been tailored to the specific requirements for the representation of aeronautical objects, especially the temporality feature that allows for time-dependent changes affecting AIXM features. More information about AIXM is available on www.aixm.aero. In support of the above objectives, the OWS-6 AIM thread shall perform tasks in the following areas while ensuring that the integrity of data is preserved throughout all data exchange operations: Use and enhancement of Web Feature Service and Filter Encoding specifications in support of AIXM features and 4-dimensional flight trajectory queries Prototype of Aviation client for retrieval and seamless visualization of AIXM, Weather and other aviation-related data, emphasizing time and spatial filtering in order to present just the right information into a given user context anytime, anywhere Architecture of standards-based mechanism to notify users of changes to user-selected aeronautical information 4) Decision Support Services (DSS) Decision Support Services having an emphasis on applications of geospatial and temporal information has been a recurring thread in previous OWS testbeds. This thread focuses on presenting and interacting with data obtained from the sensor web and geoprocessing workflows in the most effective ways to support analysis and decision making. The focus for DSS in OWS-6 builds on portrayal, WMS Tiling, and integrated client work from OWS-4, with additional work on 3D visualization and integration of the built environment and landscape. This thread will encompass these capabilities and task areas: ISO 19117 and OGC SLD Portrayal 3D Portrayal of GML with Fly-through Hosting CityGML data with WFS Outdoor and indoor 3D route and tracking services WMS performance (tiling) Integrated Client for multiple OWS services 5) Compliance Testing (CITE) Validating compliance with an OGC specification means verifying that a software product has implemented the specification correctly by testing the software interface for response and behavior that is outlined in the specification. Verifying compliance to the standard is necessary in order to achieve interoperability. As a result, geospatial application vendors desire to provide their potential costumers a means to verify adherence to OGC standards as a measurable discriminator for the interoperability of software products. Similarly, users desire assurance that acquired software components will interoperate with their existing investments in OGC-compliant technology. The Conformance and Interoperability Test and Evaluation (CITE) thread is intended to provide the geospatial industry (consumers and vendors) a methodology and tools that will test compliance with OGC web services. The OGC Interoperability Program and the OGC Specification Program have achieved a great deal of momentum as a result of the multiple OGC web service specifications that have recently been published. Key consumers in the geospatial industry are modernizing their enterprises based on the applicability and interoperability of OGC web services. The major geospatial industry consumers require verifiable proof of compliance with OGC specifications in order to reach the desirable outcome of interoperability. Furthermore, as the OGC technology stack has matured, a group of interfaces has emerged that represents a baseline of technology needed to implement a fully interoperable, end-to-end spatial data infrastructure. The CITE threads in previous OWS projects have made significant progress towards having a complete suite of compliance tests for this baseline of interfaces. A major focus of OWS-5 was on achieving consensus on the format and content of an Abstract Test Suite (ATS). The OWS-5 CITE participants agreed to follow the ISO guidance for writing Abstract Test Suites. The ATS are used to develop Executable Test Suites which are the scripts that the TEAM Engine runs to conduct an automated compliance test. A major focus of OWS-6 CITE will be in clearly documenting the approach to defining Abstract Test Suites. This will be a great benefit to the OGC community as the OGC Architecture Board (OAB) requires that new specifications be published with an accompanying ATS. In addition, a focus of OWS-6 CITE will be to expand the usability of the existing OGC compliance tests by "tailoring" these tests for specific schema profiles and/or data. See the ZIP archive for OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ, or download the individual files: OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Main Body OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex A OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex B OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex C OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Annex D OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Template - Funding OGC Web Services, Phase 6 (OWS-6) RFQ Template - Proposal Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See also Geography Markup Language (GML).