OGC's Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment

OGC Seeks Participants for Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment

Wayland, MA, USA. February 1, 2007.

The Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. (OGC) launched an Interoperability Experiment on ocean science interoperability on January 29, 2007. The initiators of the experiment seek participation by other organizations interested in interoperability among information systems used in ocean research.

The Oceans Science Interoperability Experiment will promote understanding of various OGC Web Service (OWS) standards now implemented in various portal applications in the Ocean-Observing community, advance interoperability demonstrations for Ocean Science application areas, and harden software implementations. The final product of the experiment will be a candidate OGC Best Practices document for the broader ocean-observing community. The Best Practices document will show how to use OGC specifications in marine-specific applications to improve discovery, access and use of Web-accessible ocean science data and services.

The OGC members acting as initiators of the Interoperability Experiment are:

Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA)
Texas A&M University - Academy for Advanced Telecommunications (TAMU)
The National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (Voting)
The Monterrey Bay Aquarium and Research Institute
GoMOOS (Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System

Philip Bogden of GoMOOS said, "The Ocean Science community recognizes that standards enable innovation in scientific research and its practical applications. Our partners around the country have years of experience using OGC specifications (e.g., www.oostethys.org), and we welcome this opportunity to inform and advance the latest OGC standards."

Organizations that wish to participate and that can meet the Requirements for Participation (see Oceans Science Interoperability Experiment Activity Plan [http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/oceansie]) must notify the OGC before February 15, 2007 of their desire to participate.

The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 335 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at:

http://www.opengeospatial.org

From the Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment Web Site

Description

The Ocean IE will advance several areas of understanding and application of OGC specifications in to web services for interoperable ocean science. The IE will apply existing specifications in the context of an Ocean Science scientific domain. The IE will refine and inform specs, rather than develop new specs. The GALEON IE is a good example in applying WCS access to Atmospheric data.

The Ocean IE will focus on these areas:

Web Services for Interoperable Ocean Science
OGC WMS and WFS access to ocean data, focusing on SOAP bindings
Application of the OGC Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Web Services to Ocean-observing applications
Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) in particular Observations & Measurements and SensorML
Sensor Observation Service (SOS) for raw observations
GML application schema for Ocean data semantic interoperability using RDF-based ontologies
Develop an end-to-end demonstration of web services increasing the interoperability of various regional real-time, ocean-observing programs.

A desired outcome from an interoperability experiment is some kind of "Best Practices" document for the use of OGC adopted spec by a community of interest. The report will be posted as an OGC pending document for consideration by the OGC Specification Program, i.e., the OGC consensus process. This kind of "Best Practice" document would show how to use an OGC spec in specific applications.

Background

The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) hosted a workshop in Baltimore October 2005 called OOS Tech 2005 (note: OOS = Ocean Observing System). The workshop included approximately 100 ocean scientists, data mangers and computer science experts from around the country. They learned and talked about "Web Services for Interoperable Ocean Science." After the workshop, a subset of the group agreed to work together on a follow-on activity to implement some of what they had learned. The agreed to build from their previous experiences using OGC WMS and WFS specifications. In previous years, they had built some basic elements of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) demo at www.openioos.org. The OOS Tech 2005 follow-on activity began with 5 loosely defined goals:

Develop an end-to-end demonstration of web services increasing the interoperability of various regional real-time, ocean-observing programs
Gain some experience with data exchange using SOAP with different tools on multiple platforms and implementations (e.g., SOAP::Lite and Apache/Axis)
leverage previous experiences with WMS and WFS that gave rise to the informal and grass-roots www.OpenIOOS.org interoperability test bed activity
leverage the Marine Metadata Interoperability demo focused on semantic interoperability using RDF-based onotologies
leverage results of a NOAA Coastal Services Center salinity workshop in September 2005

The small OOS Tech follow-on team formed their own "service-definition" team and began developing some simple SOAP interface definitions that leveraged various other OGC specifications, including GML, Observations & Measurements and SensorML. These 6-10 dedicated individuals spent several months and implemented some test examples using SOAP::Lite and Apache/Axis servers. These are now being visualized by a SOAP::Lite client that provide data aggregation and mapping capabilities to support www.openioos.org In achieving this proof of concept, the OOS Tech service-definition team struggled with various OGC specifications, including: GML, WFS, Observations & Measurements and SensorML. The service-definition team would like to consolidate their experiences into something that will allow the rest of the OOS community to benefit.

References

Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment. "The Ocean IE will advance several areas of understanding and application of OGC specifications in to web services for interoperable ocean science. The IE will apply existing specifications in the context of an Ocean Science scientific domain. The IE will refine and inform specs, rather than develop new specs."
OOSTethys. "The earth- and ocean-science communities are developing the concept of a "system of systems" for observing our planet. OOSTethys is a community effort to develop easy-to-use, open-source, standards-based software that advances the concept in the marine domain. In particular, we're implementing standards developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium."
OpenIOOS. "OpenIOOS is a grass-roots partnership effort to support integration of the various activities involved in collection of observations and making predictions of the coastal environment, including contributions from federal agencies and research institutions. 'IOOS' stands for "Integrated Ocean Observing System" and designates a national initiative to create a new system for collecting and disseminating information about the oceans. The system will support a variety of practical applications, along with enabling research. The myriad needs and benefits of the IOOS have been articulated by the U. S. Commission on Ocean Policy. See the Ocean.us web sitye."

OGC Contact

Carl Reed
Email: creed@opengeospatial.org
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
35 Main Street, Suite 5, Wayland, MA 01778 USA

Sam Bacharach
Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc
Tel: +1-703-352-3938
Email: sbacharach@opengeospatial.org

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

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The Oceans Science Interoperability Experiment will promote understanding of various OGC Web Service (OWS) standards now implemented in various portal applications in the Ocean-Observing community, advance interoperability demonstrations for Ocean Science application areas, and harden software implementations. The final product of the experiment will be a candidate OGC Best Practices document for the broader ocean-observing community. The Best Practices document will show how to use OGC specifications in marine-specific applications to improve discovery, access and use of Web-accessible ocean science data and services. The OGC members acting as initiators of the Interoperability Experiment are: Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) Texas A&M University - Academy for Advanced Telecommunications (TAMU) The National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (Voting) The Monterrey Bay Aquarium and Research Institute GoMOOS (Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System Philip Bogden of GoMOOS said, "The Ocean Science community recognizes that standards enable innovation in scientific research and its practical applications. Our partners around the country have years of experience using OGC specifications (e.g., www.oostethys.org), and we welcome this opportunity to inform and advance the latest OGC standards." Organizations that wish to participate and that can meet the Requirements for Participation (see Oceans Science Interoperability Experiment Activity Plan [http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/oceansie]) must notify the OGC before February 15, 2007 of their desire to participate. The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 335 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at: http://www.opengeospatial.org From the Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment Web Site Description The Ocean IE will advance several areas of understanding and application of OGC specifications in to web services for interoperable ocean science. The IE will apply existing specifications in the context of an Ocean Science scientific domain. The IE will refine and inform specs, rather than develop new specs. The GALEON IE is a good example in applying WCS access to Atmospheric data. The Ocean IE will focus on these areas: Web Services for Interoperable Ocean Science OGC WMS and WFS access to ocean data, focusing on SOAP bindings Application of the OGC Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Web Services to Ocean-observing applications Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) in particular Observations & Measurements and SensorML Sensor Observation Service (SOS) for raw observations GML application schema for Ocean data semantic interoperability using RDF-based ontologies Develop an end-to-end demonstration of web services increasing the interoperability of various regional real-time, ocean-observing programs. A desired outcome from an interoperability experiment is some kind of "Best Practices" document for the use of OGC adopted spec by a community of interest. The report will be posted as an OGC pending document for consideration by the OGC Specification Program, i.e., the OGC consensus process. This kind of "Best Practice" document would show how to use an OGC spec in specific applications. Background The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) hosted a workshop in Baltimore October 2005 called OOS Tech 2005 (note: OOS = Ocean Observing System). The workshop included approximately 100 ocean scientists, data mangers and computer science experts from around the country. They learned and talked about "Web Services for Interoperable Ocean Science." After the workshop, a subset of the group agreed to work together on a follow-on activity to implement some of what they had learned. The agreed to build from their previous experiences using OGC WMS and WFS specifications. In previous years, they had built some basic elements of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) demo at www.openioos.org. The OOS Tech 2005 follow-on activity began with 5 loosely defined goals: Develop an end-to-end demonstration of web services increasing the interoperability of various regional real-time, ocean-observing programs Gain some experience with data exchange using SOAP with different tools on multiple platforms and implementations (e.g., SOAP::Lite and Apache/Axis) leverage previous experiences with WMS and WFS that gave rise to the informal and grass-roots www.OpenIOOS.org interoperability test bed activity leverage the Marine Metadata Interoperability demo focused on semantic interoperability using RDF-based onotologies leverage results of a NOAA Coastal Services Center salinity workshop in September 2005 The small OOS Tech follow-on team formed their own "service-definition" team and began developing some simple SOAP interface definitions that leveraged various other OGC specifications, including GML, Observations & Measurements and SensorML. These 6-10 dedicated individuals spent several months and implemented some test examples using SOAP::Lite and Apache/Axis servers. These are now being visualized by a SOAP::Lite client that provide data aggregation and mapping capabilities to support www.openioos.org In achieving this proof of concept, the OOS Tech service-definition team struggled with various OGC specifications, including: GML, WFS, Observations & Measurements and SensorML. The service-definition team would like to consolidate their experiences into something that will allow the rest of the OOS community to benefit. References Ocean Science Interoperability Experiment. "The Ocean IE will advance several areas of understanding and application of OGC specifications in to web services for interoperable ocean science. The IE will apply existing specifications in the context of an Ocean Science scientific domain. The IE will refine and inform specs, rather than develop new specs." OOSTethys. "The earth- and ocean-science communities are developing the concept of a "system of systems" for observing our planet. OOSTethys is a community effort to develop easy-to-use, open-source, standards-based software that advances the concept in the marine domain. In particular, we're implementing standards developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium." OpenIOOS. "OpenIOOS is a grass-roots partnership effort to support integration of the various activities involved in collection of observations and making predictions of the coastal environment, including contributions from federal agencies and research institutions. 'IOOS' stands for "Integrated Ocean Observing System" and designates a national initiative to create a new system for collecting and disseminating information about the oceans. The system will support a variety of practical applications, along with enabling research. The myriad needs and benefits of the IOOS have been articulated by the U. S. Commission on Ocean Policy. See the Ocean.us web sitye." OGC Contact Carl Reed Email: creed@opengeospatial.org Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. 35 Main Street, Suite 5, Wayland, MA 01778 USA Sam Bacharach Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc Tel: +1-703-352-3938 Email: sbacharach@opengeospatial.org Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See also "Geography Markup Language (GML)."