Home › Groups › CSW Debug Blog

Geospatial data and metadata protocols, services, standards, and profiles

Submitted by wgrunberg on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 11:50am

The beginnings of a list of geospatially enabled data and metadata protocols, services, standards, and profiles we are getting exposed to. Please, comment with corrections and additions.

  • protocol
    "A set of rules which is used by computers to communicate with each other across a network." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_(computing). 
    A collection of messages a clients and servers send back and forth to aid the exchange of data.
    A protocol may be a service of an other protocol. For example, HTTP is build on the TCP protocol which is again build on the IP protocol. All of which are also standards.
    • In this case: HTTP, SOAP, FTP, URN
  • service
    "Distinct part of the functionality that is provided by an entity through
    interfaces" ISO 19119 definition
    Defines a collection of operations. The definition of an interface - like an API.
    Services such as CSW may bind to several protocols such as HTTP and SOAP.
    • Such as: CSW, WCS, WFS, WMS, OAI-PMH
  • interface
    "Named set of operations that characterize the behavior of an entity." ISO 19119 definition
  • operation
    "Specification of a transformation or query that an object may be called to
    execute. It has a name and a list of parameters." ISO 19119 definition
  • standard
    "A standard is a product that ships in volume" attributed to Bill Gates
      The implementation of a content model.  There are conceptual, logical, and physical data/content models.
  • profile
    The adoption and modification of an other standard.
    • conformant profile - narrows the original standard's specifications
    • extended profile - expands the original standard's specifications
  • service implementation
    The application manifestation or platform for a service such as GeoNetwork and deegree for CSW and GeoServer and MapServer for WMS. Could be a Web Service.

Protocols

Acronym

Type

Name

Comments

URL
HTTP        
SOAP        

OAI-PMH

    Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting A protocol and a service?   http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/

 

Services

Acronym

Type

Name

Comments

URL
CSW OGC  Catalogue Service for the Web A metadata service which supports ISO 19139, Dublin Core, and rbRIM, etc. metadata standards. Supports metadata harvesting protocols for distributed metadata repositories.  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/cat
WMS OGC  Web Map Service A simple service to return images of maps or spatial data  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wms

WFS

  OGC  Web Feature Service  A powerful service that can return vector data and or attribute data for spatial information. WFS can be configured to return GML, GeoSciML, KML, Shape Files, metadata, etc.  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs
 WCS  OGC  Web Coverage Service  A relative immature service to exchange array data such as DEM, aerial, and satellite images  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wcs
 WPS  OGC  Web Processing Service  This "interface standard provides rules for standardizing how inputs and outputs (requests and responses) for geospatial processing services, such as polygon overlay."  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wps

 

Standards and Profiles

Acronym

Type

Name

Comments

URL
 ISO 19139 metadata standard / logical data model  Geographic information -- Metadata -- XML schema implementation  Implementation of the ISO 19115 & ISO 19119 standards (conceptual data model)  
 ISO 19115 metadata definition / conceptual data model  Geographic information -- Metadata  covers metadata for "dataset" records  
 ISO 19119 metadata definition / conceptual data model  Geographic information -- Services expands on ISO 19115 to cover metadata for "service" records (WMS, WFS, WCS, etc. services)  
 Dublin Core  metadata standard    the librarian's metadata standard; only captures minimum bounding rectangle; defined by ISO 15836  http://dublincore.org/
 ebRIM  metadata standard   metadata standard of the Open Archive Initiative  
 GML  data standard  Geography Markup Language  good for vector data  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml
 GeoSciML  data standard    A GML application language. Supports complex features  http://www.geosciml.org/
INSPIRE  metadata profile  Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe  INSPIRE's implementation of ISO 19115 and ISO 19119  http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu
 FGDC  metadata standard Federal Geographic Data Committee   Federal metadata standard. Might be moving towards ISO standards  http://www.fgdc.gov/

 

Groups: