1. Geoplatform.gov: A Standards Perspective 18 June 2015

2. 2 AGENDA 01 02 03 04 Geospatial Platform Open Data and Services Q&A Architecture Building Blocks

3. Geospatial Platform

4. NSDI Strategic Plan Includes: 3 Strategic Goals 9 Objectives 29 Actions Objective 1.1. Develop geospatial interoperability reference architecture Objective 1.2. Establish the Geospatial Platform as the Federal geospatial data, services, and applications Web-based service environment Objective 1.3. Expand the use of cloud computing Objective 1.4. Promote the use of geospatial multiagency acquisition vehicles for interagency and intergovernmental purchases Objective 2.1. Advance the portfolio management process for National Geospatial Data Assets (NGDA) Objective 2.2. Identify potentially duplicative investments and opportunities for collaborative investments Objective 3.1. Lead and participate in the development and coordination of… standards applicable to the geospatial community Objective 3.2. Convene the leadership of the geospatial and non-geospatial communities to… partnerships and shared approaches for addressing critical national issues Objective 3.3. Raise awareness of the NSDI and its impact on critical national and international issues = GeoPlatform directly supports

5. 5 Geospatial Platform Capabilities - Now Web Presentation and Collaboration Search / Catalog National Geospatial Data Assets Shared IT and Data Investments Geoplatform.gov Standard web portal content News, rotating banner, contextual info Geospatial capabilities Featured maps & apps Trending data Help for developers & data publishers Content organized by Communities A-16 Theme Communities Cross-Agency Collaboration Communities Agency “storefront” Communities Private Communities

6. 6 Geospatial Platform – Challenges The value of geospatial data and tools are now recognized across nearly all lines of government business. But major challenges remain: Inconsistent success in discovering and accessing the right data at the right time Inability to surface our authoritative / key national data in search results Incomplete and inconsistent portfolio of “nationally significant” geospatial data Slow rate of adoption for technological innovation Difficulty leveraging and re-using innovations (tools, analytical capabilities, etc.) developed elsewhere in government

7. 7 Geospatial Platform Capabilities – Emerging Integrating new apps, services and tools Imminent: Web Map Viewer, AGOL Map Harvest, Map Manager, Performance Dashboard, IDM/IDP, Next: Service Checker, Resource Registry, Geocoder/ Gazetteer,… Technical Architecture Technologies, Standards, and APIs (for Developers) Guidelines (for Developers) UI Style Guide Technology Stack Interoperability Best Practices

8. Open Data and Services

9. 9 GeoPlatform Architecture “Tenets” PLATFORM Characteristic Purpose and Role Open Interoperable with other components and systems through standards-based interfaces and protocols; Key to achieving system-of-systems objectives; Assures technology/platform independence and leaves door wide open for technology innovation; Accelerates market uptake and growth by lowering barriers to integrate with other systems or to add emergent best-of-breed technologies Tiered Five distinct levels of functionality based upon separation-of-concerns design principles to reduce complexity and maximize platform flexibility Component- based Well-designed, reusable components (application components, functions, models, services, etc.) based upon separation-of-concerns design principles to reduce module complexity and maximize system extensibility Extensible Supported by a plug-in adapter framework throughout the technology stack; Easy to integrate new technologies and models; Easy to expand functionality Service-based Leverages interoperable web services to extend footprint to all points on the Internet; Maximizes reuse and sharing Distributed Accesses resources anywhere on the Internet; Reduces resource duplication; Enhances resource sharing Scalable Readily scales to meet high demand surges; Leverages shared, elastic Cloud services Intelligent Incorporates services that automate tedious tasks; Built-in intelligence to assist users in performing tasks; Adds missing machine-encoded knowledge layer Secure Controlled data and service access for authorized personnel Durable Automated backup-restore, failover and integrity protection across platform

10. 10 Shades of Open “Open” has many meanings… but often gives false impressions “Open” tends to mean accessible and interoperable… but the devil is in the details “Open” must lower technology, cost and organizational barriers, while fostering greater growth, change and acceptance across the marketplace Historically, “open” has proven to be a major way to drive costs down and increase variety and innovation… if done right Our Goal: Adopt a robust definition of “open” for GeoPlatform that achieves interoperability, extensibility, and flexibility objectives, while increasing resource sharing (reusability), market acceptance, platform independence and technology diversity

11. 11 Towards 5 ★ Open Data Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web and Linked Data initiator, suggested this 5 star deployment scheme for Open Data5 star deployment scheme Level of Openness DescriptionBenefits ★ Make your stuff available on the Web (whatever format) under an open license11 O.K. It's great to have the data accessible on the Web under an open license (such as PDDL, ODC-by or CC0), however, the data is locked-up in a document. Other than writing a custom scraper, it's hard to get the data out of the document.PDDLODC-byCC0 ★★ Make it available as structured data (e.g., Excel instead of image scan of a table)22 Splendid! The data is accessible on the Web in a structured way (that is, machine-readable), however, the data is still locked-up in a document. To get the data out of the document you depend on proprietary software. ★★★ Use non-proprietary formats (e.g., CSV instead of Excel)33 Excellent! The data is not only available via the Web but now everyone can use the data easily. On the other hand, it's still data on the Web and not data in the Web.data in the Web ★★★★ Use URIs to denote things, so that people can point at your stuff44 Wonderful! Now it's data in the Web. The (most important) data items have a URI and can be shared on the Web. A native way to represent the data is using RDF, however other formats such as Atom can be converted/mapped, if required. ★★★★★ Link your data to other data to provide context55 Brilliant! Now it's data, in the Web linked to other data. Both the consumer and the publisher benefit from the network effect.network effect Towards a world of unambiguous semantically- grounded linked data that adds rich context and meaning to shared data…. The last rung in the interoperability ladder.

12. 12 Towards 4/5 ★ Open Services Level of Openness DescriptionBenefits ★ Proprietary service is available on the Web through a licensed (for fee), non- standard interface O.K. It's nice to have service on the Web, however, the licensed and proprietary nature of the interface hinders interoperability and widespread adoption. ★★ Proprietary service is available on the Web through a publicly available, non- standard interface Splendid! It's great to have a publicly available service on the Web, however, the proprietary nature of the interface hinders interoperability and widespread adoption. ★★★ Service is available on the Web through a publicly available, candidate open standard interface (i.e., a new standard with public support and tangible adoption) Excellent! The barriers to interoperability have been lowered by the use of a candidate open standard. (This stage is a necessary step in evolving the platform and getting others to use it.) ★★★★ Service is available on the Web through a publicly available, open standard interface Wonderful! The barriers to interoperability have been greatly reduced by the use of an well-established, adopted open standard, from a credible standards organization like W3C or OGC. ★★★★★ Open source service is available on the Web through a publicly available, open standard interface Brilliant! Not only is the service open and interoperable, but its source code is available for those whose wish to integrate and tailor this reusable service for their needs.

13. 13 Other Important Facets of “Open” In addition to open data and services, our framework needs to support open plug-in adapters for new: Universal data models (e.g., new NGDA model) Analytic models (e.g., change detection model) Analytic functions (e.g., spatial, temporal and graph analytics) Processes / workflows (e.g., WPS) Application components (e.g., Map Viewer, Gallery Viewer, …) Content exchange formats (e.g., JSON, Atom, RDF, …) Unambiguous semantics (e.g., OWL, RDF, SKOS, etc)

14. 14 OPEN DATA ACCESS LAYER Open Data Services Tiered Architecture DATA-SERVICE INTEGRATION LAYER APPLICATION INTEGRATION LAYER PROCESS INTEGRATION LAYER Open Analytic Services SHARED DESKTOP & MOBILE APPLICATIONS Open App Components Unified Models APPS Open, Plug-in Architecture from Top- to-Bottom Shared applications that leverage underlying open components & models Shared open application components (e.g. map viewer, workflow manager tool) Shared open functions and processes (e.g. analytic functions, metadata harvester process) Shared, unified data models and mapping- transform services (e.g. Open Map Model) Shared data sources with common data integration framework (e.g. OGC services) In keeping with several other key architecture tenets, this approach improves interoperability, flexibility, extensibility, and component-data reuse

15. Architecture Building Blocks

16. 16 Target Architecture

17. 17 Functional Architecture, Level 0 DATA-SERVICE INTEGRATION LAYER OTHER REMOTE SOURCES OPEN SOURCES OPEN DATA ACCESS LAYERCORE DATA SERVICES ArcGIS WMS WFS Open Framework APPLICATION INTEGRATION LAYER APPL. FRAMEWORK PROCESS INTEGRATION LAYER FUNCTION WORKFLOW SHARED DESKTOP & MOBILE APPLICATIONS ISS … APPS MapServer A-16 TOOLS UI FRAMEWORK Websites & Content Mgmt Services Unified Business Models Mappings-Transforms Data Services Content

18. 18 GeoPlatform Core Technology Stack Native GeoPlatform Services (SaaS) Web Map Viewer, Map Manager, AGOL Harvester, Performance Dashboard More in the works… Open Technology Stack* (SaaS/PaaS) for Native GeoPlatform Services: Database – Hybrid datastore model for all needs MongoDB (NoSQL) MySQL (SQL) Graph (BlazeGraph) Express – Lean web framework for desktop and mobile applications AngularJS – HTML5-based web application framework for dynamic applications that run in the browser Node.js – Platform built on JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications Elastic Search – High-performance search services Leaflet – Light-weight Javascript for open Web maps Provisioned Geospatial Services (PaaS) OpenGeo Suite ESRI ArcGIS Amazon Web Services (IaaS) * Widely embraced state-of-the-art open technologies for dynamic, high-performance Cloud solutions

19. 19 Key GeoPlatform Standards Data FGDC CSDGM, ISO 19115, ISO 19139 (for NGDA) JSON, GeoJSON (well-defined profiles for GeoPlatform RESTful services) RDF, JSON LD (well-defined profiles for GeoPlatform RESTful and LD services, based on GeoPlatform ontologies, which are based on W3C OWL, RDF/S, SKOS, SPARQL, SHACL) Common MIME types for documents (PDF,.xls,.csv, etc.) KML, Shapefile, WKT for simple feature exchange (defacto) GML (for OGC WFS) Services GeoPlatform RESTful Services –Work with standards community GeoPlatform Application Services –Web standards (see below) OGC Services (WMS, WFS, CSW,..) ESRI REST APIs (defacto) –Proprietary, yet common across Govt Core Web Services (PaaS/IaaS) –W3C and IETF standards Core Web Applications (SaaS) –W3C and IETF standards –GeoPlatform Application & UI guidelines –Section 508

20. 20 GeoPlatform Standards Approach Use standards to satisfy Core Architecture Tenets of GeoPlatform Use Federal standards, as needed and appropriate for the task Use W3C and IETF standards as the foundation for all Web and Internet services Use well-embraced “open source”, community- embraced (de facto) standards to build upon above In absence of higher-order Web application and service standards, create draft standards and work with FGDC, OGC, W3C, and other communities towards new standards

21. Thank You. Questions? John Davidson johnd@imagemattersllc.com