One of the GIGAS primary goals is to foster architectural coherence between INSPIRE, GMES and GEOSS thus facilitating collection and harmonization/convergence of respective service requirements at the level of standards.

The Architecture TN [RD1] contains a survey on the architectures and on the architectural approaches used in GEOSS, INSPIRE and GMES. The survey is complemented by an analysis of the architectures of relevant FP6/FP7 projects and by documenting related activities in the standardisation bodies.

In short:

• The GEOSS section in [RD1] presents the enterprise, information, engineering, computational and technology viewpoints of the GEOSS Architecture. The development of GEOSS has involved the definition of an Initial Operation Capability (IOC) and the implementation of an Architecture and Implementation Pilot (AIP). The requirements for the architecture were derived from the GEOSS Ten-Year Implementation Plan and from GEO Tasks undertaken by GEO members and participating organizations.
• The INSPIRE section in [RD1] provides a high-level overview of the current understanding of the technical architecture of INSPIRE. It illustrates the required elements within the infrastructure, their relationships and the responsible parties for drafting the relevant specification. This is work-in-progress and is expected to change as a result of the ongoing work on the implementation of INSPIRE. The INSPIRE Directive defines the technical elements of an infrastructure for spatial information to be comprised of "metadata, spatial data sets and spatial data services, network services and technologies." [INSPIRE Directive, Article 3.1]
• The GMES section in [RD1] provides the analysis of the Coordinated Data access System (CDS) Customer Interface which is also known as the EO-DAIL (EO Data Access Integration Layer) and of a set of GMES Core Services.
  • In order for the GMES Core Services to deliver the high-level operational services which are needed, it is necessary for them to integrate EO products, i.e. space data, with all kinds of other data and information (so-called in-situ data). The harmonised access to the space data is offered through the CDS EO DAIL. The CDS system and the corresponding interfaces at the participating GMES contributing missions are being designed and implemented by various concurrent studies and projects. The initial preparatory study "Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility" HMA-I started in September 2005 and ended in October 2007. The HMA analyses the requirements, evaluates the impact and proposes an approach to allow the desired inter-accessibility across missions forming part of GMES.
  • In the framework of GMES, the [RD1] contains the architectural analysis of the GMES Services
    • GEOLAND-2 implementing the pre-operational GMES Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS)
    • G-Mosaic the FP7 project for security
• [RD1] contains the architectural analysis of the following FP6/FP7 projects:
• o ORCHESTRA was an FP6 Integrated Project which designed and implemented the specifications for a service oriented spatial data infrastructure for improved interoperability among risk management authorities in Europe
  • SANY (Sensors Anywhere) focuses on interoperability of in-situ sensors and sensor networks
  • GENESI-DR (Ground European Network for Earth Science Interoperations - Digital Repositories) has the challenge of establishing open Earth Science Digital Repository access for European and world-wide science users.
• [RD1] contains the analysis of the architectures as managed in OGC, ISO and CEN.

The Technology Watch Architecture study successfully followed the homogeneous RM-ODP based approach as defined in [AD2]. The RM-ODP based approach:

• enables a comparison and a synopsis of the different architectures on a high level top-down approach,
• is performed for all projects and initiatives by a pool of experts with relevant know-how and expertise,
• has the purpose to identify synergies but also major obstacles for interoperability.

The main results of the Technology Watch Architecture study from Loop 1 activities can be summarized as follows:

• Different scopes (enterprise viewpoints) of INSPIRE, GMES and GEOSS result in differences in the architecture of the initiatives. It will be important to determine where architectural coherence and crossinitiative interoperability is key and to focus on these aspects.
• Interoperability between GEOSS, INSPIRE and GMES will dependent on their ability for reaching a common understanding of the differing information models. It will be important to understand how these different concepts relate to each other in order to achieve interoperability.
• The information viewpoint of the architecture study can be considered to be a preparatory activity to address the issue of semantic interoperability in Loop2.
• The Initiatives share an emphasis on using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. For example they all have elements of the Publish-Find-Bind pattern. But there are differences, too. For example, a comparison of the definition of "Service" in each initiative should be made.
• In addition to the analysis on architectural aspects also the schedules of the three initiatives as well as of the FP6/FP7 projects and standardization bodies need to be understood. Internal schedules are asynchronous and not correlated both among themselves and with GIGAS activities; an identification of respective key milestones or intervention points is needed. This has to drive the assignment of priorities to convergence and outreach activities in order to match the necessary deadlines, to provide timely inputs and to receive timely outputs.

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Last updated 852 days ago by Simon Cox