Standards for Spatial Data Infrastructure Firm Foundations, Dynamic Implementations

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Standards for Spatial Data Infrastructure Firm
Foundations, Dynamic Implementations

• Andrew Jones
• Chair IT-004 Committee of
• Standards Australia

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The Information Age

• We are living in an extraordinary moment in
  history. Historians will look back on our times,
  the 40-year time span between 1980 and 2020, and
  classify it among the handful of historic moments
  when humans reorganized their entire civilization
  around a new tool, a new idea.
• Peter Leyden. Minneapolis Star Tribune. June 4
  1995. On the Edge of the Digital Age The
  Historic Moment

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Government Objectives

• Government Objectives
• Economic Development 
• Better Government
• Fairer Access and Equity
• Governments increasingly recognise that
• e-commerce and other ICT technologies are central
  to modern business practice and competitive
  industries
• Within Government, ICT provides opportunities to
  improve efficiency, improve systems and identify
  savings in procurement.

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Information Economy

• Expectations of government, business and the
  wider community have been raised.
• Governments are seeking to deliver on-line
  services that are accessible and responsive
• Multiple on-line services through a single access
  point
• Seamless and transparent integration of agency
  services to provide value-added services.
• Provision is dependent on the availability of
  business, information, application and technology
  policies/standards.

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IT Budget Pressures

• Declining IT budgets worldwide
• Encouraging optimisation of resource use
• Dependent upon a supportive standards regime
  being in place
• Sharing of information
• Standards-based infrastructure (common
  applications, technology platforms, networks and
  information sources)
• Sharing of solutions and resources
• Access to common functions, processes, systems
  and services

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Dynamic Operating Environment

• Push towards interoperability
• From integratable to integrated
• Shifting burden of integrating to supplier
• Has traditionally been with customer
• Increasing complexity
• Orders of magnitude
• Increasing rates of change
• Orders of magnitude

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ICT Enterprise Architecture

• A framework of policies, principles, standards
  and guidelines that guides the acquisition,
  development, management, support, and use of the
  information sets, information systems and
  technology infrastructure that support business
  processes and service delivery
• Adapted from Fong, Elizabeth Goldine, Alan H
  (Eds) Information Management Directions the
  Information Challenge. National Institute of
  Standards and technology Special Publication
  500-167. US Department of Commerce

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ICT Architecture Representation

• Interrelated views that model and integrate the
  business, information and technology aspects of
  an organization.
• Example - Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.
• Business View - Strategic business context 
• Work View - Delivery of services
• Information View - Processes and systems to
• gather, access and share
• common information
• Application View - Work processes,
• automated procedures
• Technology View - Common IT infrastructure

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Enterprise Architecture Views
Business View
Work View
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Why Use Architecture?

• Government is a complex system
• High rates of change
• Need long term solutions, not short term
  solutions
• Architecture can provide an effective framework
  for identifying the necessary policy and
  standards response to the needs of an
  organisation.
• Not silver bullet, rather a different way of life
  
• Is being used to construct interoperability
  frameworks at national and international levels.

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USA - Klinger-Cohan Act

• US Federal Government
• Requires bureaus to produce architecture
• Not optional dictated from on high
• Budget implications
• Office of Management and Budget Circular A130
  requires architecture support for all major
  programs

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The Role of Standards

• The effectiveness of an architecture or
  infrastructure is dependent on an effective
  standards regime.
• The regime is needed to perform two distinct
  roles.
• Unambiguously define the concepts, language, and
  elements of information such that they promote a
  common understanding among users and
  practitioners.
• Provide technology-specific implementations of
  the concepts that allow their rapid application
  to specific user problems. 

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ISO Open Distributed Processing Standard (ODP)

• Described in ISO/IEC 10746-11995
• Identifies five viewpoints, or perspectives, on
  information technology
• Enterprise viewpoint
• Information viewpoint
• Computational viewpoint
• Engineering viewpoint
• Technology viewpoint

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ODP Viewpoints
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EA and ODP Comparison
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Enterprise Viewpoint

• Concerned with the purpose, scope and policies of
  an organization in relation to geographic
  information systems.
• Describes
• the relationship of the information system to its
  environment in the organization,
• the role of the information system in the
  organization,
• the policies for using the information system.
• Used to generate requirements

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Information Viewpoint

• Concerned with the semantics of information and
  information processing.
• Provides a model of the information in a GIS and
  defines the processing that is performed by such
  a system.
• Provides a consistent common view on information
  that can be referenced in a GIS.
• Standardized descriptions of geographic
  information that can interoperate in distributed
  computing environments.
• ISO 19100-series domain

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Computational Viewpoint

• Concerned with the patterns of interaction
  between services that are part of a larger
  system.
• A specification of a service is a model of the
  service as seen by a client or by a set of other
  services with which this service interacts.
• Provide standardized descriptions of GI services
  for use in developing a GIS that can interoperate
  in distributed computing environments.
• ISO 19100-series and OGC domain

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Engineering and Technology Viewpoints

• Engineering Viewpoint
• Concerned with the design of implementations
  within distributed, networked, computing systems
  that support the specifications defined from the
  perspective of the information and computational
  viewpoints.
• OGC Domain
• Technology Viewpoint
• Concerned with the provision of an underlying
  infrastructure within which services operate.
• A technology specification defines how a system
  is structured in terms of hardware and software
  components.
• WWW Domain

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Standards Regimes Areas of Interest
More Stable
More Dynamic
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ISO 19100-Series - Status

• Published International Standards
• IS 191012002 Reference Model
• IS 191052000 Conformance and Testing
• IS 191072003 Spatial Schema
• IS 191082002 Temporal Schema
• IS 191112003 Spatial Referencing by Coordinates
• IS 191132002 Quality Principles
• IS 191142003 Quality Evaluation Principles
• IS 19115 2203 Metadata
• All Balloting Complete Awaiting Publication
• DIS 19104 Terminology
• DIS 19106 Profiles
• DIS 19112 Spatial Referencing by Geographic
  Identifiers 

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ISO 19100-Series - Status

• Draft International Standard (DIS) Ballot
  Complete Without No Votes
• DIS 19116 Positioning Services
• DIS 19117 Portrayal
• DIS 19118 Encoding
• DIS 19119 Services
• DIS 19125-1 Simple Feature Access Part 1
  Common Architecture
• DIS 19125-2 Simple Feature Access Part 2 SQL
  Option
• Draft International Standard (DIS) Ballot
  Complete With No Votes
• DIS 19109 Rules for Application Schema
• DIS 19110 Methodology for Feature Cataloguing

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ISO 19100-Series - Status

• Committee Drafts have been produced for the
  following
• CD 19123 Coverages
• CD 19127 Geodetic Codes and Parameters
• CD 19131 Data Product Specifications
• CD 19133 Location Based Services Tracking and
  Navigation
• CD 19135 Procedures for Registration for
  Geographic Information Items
• A Committee Draft for WI 19136 Geography Markup
  Language is imminent.

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The ASDI

• The ASDI comprises the people, policies and
  technologies necessary to enable the use of
  spatially referenced data through all levels of
  government, the private and non-profit sectors
  and academia.
• Priority Areas
• ASDI Governance
• Access to Data
• Data Quality
• Intergratability
• Interoperability

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Closing Thoughts

• The trends in the spatial information arena have
  directly mirrored those in the broader
  information economy.
• The concept of a spatial data infrastructure
  (SDI) incorporating an associated clearinghouse
  is entirely consistent with broader industry
  developments.
• An SDIs components can be considered to define
  an IT architecture for spatial information,
  reflecting the sectors transformation from
  specialist niche area to mainstream player.

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Closing Thoughts

• The spatial information industry has been in the
  business of integrating data for years
• Is aware of issues that other industries are only
  now having to tackle
• In some respects, poised to lead by example
• Needs to align with broader ICT industry patterns
• Be aware of how fit into the bigger picture
• Understand how GI standards need to fit with ICT
  standards