John D' Evans GST, Inc'

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Interoperable Portal ApproachesDriving NASA's
Earth-Sun System Gateway http//esg.gsfc.nasa
.gov/weswww/intro

• John D. Evans (GST, Inc.)
• NASA Applied Sciences Program
• Geosciences Interoperability Office

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(No Transcript)
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Purpose Scopeof the Earth-Sun System Gateway

• Purpose
• Extending interoperable access to NASAs Earth
  Science information systems and research results
• Scope
• Gateway to NASAs data products and services,
  model outputs, and informational sites
• Comprehensive registry of NASAs Earth Science
  research results
• Support for NASA and its partner scientists,
  analysts, data managers, educators, and decision
  makers
• Resource for National and International societal
  benefit initiatives
• Resource for users of NASAs data products

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Overview

• System Architecture
• Standards-based Interoperable Functionality
• Publish
• Harvest
• Search
• Visualizations
• Personalized Service
• Brief Demonstration
• Recent Developments and Lessons Learned
• Discussion

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GEOSS Architecture
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ESG Architecture Overview
Earth-Sun System Gateway Portal to data,
information, knowledge about the Earth-Sun
System
Application Integration Framework
Extensible, open portal architecture
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ESG Functionality

• Publish resources - ESG's registry is populated
  by
• Manual entry by portal users and administrators
• Fetching / parsing / storing service descriptions
  and other metadata
• Transactions using the OGC Catalog Service (CS-W)
  
• Automated Harvest from GSDI Clearinghouse (incl.
  GCMD)
• into a local cache
• Searches - on locally published records,
  harvested cache, or distributed catalogs (GSDI or
  single nodes via Z39.50).
• Visualizations
• Interactive viewer using publicly accessible
  standards (WMS)
• Retrieve layers from remote servers, display in
  single view
• Personalized Service
• Save user profiles and map context files for
  future use, to share, or to chain web services

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Publishing to ESG catalog user input and remote
harvest
Capabilities XML filesfrom OGC Web Services
(WMS, WFS, WCS, etc.)
Userinput
MetadataURLs
Harvest
Publish
Z39.50
GSDI
NSDI
NSDI
FGDC
FGDC
Metadata
Metadata
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ESG Publish

• ESG also serves OGC Catalog transactions (v2.0)
• ebRIM schema facilitates adding resource types

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Searching ESGlocal and distributed search
(FGDC/ISO 19115 metadata) Show metadata record
User
input
(WMS service) Add to viewer
Search
Viewer
External
(GSDI node) Search node
queries
Z39.50
GSDI
NSDI
(Locally published metadata GSDI Harvest cache)
NSDI
(GCMD, ECHO et al.)

• Local search uses OGC Catalog 2.0 ebRIM database
  access
• Distributed search uses Z39.50 protocol w/ GEO
  profile

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Searching ESG

• Both this user form and external XML queries use
  the OGC Catalog Interface (2.0).

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VisualizationESG viewer
Search results
Web Map Service URLs
User input
View
Viewer
layers
Saved contexts
Web MapContext files
Catalog
WMS servers
WMS servers
WMS servers
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VisualizationESG viewer
Forward, Back, Search, etc.
Viewer controls zoom in/out, load, save,
identify, etc.

• Multi-source client for OGC Web Map Service
• Supports Web Map Context files local remote
  reading, writing, and sharing among portal users

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ESG Personalized Service
Collaborate with individuals or groups, share
documents and context files.
Add users and groups, personalize with portlets
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Standards Interoperability

• Founded on open standards based interoperability
• Interoperable interfaces on sources data
  sources, in-situ sensors, models, registries,
  catalogs, etc.
• Publicly accessible standards developed through
  consensus bodies
• OGC Web Services
• Web Map Service (WMS) 1.1
• Web Coverage Service (WCS) 1.0
• Web Feature Service (WFS) 1.0
• Catalog Service 2.0 for the Web (CS-W)
• Styled Layer Descriptor 1.0
• Web Map Context 1.0
• FGDC Metadata 2.0
• Z39.50 Catalog Access
• ISO 19115 metadata

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ESG Demonstration
http//esg.gsfc.nasa.gov/weswww/intro
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ESG recent developments

• Raytheon / Synergy project
• Made an ECHO catalog instance part of the GSDI
  Clearinghouse
• Equipped it with a Z39.50 adaptor and registered
  it w/ GSDI
• This enables searches from ESG (and many others)
• Grafted in hooks for simple WCS access
• Linked ESG to a 3D WMS client (WorldWind)
• ESG invokes USDA CropExplorer (ArcIMS) service
• Operated by the Foreign Agriculture Service
• Many simple hypertext links to Science and
  Applications pages from NASA partners
• Carbon Mgmt., Air Quality, Climate Change, etc.
• New portal version implements OGC Catalog 2.0 and
  understands WFS WCS service metadata.
• ESG's Catalog Service was finalized tested in
  OGC's recent OWS-3 testbed

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Lessons Learned

• ESG becomes increasingly useful as more services
  come on-line with open interfaces
• Data / model providers need (only) to comply with
  OGC Catalog, WMS, WCS, etc. (as appropriate) to
  enable ESG access
• Working in a multi-tier services environment can
  be complex
• Troubleshooting can be challenging amidst many
  components
• Shows the importance of adhering precisely to
  standards
• Extensibility and flexibility depend on adherence
  to standards
• Maintenance needed
• Upgrade to successive versions of standards
• Troubleshoot portal issues
• Help users, publishers
• Add future services

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ESG and EIE Functions

• ESG can help
• to provide user access to metadata,
• to provide query tools associated with metadata
  catalogs,
• to provide mechanisms for providers to enter and
  edit their metadata records,
• to work with existing decision support tools and
  offer new tools to facilitate the infusion of new
  data into decision support systems,
• to make available its metadata resources to
  others through OGC Catalog Service (CS-W) or
  Z39.50

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ESG and EIE Infrastructure

• ESG can help
• to maintain a persistent registry
• to provide access to diverse metadata sources
  through Z39.50 or OGC Catalog (CS-W)
• to provide access to NASA information resources
  and research results
• to comply with community data and metadata
  standards (such as those from FGDC and ISO/TC211)
• to provide a user-customized service function
• to facilitate online collaborations (JForum)

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ESG and EIE Services

• ESG supports data discovery by i) temporal
  bounds ii) spatial bounds iii) parameter
  (browsing through knowledge domain spaces) iv)
  spatial/temporal resolution v) region names vi)
  features and events vii) themes viii) free text
  search.
• ESG is looking into accessing 4-D science data
  products in scientific data formats (e.g., netCDF
  and HDF-EOS) by enabling users to visualize
  candidate data products parse embedded metadata
  download data follow links to data sources.
• ESG supports access to data through WMS / WCS /
  WFS OPeNDAP access will likely be via a WCS
  gateway
• ESG can help to serve as a portal to NASA data.
• ESG provides several Web-based services (e.g.,
  OGC Catalog Feature Portrayal Gazetteer) gt
  machine-to-machine interaction.

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Questions?Discussion?Or contact John
Evansjohn.evans_at_gsfc.nasa.gov
Thanks for your interest