Webservices, aka Geoservices

1. Webservices, aka Geoservices The realisation of an SDI at the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management (VenW) Wim de Haas, projectmanager ADAGUC

2. ADAGUC Outline • Aim of this presentation • Brief introduction of the Ministry • Geoservices • OSS • Historical perspective and user view • Pittfalls beyond the usual suspects • Conclusions

3. ADAGUC Deliverables ADAGUC • Open Source conversion tools • Selected atmospheric datasets in GIS format • Web service to demonstrate the usability of the above to the geospatial and atmospheric community.

4. ADAGUC Aim of this presentation • To share experiences on the development and use of OS Geotools • To give inside information on the practical use of OSS in a central government, showcasing Geoservices • To give some points of view on the mechanisms in the OSS field

5. ADAGUC Putt’s Law Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

6. ADAGUC The Ministry of Transport, etc. The core tasks of V&W are: • to offer protection against floods • to guarantee safeand reliable connections over land, water and through the air • to ensure clean and sufficient water • Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) is the executive branche of the Ministry of Transport

7. ADAGUC Water-based infrastructure Water-based infrastructure under Rijkswaterstaat management : State-managed waters: approx. 850 km of major rivers, approx. 300 km of major canals; North Sea; Delta region; Wadden Sea; IJsselmeer region • Flood defences: 300 km out of a total of 3565 km of primary flood defences • Water management structures: 10 dams, 9 discharge sluices, 2 guard locks, 50 navigation locks

8. ADAGUC Land-based infrastructure Land-based infrastructure under Rijkswaterstaat management : • 3250 km of main roads (of which > 2100 km of motorway), approx. 1000 km with traffic control systems • 14 tunnels, 7 road traffic control centres, 91 DRIPs, 51 Entry Point devices, 11 rush hour lanes, 5 wildlife overpasses Total economic value: approx. EUR 25 billion

9. ADAGUC Geoservices (1) Geoservices solutions facilitate communication between departments: • By standardizing on open interfaces • Using OGC standards • Design principle: All applications will be designed as a network of services • The motto: Build whatever you want to build guided by Geoservices, unless you have solid reasons to go without

10. ADAGUC Geoservices (2) • Geoservices = Open Standards • Geoservices = Architecture built on OGC interfaces (WMS,WFS,WCS,SLD,GML) • Geoservices = • Data visualisation • Data access • Data discovery • Metadata • Current focus on technical interoperability, not semantic interoperability • BTW: VenW, so KNMI too, is member of OGC

11. ADAGUC Geoservices (3) 2. Requestor localizes data/service Registry 1. Provider publices data and services at Registry Find Publish Requestor Provider Bind 3. Requestor start service

12. OSS : Mapserver v4.8 GDAL OGR Chameleon v2.4 GeoServer v1.0 Deegree v1.0 Mapbuilder v1.0 Proprietary software : IONIC RedSpiderWeb, Catalog, Enterprise ESRI ArcGIS, ArcIMS, ArcSDE Oracle Spatial 10g r1 LizardTech ADAGUC Geoservices (4) WCS support funded by NASA netCDF Still: GIS friendlyness is our focus

13. By definition: software in which the code is available for distribution and modification A lot to choose from: BSD, MIT, GPL, LGPL What makes some OSS projects successful and others not? Can we measure the success of OSS projects? ADAGUC OSS (Thanks to Paul Ramsey)

14. A community of shared interest is what drives a successful project The software itself is designed in a modular manner The software is extremely well documented The software core design and development process is transparent The core team itself is modular and transparent IP rights: provenance tracking ADAGUC Successful OSS projects and how to measure them

15. ADAGUC Outline • Aim of this presentation • Brief introduction of the Ministry • Geoservices • OSS • Historical perspective and user view • Pittfalls beyond the usual suspects • Conclusions

16. 2006- Trusting? 2004-2006: Experimenting Technical maturity Skills availability Service and support Change management Risk management Total costs Relevant standards Geoservices considered a stable product 2000-2004: Under the radar Stack alignment ISV support Acquisition costs Product ‘repurposing’ Niche roles Awareness Geoservices Me-too extensions User is developer Basics in place Innovation Start Geoservices ADAGUC Historical perspective: Gartner (2003) on Open Source Applications

17. Quality Assurance Benefits Licensing Model No Licenses (Upfront or Upgrade) No Over- commitment No Supplieror License Management Peer Support Groups No Ongoing Maintenance Mutual Dev. Model Mktg. Hype Social Movement Skill Transfer and Training Internal Maintenance and Development Disposal and Replacement Selection/ Audit Fees Internal Support PoliticalHype Costs ADAGUC Historical perspective:OSS: Real Benefits, Hidden Costs Open-Source Software After Gartner 2003

18. ADAGUC Political hype • Motie Vendrik 20NOV2002: government shall stimulate the use of OSS and open standards, pursuing that in 2006 all government bodies shall adopt open standards • Succeeded by a statement of the minister of Economic Affairs on 2FEB2004: new legislation to lower the barriers for smaller and younger companies to do business with the government

19. ADAGUC Costs: Internal maintenance and development • DIY: you’re at the steering wheel • Fun if you like it: change management, release cycles is more of an issue compared to traditional software development  opportunities for OSS companies (packaging) • It’s all about creating trust both internally and externally

20. ADAGUC Benefits: Quality guarantee • OSS provides an excellent tool for keeping ALL vendors on edge: true interoperability is not something written down in a white paper, but proofs itself only in real production environments • OSS fits the equation

21. ADAGUC Remember Putt’s Law? Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

22. ADAGUC The not so obvious pittfalls (1) First comment on Putt’s Law: • A third type of people can be identified who neither manage nor understand the technology, whether it be OSS or Open Standards: the end-users • And after all, why should they? • Why rebuild everything we already have • Open standards may be working, but what about my functionality? • A technology driven programme contrasts with functionality driven users

23. ADAGUC The not so obvious pittfalls (2) Users, management and IT have different perspectives: • Users are data centered, IT is services centered, and management has a strong budget focus and they all have different timescales • In R&D environments end-users are developers too

24. ADAGUC Concluding remarks • Everybody can exchange geo-information via the geoservices framework • OSS is not for the faint at heart • OSS is not longer developer centric, but instead, users are becoming more into play • After burner: the only successful SDI’s are backed up by legislation: European Water Directive, INSPIRE

25. ADAGUC Some application screenshots

26. ADAGUC Implementatie 2

27. ADAGUC Implementatie 3

28. ADAGUC Implementatie 4

29. ADAGUC URL’s http://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/apps/geoservices/portaal/ http://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/services/geoservices/basispakket/dtb? http://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/services/geoservices/basispakket/grenzen?

30. ADAGUC Questions? Wim de Haas mailto:w.c.a.dhaas@agi.rws.minvenw.nl