NGA’s Standards Program

1. NGA’s Standards Program National Center for Geospatial Intelligence Standards (NCGIS) Karl Koklauner Deputy Director, NCGIS

2. Overview • NCGIS – Who We Are • NCGIS – How We Work • GEOINT Working Group • Standards Selection Criteria • Interoperability Activities – Examples • Take Aways

3. National Center for Geospatial Intelligence Standards (NCGIS) • 1 October 2003 - NCGIS becomes operational: • Focus is on NGA’s discipline area: GEOINT • NCGIS is the leader for GEOINT standards • Goals: • Advance GEOINT interoperability • Advocate GEOINT standards relevant to future NSG (National System for Geospatial Intelligence) environments • Foster key relationships and innovative partnerships to coordinate, adopt, and sustain GEOINT standards “We have done only the easy things when it comes to interoperability. Now it is time to move on to tougher things like joint doctrine (i.e., interoperability).” General Shalikashvilli

4. NCGIS Strategy • Leverage ongoing standardization efforts in the GEOINT industry and related industries • Establish broad-based “focus groups” to serve as a forum for coordinating standards activities • Establish a “registry” of NCGIS-adopted standards to be included in future acquisitions and established in the DISR (DoD Information Technology (IT) Standards and Profiles Registry) • Ensure that standardization efforts are closely aligned with implementation requirements and schedules • Develop a GEOINT standards process that implements this strategy

5. NGA Objectives for the NCGIS • Meet the customers’ current and emerging requirements for standards that enable interoperability • Ensure availability and usability of key data and sources including civil, airborne, commercial, satellite, open source and Advanced Geospatial Intelligence • Enable archive, discovery, retrieval and exploitation of GEOINT • Lead harmonization of GEOINT metadata standards across standardization activities • Support and accelerate NGA transformation

6. GEOINT Working Group (GWG) • Establishment • Support Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA’s) Information Technology (IT) Standards Committee (ITSC) to develop, maintain, specify new/existing GEOINT standards • Review/confirm GEOINT standards for the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) • Serve as the NGA/NSG focal point for all standards; focused on GEOINT - acting as a consumer for all standards (GEOINT and IT) GWG - Dual role supporting ITSC and focal point for NSG/NGA

7. GEOINT Working Group (GWG) • The GWG promotes: • Key relationships and innovative partnerships to coordinate, adopt, and sustain GEOINT standards • Openness and participation of all relevant and affected interested parties • Balance of interest among NSG Stakeholders • Due process for ensuring that input issues, concerns and ideas are identified and addressed • An appeals process to resolve disagreements or differences of opinion • Consensus, through general agreement, but not necessarily unanimity

8. Key NCGIS Relationships Intelligence Community NGA Components DoD Community Federal Civil Agencies Co-Production Partners External StandardsForums Commercial Sector

9. Standards Selection Criteria • Mandated • Meets agency mission, goals and requirements • Standards are effective, affordable and implementable • Not duplicative of other standards and are technically mature • Commercially supported in the marketplace • Advances interoperability • Facilitates data discovery, retrieval and reuse • Clear risks exist if not pursued • Streamlines the acquisition process • Reduces lifecycle costs

10. Interoperability Examples • Collaborated with the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) • Matured and tested an interoperability capability for geographic symbolization • Applied the NSG Geospatial Symbols for Digital Displays (GeoSym) standard and the emerging Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Emergency Mapping Symbology (EMS) in support of the FGDC Homeland Security Working Group • Provided requirements and support for a core set of OGC specifications including: • Web Feature Server (WFS) • Web Mapping Server (WMS) • Style Layer Description (SLD) • Web Coverage Server (WCS) • Web Registry Server (WRS) • Web Map Context Documents (WMC) • Symbol Management Service (SMS) • Geography Markup Language (GML)

11. GEOINT 2004 Interoperability Demonstration Participants… Major Contributors…

12. 2000 2005 Services-based Case by Case Support to Analyst More Web-based Files, CDs & Hardcopy Time to Integrate System Complexity Information Distribution Production Paradigm Data- Centric Product-Centric Imagery & Mapping Integrated GEOINT Tradecraft Complex Months Days to Hours Elegant Simplicity Why Does Standardization Matter for GEOINT Systems?

13. Take Aways • NGA has responsibility for establishing GEOINT standards for the DoD and the Intelligence Community • Community GEOINT Working Group is the venue to provide broad-based community consensus forum for GEOINT standards • Standards ensure availability and usability of key data and sources

14. GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE STANDARDS…the foundation for interoperability Standards: enabling the sharing of GEOINT across the National System for Geospatial Intelligence