OOSTethys - Open Source Software for the Global Earth Observing Systems of Systems

1. OOSTethys  - Open Source Software for the Global Earth Observing Systems of Systems E. Bridger1, L. Bermudez2, M. Maskey3, C. Rueda4, B. Babin5, and R. Blair6 Introduction Architecture SOS Toolkits - Open Source Software Catalog Service for Web (CSW) Semantic Registry and Services OOSTethys* is a community of software developers and marine scientists who develop open source tools, in multiple languages, to contribute to an Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS).  OOSTethys' goal is to dramatically reduce the time it takes to deploy, adopt and update standards-compliant web services, with afocus on the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) Sensor Observation Service (SOS). Open source Java, PERL, Python, PHP and ASP toolkits serving ocean observations from NetCDF, THREDDS, various relational database and even CSV text files have been developed. This approach matches the diverse data needs and software expertise of the IOOS community. In many cases data providers with limited software experience are able to install an SOS in mere minutes and configure it by editing a simple configuration file. This has led to broad adoption of SOS by the marine science community. These successes are being leveraged by developing an open source service registry and catalog based on the OGC’s Catalog Service for the Web (CSW) which harvest metadata from the SOS’ GetCapabilities and DescribeSensor responses. While the number of  OOSTethys software developers is small, currently about 10 around the world, the number of OOSTethys toolkit implementers is larger and growing and the ease of use has played a large role in spreading the use of interoperable standards compliant web services widely in the marine community. *OOSTethys takes its name from two precursor interoperability demonstrations: OpenIOOS, which explored the use of open standards in an Integrated Ocean Observing System, and Tethys, named after a Greek aquatic goddess, a component of with the Marine Metadata Interoperability Project. A registry compliant with OGC’s Catalog Service for Web (CSW) standard has been implemented for registration and discovery of SOSs. In addition to the CSW search interface, the registration interface translates an SOS’s GetCapabilities response into ISO 19119 service metadata. Thus automatic harvesting of metadata from the SOS GetCapabilities response simplifies registration for service providers. The registry also integrates an OGC-developed test suite, the TEAM Engine, for validation of SOS specifications. This allows for a robust validation of an SOS before registration. Compatible with GEOSS Two major goals: Open Source - allowing reference implementations to be modified and adapted, fixed and improved within an international community of interest Keep It Simple - simple enough so that data providers with limited technical expertise or resources can easily install and get a service up and running via simple configuration files and step by step instructions. Approach has led to: Broad acceptance of SOS by oceanographic community (e.g., NOAA IOOS, ESONET). Support for a variety of sources which data providers are familiar with and are already using (e.g., CSV files, RDBMS, netCDF, TDS , OPeNDAP data sources). Versions in multiple languages, PERL, Python, Java, ASP, PHP. More are on the way. OGC compliance testing (CITE SOS 1.0.0). A forum of community of developers meeting the technical and data needs of the oceanographic community. While maintaining ease of use, OOSTethys also tackled difficult issues to ensure broad interoperability, and incorporated semantic mediation services provided by the Marine Metadata Initiative. SOS GetCapabilities URL CSW Registry Web Interface CSW Registry CSW request using ISO 19119 SOS Getcapabilities URL Registry DB TEAMEngineValidator www.OPENIOOS.org Widespread deployment of SOS by the IOOS community, often via OOSTethys toolkits, enabled easy development of a client displaying real-time observations from over 1400 platforms world wide. www.OOSTethys.org ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This activity was supported by the National Science Foundation under award number ATM-0447031; Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Office of Naval Research, Award N00014-04-1-0721; NOAA Ocean Service Award NA04NOS4730254. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. OOSTethys is the result of numerous grass-roots community efforts by data management experts under the premise that “Standards enable innovation”. Those efforts, dating to 2003, aimed to adopt open standards for the sharing of ocean data and thus to enable interoperability. Ocean Science Interoperablity Experiment http://code.google.com/p/oostethys Apache License 2.0 Easy SensorML Creator A OpenSource SensorML generator was also developed that intends to hide the complexity of defining SML documents for non-expert users. References Eric Bridger - Gulf of Maine Research Institute / GoMOOS Luis Bermudez - Southeastern Universities Research Association Manil Maskey - Information Technology & Systems Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville Carlos Rueda - Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Brenda Babin - Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) Rick Blair - The Boeing Company JOIN US http://www.oostethys.org/