1. INSPIRE and
GEOSS Catalogues
Theory and Reality
Stepan Kafka, Karel Charvat
Czech Centre for Science and
Society
1 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

2. You are forcing me to sin, because when using the
portal I always start cursing …
John, portal end-user
2 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

3. How to avoid it
• For end-users operating services are crucial
– Availability
– Quality of service / data / metadata
• Preparing catalogue of „clean services“ to ensure
availability
• First step - only WMS
3 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

4. Establishment of the catalogue
• Harvesting existing catalogues
• Catalogues CSW 2.0.2 ISO AP 1.0
• Only services (type=service)
• Periodically (P1D)
• Sources
– GEOSS registry
– INSPIRE geoportal
– Catalogues we know about
• Problems
– No central catalogue / we don’t know about services
– Classical search engines did not succeed
– Many catalogues do not response
4 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

5. 5 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

6. Harvested catalogues
• ISPIRE national nodes: Austria, Belgium, Czech republic, Finland,
France, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia,
United Kingdom
• CIDP
• EEA SDI
• ENVIROGRIDS
• EuroGEOSS
• GEOSS
• Habitats
• One Geology Europe
• Plan4all
• WHO
6 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

7. Service metadata
• Problems
– poor service metadata (missing abstract etc.)
– viewer or web page address instead of service
– no mandatory thematic classification in INSPIRE
– operatesOn broken links
– serviceType not clear
7 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

8. Testing services availability
• If Capabilities document is available and valid
• Periodically (P1D)
• Not valid services are set “hidden”, not erased
• Detect linkage in metadata
1. distributionInfo/*/transferOptions/*/onLine/*/linkage
http://myservice.com/wms?
SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetCapabilities
2. distributionInfo/*/transferOptions/*/onLine/*/protocol
OGC:WMS-1.1.1-http-get-capabilities
3. identificationInfo /*/containsOperations/*/
connectPoint/*/linkage
8 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

9. Testing avalability of services
• Tools for service provider feedback
– RSS channel
– Automatic mail notification
– “Heartbeat” record
9 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

10. „Heartbeat“ protocol
10 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

11. Results
• 2222 services harvested
• serviceType (all / valid)
– WMS = 96 / 88
– OGC:WMS = 1418 / 1351
– view = 343 / 190
– View = 1 / 1
– VIEW = 2 / 2
– View Service = 76 / 76
• All WMS : 1860 / 1632 (87 %)
11 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

12. 12 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net

13. Mobile client
13 www.envirogrids.cz www.envirogrids.net