Proposal number : GeoServer Integration

Date	2008/01/14
Contact(s)	​Jeroen Ticheler, Emanuele Tajariol, Andrea Aime
Last edited	Timestamp
Status	draft
Assigned to release	2.3.0
Resources	The work will be implemented by FAO and TOPP

Overview

The purpose of this integration is to allow users to upload a GeoTIFF file or a zipped Shapefile to a metadata and deploy that data as a map service on GeoServer. After upload, the user will see a button that allows her/him to trigger this deployment. The metadata will be adjusted accordingly and the Capabilities document of GeoServer will provide a link back to the GeoNetwork metadata record.

Proposal Type

• Type: GUI Change and Core Change
• App: GeoNetwork
• Module: Data Manager and Metadata editor

Links

• Documents:
• Email discussions:
• Other wiki discussions:

Voting History

• Not yet proposed for voting

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Motivations

Integration of a map server allows users to quickly configure their data for interactive access without the need to go through the complexities of setting up and configuring a web map server. GeoServer already is embedded with GeoNetwork and uses the same Java technology making it easy to deploy both applications on any operating system.

Proposal

List of Activities

We may provide an implementation for the following use case:

1. A user edits a metadata, uploading the file as it is needed. Metadata also contains informations about layer type and SRS.
2. An item in the metadata list provided by the metadata search will have the button publish (or unpublish) related to it, if the resource has a valid layer stored in GN, and the logged user has edit privileges on the metadata itself.
3. When the publish button is pressed, GN will create the REST URLs needed by GS to publish the given layer. The REST URL will be different in case of raster layers or vect layers. We need at least a couple of URL in both cases:
   1. Raster layers:
      1. Creation of CoverageStore
      2. Creation of Coverage
   2. Shape layers:
      1. Creation of DataStore
      2. Creation of FeatureType

No layer name or other info will be asked to the user. We can make up this info in this way:

• Layer name: the layer name is usually derived by GS from the file name. There may be problems of name uniqueness. They could be resolved by using GS' alias facility, but there seems to be problem in using aliases in REST configuration. At the moment this is an open problem.
• SRS can be derived directly from ISO metadata. If such an info is not supplied (that field is optional in ISO), we will provide a predefined (hardcoded?) SRS.

Backwards Compatibility Issues

The functionality should not have any impact on other systems harvesting or connecting to the specific catalog that has this functionality implemented.

Risks

Due to the limited resources, complex scenario's will not be dealt with and not all data may be suitable for use. Both GeoTiff and Shapefiles require to be properly formatted before they are uploaded. The integration will only work with GeoServer instances that are embedded in the GeoNetwork release. External GeoServer instances are not immediately foreseen to be supported.

Participants

• Emanuele Tajariol (GeoNetwork)
• Jeroen Ticheler (GeoNetwork)
• Andrea Aime (GeoServer)