ONA is the operational naming authority established by OGC. The goal of ONA is to foster interoperability and compatibility between implementations utilizing OGC technology through the registration and mediation of assigned names and numbers. ONA is specifically concerned with names and numbers not already administered by other bodies (e.g., IANA).
ONA Process
The current ONA process is based on the naming process established by the OGC and administered by the OGC Architecture Group. The OGC is currently developing a naming process guide. Until this is completed, the OGC Specification Document "OWS Common 1.1" as well as the OGC URN documents for assigning Coordinate Reference System documents should be used as guides. The new document will describe the overall purpose of ONA, how numbers and names are allocated, etc.
Requests for Assigned Names or Numbers
Requests for ONA assigned names or numbers should be submitted via the ONA request form by selecting the appropriate Name Space. Requests will be reviewed by the Technical Committee Chair and the OGC Architecture Working Group Secretary, and will be granted if they fulfill the requirements outlined in the above referenced documents. The assignment of a name or number will be recorded in the ONA database.
To get to a form to submit a request, there is a link available on the relevant pages listed below.
ONA Administration
ONA is administered by the OGC Architecture WG. If you have comments on ONA or the ONA processes, please contact either the Architecture WG Chair or the Technical Committee Chair.
General Overview
ONA maintains a namespace registry based on URNs in support of the specifications produced by OGC. The ONA registry allocates these URNs based upon a reserved NID ('ogc'). See RFC xxxx (Currently OGC Document 06-166) for the document which reserved this NID.
The Namespace Specific String (NSS) of all URNs that use the "ogc" NID will have the following structure:
urn:ogc:{OGCresource}:{ResourceSpecificString}