OGC Newsletters

January 2010

CONTENTS
President's Message: The Proven Benefits of OGC Standards
Sam Bacharach Leaves OGC Staff Position
News from September and December 2009 TC Meetings
March 2010 OGC TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
OGC in Social Media
Website of the Month: USGS Framework Web Feature Services
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New OGC Compliant Products, New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: THE PROVEN BENEFITS OF OGC STANDARDS

The population of end users who benefit from the use of OGC standards today is global - much to the credit of the growing complement of geospatial technology practitioners in organizations who have been advancing OGC standards as members. As our members envisioned, uptake of OGC standards is now sufficient to make further deployment inevitable. In one user domain after another, "it just makes sense" to extend standards-based Internet and Web resources with geospatial data and processing services. It's not hard. It just requires using software equipped with interfaces that implement OGC's open standards.

July 2009

CONTENTS
Chief Technology Officer's Message: The OGC Architecture Board (OAB)
June 2009 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
OGC in Social Media
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER'S MESSAGE: THE OGC ARCHITECTURE BOARD (OAB)

In many ways, the OGC standards Baseline is similar to a deployed software technology with an installed base. There are requirements for support, maintenance, bug fixes, revisions, and life cycle management.  Years ago, both the OGC Planning Committee and the OGC Board of Directors had discussions related to OGC standards lifecycle management and related architecture issues. In 2005, the OGC Board of Directors recommended the formation of the OGC Architecture Board.  In 2006, the OGC Technical and Planning Committees approved a standing committee of the OGC members and staff called the "OGC Architecture Board" (OAB).

April 2009

CONTENTS
OGC Staff Message: The OGC Helps Research Communities Achieve Interoperability Goals
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

OGC STAFF MESSAGE: THE OGC HELPS RESEARCH COMMUNITIES ACHIEVE INTEROPERABILITY GOALS

Today's global need to mitigate and prepare for climate change adds urgency to the longstanding need for hydrologists, oceanographers, meteorologists and climatologists to share information. The physical interconnectedness of large-scale natural phenomena—such as the water cycle and weather—demands that scientists be able to easily share data and processing resources.

March 2009

CONTENTS
OGC Staff Message: The OGC Helps Research Communities Achieve Interoperability Goals
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

OGC STAFF MESSAGE: THE OGC HELPS RESEARCH COMMUNITIES ACHIEVE INTEROPERABILITY GOALS

Today's global need to mitigate and prepare for climate change adds urgency to the longstanding need for hydrologists, oceanographers, meteorologists and climatologists to share information. The physical interconnectedness of large-scale natural phenomena—such as the water cycle and weather—demands that scientists be able to easily share data and processing resources.

January 2009

CONTENTS
President's Message: The Year in Review
OGC Network Has Minutes of December 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

2008 was a good year for the Consortium. Overall, OGC achieved a remarkable set of accomplishments -- developing a range of new standards to address market interoperability needs; further globalizing and growing OGC membership; harmonizing OGC standards with broader IT standards; helping the user community create profiles of OGC standards for greater interoperability and use; and enhancing support for geospatial research. This is good news for OGC members and the global community that benefits from geospatial information and technologies, particularly given the worsening global economic climate that faces all of us as we enter the New Year. 

November 2008

CONTENTS
President's Message: Gardels Award and Lifetime Achievement Award Given
OGC Survey
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: GARDELS AWARD AND LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD GIVEN

Gardels Award & Lifetime Achievement Award Given

At our September meetings, it was an honor to play a role in presenting the 2008 Gardels Award to Mike Botts (Figure 1). In our process, the Board selects Gardels recipients from nominees recommended by the previous recipients of the Gardels Award.

October 2008

CONTENTS
President's Message: If We are Serious About Avoiding Silos ...
CTO's Report on September 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT AVOIDING SILOS ...

Every Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Standards Development Organization (SDO) -- and its members -- ought to do everything in its power to make sure that its standards fit with and are complementary to other standards in the ICT world.

July 2008

CONTENTS
Chief Technology Officer's Message: The Cloud
CTO's Report on June 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER'S MESSAGE: THE CLOUD

One of the latest IT "buzz" concepts is the "cloud" and "cloud computing." What exactly is "the cloud" and what does such a computing platform mean in terms of OGC standards? Hundreds of articles and analyses have been published and most major data center providers are actively marketing cloud computing.

June 2008

CONTENTS
Business Development Director's Message: AECOO Testbed Off to a Good Start
CTO'S Report on March 2008 TC and PC Meetings
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE: AECOO TESTBED OFF TO A GOOD START

Effective and efficient design, construction, ownership, management and use of buildings and other capital facilities increasingly requires information exchange among all disciplines and professions that have a stake in those facilities. Like other industries, the AECOO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Owner and Operator) industry has embarked on "business transformation" enabled by the latest information and communication technologies.

March 2008

CONTENTS
President's Message - Ocean Scientists Embrace OGC Standards
News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
Website of the Month
News Items

DEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe


Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE - OCEAN SCIENTISTS EMBRACE OGC STANDARDS

The Earth's largest ecosystem, the ocean, is studied by specialists from a range of scientific disciplines. Despite the ocean's apparent vastness, human activities have had a profound effect on ocean systems, and in turn changes in the ocean system have comparably profound effects on the weather and climate. The ocean system indirectly determines human impacts from a growing list of societal activities - land development, agriculture, coastal development, sewage outflow, energy production and fishing, to name a few. Additionally, natural Earth processes such as earthquakes use the ocean to unleash tremendous energy, threatening populations, wildlife and property in coastal areas worldwide. These are just a few of the ocean and coastal zone management issues that require coordinated solutions through cooperation and sharing among researchers, government agencies, NGOs, businesses and citizens. Of course, none of this is new news, but our cumulative impact on the oceans and other earth ecosystems is an extremely sobering reality and problem set for this generation and our children who will inherit that legacy.