Architecture Implementation Pilot Call for Participation (CFP)

CFP Issuance Date: 18 April 2007
Response Due Date: 11 May 2007
Pilot Kickoff Meeting: 5-6 June 2007

This Call for Participation (CFP) seeks participants in a coordinated Geospatial Architecture Implementation Pilot. A Pilot is a collaborative effort that applies open standards for interoperability to achieve user objectives in an environment representative of operational use. Outcomes include best-practices and interoperability arrangements suitable for an operational capability. An aim of the Pilot is to reach consensus on architectural elements that initiatives supporting geospatial information systems can carry forward into operations, thereby increasing the overall level of interoperability.

This CFP seeks proposals from organizations involved with Earth Observation systems to:

• Identify components with services, e.g., portals, catalogs and other services;
• Participate in confirming the interoperability of those identified services using standards and interoperability arrangements as identified in the preliminary architecture of this CFP; and,
• Participate in the collaborative development of societal benefit scenarios to guide testing and demonstrations of the identified interoperable services.

Organizations responding to the CFP should plan to fully participate in the Pilot development activities beginning with the Kickoff Workshop.

The CFP was initiated to solicit response for the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot identified by the GEOSS Architecture and Data Committee as an essential step in moving forward to an operational capability. The Pilot aims to incorporate contributed components consistent with the GEOSS Architecture - using a GEO Web Portal and a GEOSS Clearinghouse search facility - to access services through GEOSS Interoperability Arrangements in support of the GEO Societal Benefit Areas. The GEO Task AR-07-02 will conduct this pilot consistent with the request of the GEO Plenary.

Interest in the Geospatial Pilot has already been expressed by two other organizations which have offered their pilots for collaboration with GEOSS. In the interest of providing a broad assessment of capabilities, the collaboration of these pilots provides opportunities to address interoperability on a broad scale. The Pilots are:

• The Tri-Lateral Interoperability Pilot is a collaborative, open standards development, supporting collective requirements of organizations responsible for national and regional "Spatial Data Infrastructures" in Europe (INSPIRE), Canada (GeoConnections), and the U.S.A. (FGDC)
• The Federated Earth Observation Missions (FedEO) Pilot provides a broad international venue for operational prototyping and demonstration of Earth Observation (EO) requirements and protocols as defined by the European Space Agency (ESA), together with other space agencies (ASI, CNES, CSA, DLR) and users (EUSC) and other OGC members.