OGC Requests Information on Contextual State Description Services

Wayland, MA, November 10, 2004 – The Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. (OGC) has published a Request for Information (RFI) ( http://www.opengeospatial.org/specs/?page=requests&request=rfi20 ) to solicit input on technologies related to Contextual State Descriptions (CSD). A CSD describes the “environment” or context in which a service chain executes.In August, 2004, the Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. (OGC) issued a call for sponsors for an OGC Web Services 3 (OWS-3) interoperability initiative, a multi-threaded test bed activity to advance OGC's open framework for interoperability in the geospatial industry. A key component of OWS-3 will be the ongoing Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) effort, in which OGC members are developing standard interfaces and encodings for real time integration of heterogeneous sensor webs involving web-connected devices such as flood gauges, air pollution monitors, stress gauges on bridges, mobile heart monitors, Webcams, and robots as well as space and airborne earth imaging devices. Several elements of SWE have already been developed and are being finalized before they are submitted to the OGC membership for adoption. CSD is a potential new element of SWE, and it is also relevant to chaining of image processing services and other services in web services environments for geospatial processing.The objective of this RFI is to identify existing capabilities that can provide a robust metadata foundation for supporting agile, adaptive, autonomous processes capable of producing repeatable, predictable results with no intervention.Organizations with relevant products regarding CSD are urged to respond to this RFI. The contents of the OWS-3 request for quotations (RFQ) will be based in part on the RFI response to the CSD RFI.For more information, contact Brent Bursey, President, Great-Circle Technologies, Inc., 703 764-9140, BBursey@Great-CircleTech.com .The OGC is an international voluntary consensus standards organization of more than 250 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geoprocessing interface specifications. OGC's Specifications support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. ###”