Many applications rely on the timely delivery of data. This can comprise:
Monitoring applications, which continuously check certain environmental parameters (e.g. air quality) or risks (e.g. flooding risk based on water level measurements).
Mapping applications of dynamic properties (e.g. radar images, flight/ship tracking)
Complex analysis workflows which require up-to-date satellite imagery as input
Catalogue clients that shall notify users about new available data sets or updates to existing data sets
However, the existing INSPIRE approaches for data delivery are based on pull-style communication. That means that clients connect to servers and check if new data is available. With new communication protocols and specifications that are currently becoming available, push/event-based data delivery becomes a new option. This promises two important benefits:
Faster delivery of information: With a push-based communication pattern the delivery of data can happen as soon as new data sets are available. Thus, clients receive new data as soon as it is available.
Reduction of server and network load: Currently, clients have to regularly query servers to check if new or updated data is available. If new data is directly delivered as soon as it is available, the server load created by continuously polling clients can be avoided.
Within this challenge we would like to motivate to evaluate and explore new technologies and standards (e.g. MQTT, OGC Publish/Subscribe) which may help to achieve a first step towards an event-driven delivery of INSPIRE data.
Key issues to questions to answer/investigate
Investigate and evaluate event-based data delivery in different use cases (monitoring applications, processing workflows, catalogues, tracking applications)
Explore available tools and standards
Derive suggestions how these novel concepts may contribute to the evolution of INSPRIE
Required knowledge and skills
Software engineering
Knowledge on OGC/INSPIRE standards
Interest in new technologies such as MQTT
Client application development
Offered datasets
For implementing the challenge, participants will need to make use of any kind of near-real time data set. This may include:
For offering such data sets, we would be happy to cooperate with other challenge partners and participants. If interested participants have no relevant data sets available, 52°North will try to offer a stream of weather observations.
We do not suggest specific tools but can offer support on the 52°North SensorThings API server, supporting MQTT data publication and delivery: https://github.com/52North/sensor-things
Furthermore, we are happy to provide our ideas on a REST/JSON binding of the OGC Publish/Subscribe standard.
Offered personal resources
Support of 1 day/week support; depending on the number of participants also active contribution.
Preferred ways of communication: Slack and GitHub repository (issue tracker).
Offered or suggested tools
See section “New technologies to test or evaluate”.
Desired outcome and presentation
Description of implementation approach, selected standards and technologies, demonstrator.
Offered benefits for the teams
With this challenge we would like to explore potential future directions for spatial data infrastructures to enable a faster and timely delivery of critical information. Thus, we would be happy to work with the participants of the challenge on a journal paper to summarize the results and findings.
Background & context
The background of this challenge is the idea of complementing the traditional pull-based data access patterns which currently exist in INSPIRE with event-driven data delivery mechanisms. This shall lead to two benefits: faster delivery of information and reduced server load (see summary).
Further background information on this ideas is available here:
Rieke, M.; Bigagli, L.; Herle, S.; Jirka, S.; Kotsev, A.; Liebig, T.; Malewski, C.; Paschke, T.; Stasch, C. Geospatial IoT—The Need for Event-Driven Architectures in Contemporary Spatial Data Infrastructures. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2018, 7, 385. https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/7/10/385
We are highly interested in hosting our challenge together with further challenge partners. Our focus is especially on evaluating new technologies for event-driven data delivery and process change within the context of INSPIRE. Thus, if other partners have relevant use cases that would benefit from event-based communication patterns (e.g. event notification, monitoring of environmental factors, etc.) we would be happy to work together.
We would be happy to share our tools and developments with any interested partner.
Submitting organisations
52°North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH (Simon Jirka and Matthes Rieke)
Contact point: jirka@52north.org and m.rieke@52north.org
Summary (~100 words)
Many applications rely on the timely delivery of data. This can comprise:
However, the existing INSPIRE approaches for data delivery are based on pull-style communication. That means that clients connect to servers and check if new data is available. With new communication protocols and specifications that are currently becoming available, push/event-based data delivery becomes a new option. This promises two important benefits:
Within this challenge we would like to motivate to evaluate and explore new technologies and standards (e.g. MQTT, OGC Publish/Subscribe) which may help to achieve a first step towards an event-driven delivery of INSPIRE data.
Key issues to questions to answer/investigate
Required knowledge and skills
Offered datasets
For implementing the challenge, participants will need to make use of any kind of near-real time data set. This may include:
For offering such data sets, we would be happy to cooperate with other challenge partners and participants. If interested participants have no relevant data sets available, 52°North will try to offer a stream of weather observations.
Other relevant datasets
Any kind of near-real time data.
New technologies to test or evaluate
Standards for event-based data delivery. This may include standards such as OGC Publish/Subscribe (https://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/pubsub) and Internet of Things technologies such as MQTT (http://mqtt.org/).
We do not suggest specific tools but can offer support on the 52°North SensorThings API server, supporting MQTT data publication and delivery: https://github.com/52North/sensor-things
Furthermore, we are happy to provide our ideas on a REST/JSON binding of the OGC Publish/Subscribe standard.
Offered personal resources
Offered or suggested tools
See section “New technologies to test or evaluate”.
Desired outcome and presentation
Description of implementation approach, selected standards and technologies, demonstrator.
Offered benefits for the teams
With this challenge we would like to explore potential future directions for spatial data infrastructures to enable a faster and timely delivery of critical information. Thus, we would be happy to work with the participants of the challenge on a journal paper to summarize the results and findings.
Background & context
The background of this challenge is the idea of complementing the traditional pull-based data access patterns which currently exist in INSPIRE with event-driven data delivery mechanisms. This shall lead to two benefits: faster delivery of information and reduced server load (see summary).
Further background information on this ideas is available here:
Cooperation with other Challenge Partners
We are highly interested in hosting our challenge together with further challenge partners. Our focus is especially on evaluating new technologies for event-driven data delivery and process change within the context of INSPIRE. Thus, if other partners have relevant use cases that would benefit from event-based communication patterns (e.g. event notification, monitoring of environmental factors, etc.) we would be happy to work together.
We would be happy to share our tools and developments with any interested partner.
Submitting organisations