12 GIS PRODUCT NEWS ArcGIS Server Geoportal Extension Manages Geospatial Resources Enterprise-wide Organizations Benefit Through Improved Efficiency and Effectiveness Highlights n The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension provides powerful, intuitive tools and features to develop GIS portals. n Organizations can manage and publish the metadata for their geospatial resources. n The extension’s out-of-the-box portal application includes a fully functional metadata catalog. With the release of ArcGIS 9.3.1, the GIS Portal Toolkit becomes the ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension. In addition to fully integrating into ArcGIS Server, the Geoportal extension includes several enhancements: • It includes the North American Profile and Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) metadata standards. These standards are required for an organization to participate in the North American and European National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) networks. • It includes enhanced security with recordlevel metadata access control. Based on single or multiple Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), this enhancement gives access to metadata resources only to people and business units that need it. • It can now make direct searches for all registered Catalog Service for the Web (CSW) repositories. Users can now search other portals from within a single GIS portal. • It now uses the ArcGIS API for JavaScript to preview map services and feeds. Users can preview services, including ArcIMS and KML services, without loading a browser plug-in or launching a desktop GIS application. Benefits of a GIS Portal Recent years have witnessed the rapid advance and expanding use of automated mapping, GIS, and spatial data communication technologies. Such progress—along with the associated growth in geospatial data collection activity by organizations and governments throughout the world—has helped create a global reservoir of electronically enabled geospatial information that has a real potential for improving decision making and operations at all levels of endeavor in all types of organizations. For this potential to be fully realized, geospatial information resources must be positioned both institutionally and technologically for discovery, exchange, and use. A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) has evolved as a conceptual framework to enable geospatial information sharing at a significant scale. The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension provides a technical mechanism—a GIS portal or geoportal— for posting, discovering, and exchanging existing geospatial resources in support of both broadly based SDIs and more narrowly framed local and organization-specific data-sharing communities. Geoportals reduce the time users spend finding relevant geospatial resources that meet their needs and help ensure that they only use approved, highquality datasets. Capabilities of the ArcGIS Server Geoportal Extension The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension gives organizations the capability to organize and publish the location and descriptions of their geospatial resources and gives users the ability to discover and connect to these resources. Metadata is the information that describes the content, quality, condition, origin, and other characteristics of a resource. Metadata for geospatial resources typically documents how, when, where, and by whom the data was collected; the availability and distribution information; its projection, scale, resolution, and accuracy; and its reliability compared to established standards. The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension collects and publishes metadata in a central catalog that allows users to search and access the associated resources. It does not create or duplicate geospatial resources but allows organizations to leverage existing resources regardless of their location, format, or structure. It encourages collaboration and cooperation among multiple departments and organizations by facilitating sharing of geospatial resources regardless of GIS platform. It also gives organizations an enterprise-level awareness of disparate geospatial resources and activities. The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension addresses the needs of four very different constituencies: • Resource users who use geoportals to discover and gain access to datasets, analyses, tools, and Web services for use in their own projects. They need an easy-to-use, intuitive interface for finding, previewing, and using the resources and trust that they are using the most current, best quality, resource available. This discovery process needs to be integrated as much as possible in the users’ workflows. Their interest is in the content available in a geoportal, not in the geoportal itself. • Resource publishers who use GIS portals to publish and share the resources they have authored. The goal of the ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension is to minimize the overhead of publishing and maintaining their resources’ descriptions. • Developers who create applications that consume one or more services available through a geoportal. They need a comprehensive services platform with a variety of application programming interfaces that allow them to quickly and easily create custom applications. • Administrators who are responsible for main- The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension provides all the components that users need to create their own GIS portals. taining the quality, currentness, and availability of the geoportals and resources. They need a complete system for evaluating new record descriptions, implementing access control to resources, and integrating geoportals into existing enterprise IT infrastructures. The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension provides powerful, intuitive tools and features to make it easy for everyone to develop, administer, and use GIS portals. Developing GIS Portals To help portal developers get a GIS portal up and running quickly, the ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension includes an out-of-the-box portal application. This application gives users a fully functional metadata catalog to search and publish resources and uses the ArcGIS API for JavaScript to preview resources. The out-of-the-box application is simple to customize, with documentation included that demonstrates how to modify every component of the application. The extension also includes a REST API that portal developers can use to integrate GIS portals into their external Web applications. The REST API supports GeoRSS, KML, and HTML outputs, which allows developers to include dynamic portal feeds in other applications. For example, a GeoRSS feed could be used to notify portal users, in real time, about updates to the GIS portal. Administering GIS Portals The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension integrates well with enterprise architectures because it is built on service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles, supporting existing IT, Web, and geospatial interoperability standards, including industry specifications of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC). The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension includes enhanced security features. It supports user authentication with an external authentication service through the LDAP. This protocol is available on most user directories, including, but not limited to, Microsoft Active Directory, Sun Open Directory Server, Oracle CoreID, and IBM Lotus Domino. Sensitive data can remain behind the firewall, and access can be restricted to authorized employees and business units. Global Doorway to Understanding the Earth GEOSS GEO Portal In 2003, the European Commission, along with 76 other international governments, formed the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to strengthen global cooperation in developing earth observation systems. GEO is a voluntary coalition of governments that serves as a task force for developing new earth observation projects and coordinating strategies and investments to increase global awareness. To achieve its task, GEO began constructing a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) in 2005. Based on a 10-year implementation plan that will be The GEOSS GEO Portal makes Earth Observation finalized in 2015, GEOSS will yield a broad data available to scientists around the globe. range of “societal benefit areas” that address many major challenges facing our world. Among these societal benefits, which require precise geospatial awareness to address, are reducing deaths and loss of property from natural and human-caused disasters, understanding and improving environmental factors harmful to human health and biodiversity, and improving the management of energy resources. Of the many goals for GEOSS, one is to eliminate key obstacles to data access. GEO recognizes the need for full and open exchange of observations, guaranteed data access and usability, and a solid regulatory framework for earth observations. Soon after GEOSS was proposed, GEO contracted with Esri Professional Services to build the GEOSS GEO Portal using Esri’s ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension (formerly the GIS Portal Toolkit). The GEOSS GEO Portal offers a single Internet access point for data, imagery, and analytic software packages relevant to all parts of the globe. It connects users to existing databases and portals and provides reliable, up-to-date, and user-friendly information, vital for the work of decision makers, planners, and emergency managers. The ArcGIS Server Geoportal extension is a standards-based platform for building geospatial portals, spatial data infrastructures, and metadata catalogs. It gives GEO partners the capability to organize and publish the locations of geospatial datasets, applications, and Web resources while providing users with the ability to discover those resources and facilitating access to them (see main article above). Conclusion Today, the GEOSS GEO Portal provides scientists with easy access to a wealth of earth observation data and Web mapping services. It is a global doorway to increasing our understanding of the earth and helping participants move from principles to action. More Information To learn more about GEO, visit www.earthobservations.org. To use the GEO Portal, visit geoss.esri.com/geoportal.