Applying SOA to earth observation: the COS(OT) experience

In this work, we introduce an implementation of COS(OT), an open federated framework allowing discovery and interoperability of disparate geographic information resources and it also implements some concept of an SDI for environmental sciences datasets. Environmental sciences data is a kind of geoinformation dealing with phenomena implicitly and explicitly associated with a location relative to the Earth. In the context of COS(OT), the managed data is of imagery, gridded and coverage data (IGCD) stemming from Earth observation. On the other hand, the service-oriented approach which has semistructured data model and latest standard Web technologies with the current geomatics standardization process and it is used to prove as a feasible solution to the problem. Thus the two main COS(OT) business processes are described an their implementations are reported.