Platform for Storing and Searching Different Formats of Spatial Data

Abstract

The BalticBottomBase (BBB) project aims at sharing geospatial data on the South Baltic Sea environment among researchers from different research units. The platform, which is developed as a part of the project, contains modules for storing, processing, serving and searching of geospatial data. One of the main challenges is to provide a unified way to store, describe and present different types of geospatial data stored using different formats. The platform is developed as a distributed infrastructure to better utilise available resources and uses open-source solutions in order to achieve cost efficiency. The focus of this paper is set on examining part of BBB system used to store and serve Geographic Information System (GIS) data. The paper presents different configurations of BBB system components including storing and map serving tools. Properties (including performance and maintainability) of each components configuration have been considered and the best combination of components have been chosen to fulfil BBB project requirements. These requirements include performance of serving GIS data to end users and ease of maintenance. All the tests have been carried out in real life scenarios. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.