Publication Date: 2018-01-08

Approval Date: 2017-12-07

Posted Date: 2017-10-31

Reference number of this document: OGC 17-037

Reference URL for this document: http://www.opengis.net/doc/PER/t13-NG005

Category: Public Engineering Report

Editor: Jeff Harrison

Title: OGC Testbed-13: SWAP Engineering Report

OGC Engineering Report

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2018 Open Geospatial Consortium. To obtain additional rights of use, visit http://www.opengeospatial.org/

WARNING

This document is not an OGC Standard. This document is an OGC Public Engineering Report created as a deliverable in an OGC Interoperability Initiative and is not an official position of the OGC membership. It is distributed for review and comment. It is subject to change without notice and may not be referred to as an OGC Standard. Further, any OGC Engineering Report should not be referenced as required or mandatory technology in procurements. However, the discussions in this document could very well lead to the definition of an OGC Standard.

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1. Summary

This OGC document provides an analysis of the prototype implementations, approaches and performance aspects of data serialization techniques explored in OGC Testbed 13. Specifically, it describes work done during Testbed 13 investigating serialization for geospatial data sets on OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) using Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) and Apache Avro.

Protocol buffers are Google’s language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. They are described by Google in the following manner - 'think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler'. With Protobuf Google indicates developers can define how they want their data to be structured once, then they can use special generated source code to easily write and read structured data to and from a variety of data streams and using a variety of languages. Apache Avro is described as a remote procedure call and data serialization framework developed within Apache’s Hadoop project. It uses JavaScript Object Notation(JSON) for defining data types and reportedly serializes data in a compact binary format.

1.1. Requirements

The OGC WFS provides an interoperable method to access and update geodata across network-connected components. However, results from previous OGC activities and operational deployments indicate that transferring large volumes of geodata from a WFS over a network with poor or very low bandwidth can take a significant amount of time, and network capacity.

To help meet this challenge OGC Testbed 13 developed prototype implementations and conducted Technology Integration Experiments to assess optimizing data transfer under bandwidth-constraint conditions. This document discusses geospatial data size reduction techniques, focused on enhancing WFS for serialization using Google Protocol Buffers and Apache Avro.

1.2. Prior-After Comparison

This Testbed 13 work builds on experiments conducted in Testbed 12 investigating compression for geospatial data sets on OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) using W3C Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 (Second Edition). This document is available at the following link -

http://docs.opengeospatial.org/per/16-055.html

Testbed 13 Technology Integration Experiments used the same test data sets as Testbed 12, allowing comparison of the results.

1.3. Technology Integration Experiments

In OGC Testbed 13 participants investigated serialization techniques for geospatial data sets delivered by WFS Servers and Clients by augmenting WFS with software capable of producing output as a serialized object.

The testing architecture for this part of OGC Testbed 13 was configured using a combination of the following data and components:

  • Vector Data - Feature data over San Francisco representing points (schools_public_pt.shp), lines (stclines_streets.shp) and polygons (schools_public.shp) formed the test baseline.

  • Serializer/Deserializer - Component that writes and reads data in the 'protocol buffers' serialization format engineered by Google or Avro.

  • SWAP WFS - WFS augmented with the ability to write vector data into a serialization format.

  • SWAP WFS Client - Application clients with the ability to request serialized data from a SWAP WFS, using an outputFormat query parameter, with a performance recording module to gather metrics on the size of the resulting serializations.

These components were configured for testing as described in the following sequence diagram:

swapsequence1
Figure 1. SWAP sequence diagram

For compression testing The Carbon Project implemented SWAP WFS, SWAP WFS Clients and Serializer/Deserializer in the following architecture -

swapsequence2
Figure 2. Sequence diagram for compression testing

The SWAP WFS was based on CarbonCloud WFS, extended with Protobuf capability using protobuf-net. protobuf-net is a contract based serializer for .NET code, that writes data in the 'protocol buffers' serialization format engineered by Google. The API follows typical .NET patterns (it is broadly comparable, in usage, to XmlSerializer, DataContractSerializer, etc).

Feature data over San Francisco representing Points (schools_public_pt.shp), Lines (stclines_streets.shp) and MultiPolygon (schools_public.shp) formed the test baseline.

The first step in the development process involved creating objects to serialize structured data. To do this, The Carbon Project developed a description of the data structure needed for Point, Line and MultiPolygon Features. From that, a class can be created that encodes the data with a binary format. The generated class will provide the fields that make up the object and takes care of the details of reading and writing the structure as a unit.

The client was developed to support access during testing and to gather metrics. An example using protobuf is shown below:

swapscreenprotobuf
Figure 3. Example using protobuf

An example using Avro is shown below:

swapscreenavro
Figure 4. Example using Avro

Using the performance recording module, information about different compression methods and datasets were developed. Initial test results for WFS with protobuf and Avro serializations are presented in the table below. Uncompressed and GZIP Geography Markup Language (GML) and JSON are shown as well for comparison.

swapresultstable1
Figure 5. Initial test results for WFS with protobuf and Avro serializations

1.3.1. Demonstrations

Prototype implementations, various approaches, test architectures and performance aspects of geospatial data serialization techniques explored in OGC Testbed 13 were assessed in a simulated disaster response scenario. This scenario, and relevant aspects of serialization WFS, are described in the following graphics.

swapdemo1
Figure 6. SWAP demo - picture 1
swapdemo5
Figure 7. SWAP demo - picture 2
swapdemo6
Figure 8. SWAP demo - picture 3

1.4. Findings

Technology Integration Experiments conducted in Testbed 13 indicate:

  1. It is possible for Protobuf on a WFS to produce an output that is much smaller than GML or JSON.

  2. It is possible for Avro on a WFS to produce an output that is much smaller than GML or JSON.

  3. In no circumstances was the serialization produced by Protobuf or Avro on a WFS smaller than a GZIP of the same data.

  4. Protobuf and Avro on a WFS are able to produce serializations which may be rapidly transmitted to a web client application and rendered dynamically in a map display.

  5. To serialize data using Protobuf, a Protobuf 'object' must exist. Protobuf objects are specially formed structures tailored to each vector data layer, in the form of a protobuf (or other serialization) object. Protobuf objects are represented in a geospatial software system as a class.

  6. At the time this document was prepared a mechanism for creating arbitrary protobuf geospatial objects is not available, since the output end of the serialization has no way of knowing what you are trying to send. Future work may assess runtime-extensible objects for geospatial vector data (rather than those which are fixed at build-time).

swapchart1
Figure 9. Results charts

1.5. Recommendations

Given the results of Technology Integration Experiments conducted in Testbed 13, it may be reasonable to consider advancing a 'Serialization Profile for WFS'. This profile would describe Best Practices for a WFS using serialization techniques for Protobuf and Avro.

This would be beneficial to the OGC community as it may increase the utility of WFS. Protobuf is getting significant uptake in the geospatial community, so such a Best Practice would help align OGC technology with the emerging technology market.

1.6. What does this ER mean for the Working Group and OGC in general

Given the results of Testbed 13 it may be reasonable to suggest Change Requests to WFS for data serialization. Results of the Testbed will be reviewed and an assessment made as to whether significant improvements in transferring large volumes of geodata from a WFS over a network with poor or very low bandwidth are noted.

1.7. Document contributor contact points

All questions regarding this document should be directed to the editor or the contributors:

Contacts
Name Organization

Jeff Harrison - Editor

The Carbon Project

Mark Mattson

The Carbon Project

1.8. Future Work

This document was submitted to the OGC WFS Standards Working Group (SWG) for review and comment. It is expected that this document may result in changes in other documents.

Examples of possible future work include:

  • Advancing a 'Serialization Profile for WFS' to describe Best Practices for a WFS using serialization techniques for Protobuf and Avro.

  • Future testbeds could look into options for returning GZIP-wrapped Geography Markup Language (GML) from WFS.

  • Future testbeds could also compare SWAP benefits of GeoPackage against those of GZIP’ed GML, Protobuf, Avro and other formats.

1.9. Foreword

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. The Open Geospatial Consortium shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Recipients of this document are requested to submit, with their comments, notification of any relevant patent claims or other intellectual property rights of which they may be aware that might be infringed by any implementation of the standard set forth in this document, and to provide supporting documentation.

2. References

The following documents are referenced in this document. For dated references, subsequent amendments to, or revisions of, any of these publications do not apply. For undated references, the latest edition of the normative document referred to applies.

  • OGC 06-121r9, OGC® Web Services Common Standard

NOTE: This OWS Common Standard contains a list of normative references that are also applicable to this report.

3. Terms and Definitions

For the purposes of this report, the definitions specified in Clause 4 of the OWS Common Implementation Standard OGC 06-121r9 shall apply. In addition, the following terms and definitions apply.

  • Apache Avro

    A remote procedure call and data serialization framework developed within Apache's Hadoop project. It uses JSON for defining data types and reportedly serializes data in a compact binary format.

  • Class

    A container for data and code. The data within the class can be accessed with properties. The code is referred to as methods.

  • Client

    The software component that can invoke an operation from a service.

  • Coordinate

    One of a sequence of n numbers designating the position of a point in n-dimensional space.

  • Feature

    An application object that represents a physical entity, e.g. a building, a river, or a person. A feature may or may not have geometric aspects.

  • Filter

    A filter expression predicate expression encoded using XML.

  • GeoJSON

    GeoJSON is an open standard format designed for representing simple geographical features, along with their non-spatial attributes, based on JavaScript Object Notation. The features include points (therefore addresses and locations), line strings (therefore streets, highways and boundaries), polygons (countries, provinces, tracts of land), and multi-part collections of these types.

  • Geometry

    The geometry data type is used to house information on recognized objects, like points, lines, and polygons.

  • Interface

    The named set of operations that characterize the behaviour of a service.

  • Operation

    The specification of a transformation or query that a service may be called to execute.

  • .NET Framework

    The .NET Framework (pronounced dot net) is a software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large class library known as Framework Class Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in a software environment (as contrasted to hardware environment) known as Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. (As such, computer code written using .NET Framework is called "managed code".) FCL and CLR together constitute .NET Framework.

  • Object

    An instance of a class in memory.

  • Protobuf

    Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data.

  • Service

    The distinct part of the functionality that is provided by an entity through interfaces.

  • Simple Features

    An Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard (ISO 19125) that specifies a common storage and access model of mostly two-dimensional geometries (point, line, polygon, multi-point, multi-line, etc.) used by geospatial information systems.

  • Simple Feature

    A feature with all geometric attributes described piecewise by straight line or planar interpolation between sets of points

3.1. Abbreviated Terms

Some of the more frequently used abbreviated terms in this document include:

  • API Application Programming Interface

  • COTS Commercial Off The Shelf

  • DCE Distributed Computing Environment

  • ER Engineering Report

  • GML Geography Markup Language

  • HTML Hypertext Markup Language

  • HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol

  • ISO International Organization for Standardization

  • JSON JavaScript Object Notation

  • OGC Open Geospatial Consortium

  • RPC Remote Procedure Call

  • SF Simple Features

  • SWAP Size, Weight, and Power

  • TIE Technology Integration Experiment

  • URL Uniform Resource Locator

  • W3C World Wide Web Consortium

  • WWW World Wide Web

  • WFS Web Feature Service

  • WFS Web Coverage Service

  • XML Extensible Markup Language

  • XSD XML Schema Definition

4. Overview

This OGC document provides an analysis of the prototype implementations, approaches and performance aspects of data size reduction and compression techniques explored in OGC Testbed 13. Specifically, it describes work done during Testbed 13 investigating serialization for geospatial data sets on OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) implementations. The investigation focused on extending WFS with Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) and Apache Avro output formats, and the associated performance aspects of data size reduction and serialization techniques.

This document contains the following sections:

  • Preface - This section presents information on administrative and legal aspects of this Engineering Report (ER).

  • Summary - This section presents information on scope, what this ER means for the OGC in general and document contributor contact points.

  • References - This section presents information on documents that are referenced in this Engineering Report.

  • Terms - This section presents information on terms and abbreviations that are used in this Engineering Report.

  • Experiments - This section presents information on the component implementations, architecture and the results of Technology Integration Experiments conducted.

  • Findings - This section summarizes the findings. It also provides forward-looking recommendations.

5. Experiments

This OGC document provides an analysis of the prototype implementations, approaches and performance aspects of data serialization techniques explored in OGC Testbed 13. Specifically, it describes work done during Testbed 13 investigating serialization for geospatial data sets on OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) using Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) and Apache Avro.

This section provides an analysis of the prototype implementations, various approaches, test architectures and performance aspects of geospatial data serialization techniques explored in OGC Testbed 13 and findings.

This section presents information on:

  • Background

  • Requirements

  • Prior-After Comparison

  • Technology Integration Experiments

  • Demonstration

5.1. Background

The investigation focused on bringing together four key technologies to assess the associated performance aspects of data size reduction and serialization techniques

  • Web Feature Service (WFS)

  • Simple Features

  • Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf)

  • Apache Avro

5.1.1. Web Feature Service (WFS)

The OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) Implementation Specification allows a client to retrieve geospatial data encoded in Geography Markup Language (GML) and other formats from multiple Web Feature Services. The specification defines operations for data access and manipulation operations on geographic features, using HTTP as the distributed computing platform. Via these interfaces, a Web user or service can combine, use and manage geodata — the feature information behind a map image.

This International Standard specifies the behaviour of a service that provides transactions on and access to geographic features in a manner independent of the underlying data store. It specifies discovery operations, query operations, locking operations, transaction operations and operations to manage stored parameterized query expressions:

  • Discovery operations allow the service to be interrogated to determine its capabilities and to retrieve the application schema that defines the feature types that the service offers.

  • Query operations allow features or values of feature properties to be retrieved from the underlying data store based upon constraints, defined by the client, on feature properties.

  • Locking operations allow exclusive access to features for the purpose of modifying or deleting features.

  • Transaction operations allow features to be created, changed, replaced and deleted from the underlying data store.

  • Stored query operations allow clients to create, drop, list and described parameterized query expressions that are stored by the server and can be repeatedly invoked using different parameter values.

This International Standard defines eleven operations:

  • GetCapabilities (discovery operation)

  • DescribeFeatureType (discovery operation)

  • GetPropertyValue (query operation)

  • GetFeature (query operation)

  • GetFeatureWithLock (query & locking operation)

  • LockFeature (locking operation)

  • Transaction (transaction operation)

  • CreateStoredQuery (stored query operation)

  • DropStoredQuery (stored query operation)

  • ListStoredQueries (stored query operation)

Some WFS servers may also support additional non-GML feature encodings and client applications may access them using the outputFormat parameter domains. However, the WFS International Standard does not describe how a server would operate upon such encodings. This is an important distinction for data serialization interoperability testing, demonstration and operational implementation.

5.1.2. Simple Features

Simple Features is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard (ISO 19125) that specifies a common storage and access model of mostly two-dimensional geometries (point, line, polygon, multi-point, multi-line, etc.) used by geospatial information systems.

The Simple Features Implementation Specification for SQL forms the basis of multiple encodings of two-dimensional geometries including GeoJSON, a geospatial data interchange format based on JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).

5.1.3. Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf)

Protocol buffers are Google’s language-neutral, platform-neutral mechanism for serializing structured data. They are described by Google in the following manner - 'think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler'. With Protobuf, Google indicates developers can define how they want their data to be structured once, then they can use special generated source code to write and read structured data to and from a variety of data streams and using a variety of languages such as Java, Python, C++, C# and others.

The most widely known implementation of Protobuf in the geospatial community is probably MapBox Vector Tiles (MVT). According to MapBox documentation, vector tiles "are the vector data equivalent of image tiles for web mapping, applying the strengths of tiling – developed for caching, scaling and serving map imagery rapidly – to vector data." In addition, "vector tiles contain vector data instead of the rendered image. They contain geometries and metadata like road names, place names, house numbers in a compact, structured format. Vector tiles are rendered only when requested by a client, like a web browser or a mobile app."

5.1.4. Apache Avro

Apache Avro is a remote procedure call and data serialization framework developed within Apache’s Hadoop project. It uses JSON for defining data types and reportedly serializes data in a compact binary format.

Avro provides:

  • Rich data structures.

  • A compact, fast, binary data format.

  • A container file, to store persistent data.

  • Remote procedure call (RPC).

  • Simple integration with dynamic languages. Code generation is not required to read or write data files nor to use or implement RPC protocols.

5.2. Requirements

The OGC WFS provides an interoperable method to access and update geodata across network-connected components. However, results from previous OGC activities and operational deployments indicate that transferring large volumes of geodata from a WFS over a network with poor or very low bandwidth can take a significant amount of time, and network capacity.

To help meet this challenge OGC Testbed 13 developed prototype implementations and conducted Technology Integration Experiments to assess optimizing data transfer under bandwidth-constraint conditions. The assessment focused on enhancing WFS for serialization using Google Protocol Buffers and Apache Avro.

5.3. Prior-After Comparison

This Testbed 13 work builds on experiments conducted in Testbed 12 investigating compression for geospatial data sets on OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) using W3C Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Format 1.0 (Second Edition). This document is available at the following link -

http://docs.opengeospatial.org/per/16-055.html

Testbed 13 Technology Integration Experiments used the same test data sets as Testbed 12, allowing comparison of the results.

5.4. Technology Integration Experiments

In OGC Testbed 13 participants investigated serialization techniques for geospatial data sets delivered by WFS Servers and Clients by augmenting WFS with software capable of producing output as a serialized object.

The testing architecture for this part of OGC Testbed 13 was configured using a combination of the following data and components -

  • Vector Data - Feature data over San Francisco representing points (schools_public_pt.shp), lines (stclines_streets.shp) and polygons (schools_public.shp) formed the test baseline.

  • Serializer/Deserializer - Component that writes and reads data in the 'protocol buffers' serialization format engineered by Google or Avro.

  • SWAP WFS - WFS augmented with the ability to write vector data into a serialization format.

  • SWAP WFS Client - Application clients with the ability to request serialized data from a SWAP WFS, using an outputFormat query parameter, with a performance recording module to gather metrics on the size of the resulting serializations.

These components were configured for testing as described in the following sequence diagram:

swapsequence1
Figure 10. SWAP sequence diagram

For compression testing The Carbon Project implemented SWAP WFS, SWAP WFS Clients and Serializer/Deserializer in the following architecture -

swapsequence2
Figure 11. Sequence diagram for compression testing

5.4.1. Test Suite

The SWAP WFS was based on CarbonCloud WFS, extended with Protobuf capability using protobuf-net. protobuf-net is a contract based serializer for .NET code, that writes data in the 'protocol buffers' serialization format engineered by Google. The API follows typical .NET patterns (it is broadly comparable, in usage, to XmlSerializer, DataContractSerializer, etc).

The following example from protobuf-net documentation shows basic usage of serializer for .NET. Please note protobuf is supported in many programming frameworks.

Step 1 - Decorate your classes

[ProtoContract]
class Person {
    [ProtoMember(1)]
    public int Id {get;set;}
    [ProtoMember(2)]
    public string Name {get;set;}
    [ProtoMember(3)]
    public Address Address {get;set;}
}
[ProtoContract]
class Address {
    [ProtoMember(1)]
    public string Line1 {get;set;}
    [ProtoMember(2)]
    public string Line2 {get;set;}
}

Step 2 - Serialize data

This writes a 32 byte file to "person.bin" :

var person = new Person {
    Id = 12345, Name = "Fred",
    Address = new Address {
        Line1 = "Flat 1",
        Line2 = "The Meadows"
    }
};
using (var file = File.Create("person.bin")) {
    Serializer.Serialize(file, person);
}

Step 3 - Deserialize data

This reads the data back from "person.bin" :

Person newPerson;
using (var file = File.OpenRead("person.bin")) {
    newPerson = Serializer.Deserialize<Person>(file);
}

Feature data over San Francisco representing Points (schools_public_pt.shp), Lines (stclines_streets.shp) and MultiPolygon (schools_public.shp) formed the test baseline.

The first step in the development process involved creating objects to serialize structured data. To do this, The Carbon Project developed a description of the data structure needed for Point, Line and MultiPolygon Features. From that, a class can be created that encodes the data with a binary format. The generated class will provide the fields that make up the object and takes care of the details of reading and writing the structure as a unit.

An example is shown below of a protobuf model for the MultiPolygon test data.

[ProtoContract]
[ProtoInclude(7, typof(MultiPolygon))]
public class Ows13Polygon
{
 [ProtoMember(1)]
 public string LandId { get; set; }
 [ProtoMember(2)]
 public string LandName { get; set; }
 [ProtoMember(3)]
 public string Category { get; set; }
 [ProtoMember(4)]
 public string CityOwned { get; set; }
 [ProtoMember(5)]
 public string Department { get; set; }
 [ProtoMember(6)]
 public string SchoolType { get; set; }
 [ProtoMember(7)]
 public MultiPolygon Shape { get; set; }

 public static Ows13Polygon Load(DataFeature feature)...

 public DataFeature ToFeature()...
}

The client was developed to support access during testing and to gather metrics. An example using protobuf is shown below:

swapscreenprotobuf
Figure 12. Example using protobuf

An example using Avro is shown below:

swapscreenavro
Figure 13. Example using Avro

5.4.2. Initial Test Results

Using the performance recording module, information about different compression methods and datasets were developed. Initial test results for WFS with protobuf and Avro serializations are presented in the table below. Uncompressed and GZIP GML and JSON are shown as well for comparison.

swapresultstable1
Figure 14. Initial test results for WFS with protobuf and Avro serializations

Findings are discussed in the 'Findings' section of this Engineering Report.

5.5. Demonstration

Prototype implementations, various approaches, test architectures and performance aspects of geospatial data serialization techniques explored in OGC Testbed 13 were assessed in a simulated disaster response scenario. This scenario, and relevant aspects of serialization WFS, are described in the following graphics.

swapdemo1
Figure 15. SWAP demo - picture 1
swapdemo2
Figure 16. SWAP demo - picture 2
swapdemo3
Figure 17. SWAP demo - picture 3
swapdemo4
Figure 18. SWAP demo - picture 4
swapdemo5
Figure 19. SWAP demo - picture 5
swapdemo6
Figure 20. SWAP demo - picture 6

6. Findings and Recommendations

OGC Testbed 13 investigated approaches and performance aspects of data serialization techniques. Specifically, it assessed serialization for geospatial data sets on OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) using Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) and Apache Avro.

6.1. Findings

Technology Integration Experiments conducted in Testbed 13 indicate:

  1. It is possible for Protobuf on a WFS to produce an output that is much smaller than GML or JSON.

  2. It is possible for Avro on a WFS to produce an output that is much smaller than GML or JSON.

  3. In no circumstances was the serialization produced by Protobuf or Avro on a WFS smaller than a GZIP of the same data.

  4. Protobuf and Avro on a WFS are able to produce serializations which may be rapidly transmitted to a web client application and rendered dynamically in a map display.

  5. To serialize data using Protobuf, a Protobuf 'object' must exist. Protobuf objects are specially formed structures tailored to each vector data layer, in the form of a protobuf (or other serialization) object. Protobuf objects are represented in a geospatial software system as a class.

  6. At the time this document was prepared a mechanism for creating arbitrary protobuf geospatial objects is not available, since the output end of the serialization has no way of knowing what you are trying to send. Future work may assess runtime-extensible objects for geospatial vector data (rather than those which are fixed at build-time)

swapchart1
Figure 21. Results charts

6.2. Recommendations

Given the results of Technology Integration Experiments conducted in Testbed 13 it may be reasonable to consider advancing a 'Serialization Profile for WFS'. This profile would describe Best Practices for a WFS using serialization techniques for Protobuf and Avro.

This would be beneficial to the OGC community as it may increase the utility of WFS. Protobuf is getting significant uptake in the geospatial community, so such a Best Practice would help align OGC technology with the emerging technology market.

Appendix A: Revision History

Revision History
Date Release Editor Primary clauses modified Descriptions

May 15, 2017

Initial Engineering Reports (IER)

J. Harrison

all

initial version

July 31, 2017

Updated Content

J. Harrison

all

architecture and content integrated

September 30, 2017

Preliminary Draft Engineering Reports (DERs)

J. Harrison

all

added TIE content and preparation for publication

Appendix B: Bibliography

The following documents are referenced in this document. For dated references, subsequent amendments to, or revisions of, any of these publications do not apply. For undated references, the latest edition of the normative document referred to applies.

  • OGC 06-121r9, OGC® Web Services Common Standard

NOTE: This OWS Common Standard contains a list of normative references that are also applicable to this report.

[1] Web: Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Web Feature Service (WFS), http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs

[2] Web: Filter Encoding Implementation Specification, http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/filter

[3] Web: Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard, http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml

[4] Web: Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Implementation Specification for Geographic information - Simple feature access - Part 1: Common architecture http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=2535

[5] Web: The GeoJSON Format, draft-ietf-geojson-04, https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-geojson-04

[6] Web: Protocol Buffers - Google Developers https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/

[7] Web: Protocol Buffers - Developers Guide https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/overview

[8] protobuf-net https://github.com/mgravell/protobuf-net