DATA, METADATA - WHO CARES?

There is a traditional saying that metadata are understandable, semantic-rich, and searchable. Data, on the other hand, are big, with no accessible semantics, and just downloadable. Not only has this led to an imbalance of search support from a user perspective, but also underneath to a deep technology divide often using relational databases for metadata and bespoke archive solutions for data.

Our vision is that this barrier will be overcome, and data and metadata become searchable likewise, leveraging the potential of semantic technologies in combination with scalability technologies. Ultimately, in this vision ad-hoc processing and filtering will not distinguish any longer, forming a uniformly accessible data universe.

In the European EarthServer initiative, we work towards this vision by federating database-style raster query languages with metadata search and geo broker technology. We present our approach taken, how it can leverage OGC standards, the benefits envisaged, and first results.