An Analysis of Technology Choices for Data Grids in a Spatial Data Infrastructure

The concept of grid computing has permeated all areas of distributed computing, changing the way in which distributed systems are designed, developed and implemented. Data grids enable the sharing of data in a virtual organisation and are typically implemented for data federation in data-intensive environments. So far, they have been applied to traditional data (text, image, sound). We present a scenario that describes for the first time how data grids can be applied to enable the sharing of address data in a spatial data infrastructure (SDI). Consolidating spatial data from distributed heterogeneous sources into a single centralised dataset requires, amongst others, a considerable human coordination effort. A data grid consolidates data directly from the distributed sources, thereby eliminating the effort. We present a reference model called Compartimos (Spanish for ‘we share’), that is based on the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) but is customised for sharing address data in an SDI, and we analyse existing technologies, such as the Globus Toolkit, ISO 19100 standards and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service implementation specifications, for Compartimos. This article advances the mutual understanding between data grids and SDIs and sheds light on a future technological solution that could overcome some of the data sharing impediments that are experienced in SDIs today. Finally, results from the analysis and future directions for research are discussed.