RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 10, ES6001, doi:10.2205/2007ES000261, 2008

Architecture of Electronic Earth Project

2007ES000261-fig03
Figure 3
[6]  Let us examine in detail the project architecture (Figure 3). For the interaction of the portals of "Electronic Earth'' at the level of metadata an integrated structure of requests and responses for each component of the system is used. A portal of every system applies its own methods of storing and searching metadata, providing only a unified language of requests and responses.

[7]  Whereas metadata is valuable by itself, solution of concrete research tasks requires interaction of portals and a user at a level of concrete geodata and analytical methods of their transformation and processing. Hence the analytical methods imply analytical GIS systems and autonomous computing methods, applied in GRID systems.

[8]  The environment provides an opportunity to use a great number of accumulated geodata, distributed among the project portals and in the Internet. A user does not have to make any transformations. The data includes both descriptive data (publications, references etc.) and digital data (maps, databases,...). Digital data can be downloaded both directly from the project servers (static or rarely changed data) and from proxy servers for quick-changeable data (e.g. operative catalogue of earthquakes). The system also provides the data, corresponding to the standards of OpenGIS consortium - WMS, WFS and WCS.

[9]  The systems technological scheme includes a great number of tools, including

a) transfer from meta to geodata and analytical methods;

b) personification of results of search;

c) geodata transformation tools;

d) launch and control of fulfillment of a task in GRID system;

e) design of GIS project, launching of GIS system and maintenance of GIS project;

f) online analytical GIS systems.

[10]  Geoinformation environment "Electronic Earth'' provides a universal combination of information resources and analytical methods with the help of a bi-component model of metadata. The first component is an "ordinary'' metadata together with the type of data and reference to the second component of metadata. The structure of second component is fully determined by a type of data reflecting its parametrical component. An additional advantage of search and selection of data through the central portal is the use of a powerful system of classifiers, including the VINITI and GRNTI classifiers. In the nearest future specialized classifiers in the field of Earth sciences are expected to be located at the portal and the system of their automatic correlation will be introduced as well.

[11]  Impressive methods of user's personification are developed, including his authorization, organization of a personal meta database, obtained as a result of distributed search, database of GIS projects and data processing in GRID systems. At that a user can confidentially integrate with the available data and analytical resources his personal data and program modules. These databases together with private geodata and program modules of a user and necessary mechanisms and methods of data integration and transformation comprise his individual information field.


RJES

Citation: Arskiy, Yu. M., A. V. Veselovsky, B. G. Gitis, and A. N. Shogin (2008), Electronic Earth -- network environment of search, integration and analysis of geodata, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 10, ES6001, doi:10.2205/2007ES000261.

Copyright 2008 by the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences

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