Maturing OGC compliance test program for the benefit of the NSG

As the functional manager for GEOINT, NGA created the Geospatial Intelligence Standards Working Group GWG in partnership with the Defense Information Systems Agency Information Technology Standards Committee. The NCGIS chairs the GWG and provides secretariat support. The GWG serves as the community’s advocate for information technology standardization activities related to GEOINT. At the opening meeting of the GWG, the keynote speaker, Bobbi Lenczowski, Senior Executive, NGA West, highlighted the practical needs and difficulties in achieving standardization and recognizing that “…interoperability cannot happen without standards and standards agreements. We have an awesome responsibility before us.” The GWG is open to all National System for Geospatial-Intelligence personnel interested in facilitating the adoption, promulgation and use of GEOINT standards for enabling technologies, data architecture and software. The GWG serves as the community forum for the coordination of GEOINT standards for NSG. The primary responsibilities of the GWG are to 1 coordinate population of the DoD IT Standards Registry DISR with GEOINT standards and 2 serve as the NSG Community of Interest for all standardization activities and functions related to GEOINT. The GWG focuses on GEOINT standards that enable interoperability in net- and data- centric environments and standards that support enabling technologies, data architectures, and software tools. The GWG has identified OGC specifications among those critical baseline standards that the GEOINT community must adopt. GWG has emphasized critical need for NSG to use SCOTS that adhere to the Spatial Data Infrastructure 1.0 Baseline SDI 1.0. SDI 1.0 includes multiple OGC implementation specifications including WMS, WCS, WFS, CSW, GML, etc. OGC is an Associate Member of the GWG. Associate Members serve as subject matter experts and technical advisors to the GWG. NGA is a Strategic Member of the Open Geospatial Consortium OGC. Strategic Membership is the consortiums highest level of membership, involving significant participation in the OGCs Management Committee, Technical Committee and Interoperability Program. The reason for NGAs continuing participation was explained by Christopher D. Cuppan, NSG Chief Architect, Office of Geospatial Intelligence Functional Management, We at NGA share with the OGC a common architectural vision for a world in which everyone benefits from geographic information and services made available across any network, application, or platform. Our mission, Know the Earth, Show the Way, benefits substantially from the work that the OGC has accomplished since its inception, and we recognize that increasingly, the future success of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence NSG is intertwined with the success of the Consortium. Strategic membership in OGC allows NGA to direct requirements in the OGC Interoperability Program, including requirements for Interoperability Testbeds where most OGC Implementation Specifications have originated. 78 Copyright © 2007 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. All Rights Reserved.