GIS meets e-Business: Web Pricing & Ordering Service (WPOS)
Trading Player
Higher value geodata, like marketing data, will not be free available. If there is a demand, there will be an
offer. A typical relationship is a 1:1, supplier and customer. The geo-sector has the great advantage, that the
digital geo-data can be distributed via the internet on-demand. With the introduction of cascaded OGC Web
Services, like the WebMapServer, the three-tier portrayal architecture is common. There is a 1:1:n
relationship between customer, portal and many data supplier.
A primary goal of the OGC Web interoperability program is a low level of necessary installation effort for
user. Professional GIS Software is not required, which reduces costs and makes it easier for nonprofessionals
to use geo-referenced data. Less maintenance is required, if most logic is concentrated on a
server. The User is known in a professional B2B relationship.
The portal is the entry point for every user. It serves a unique Look&Feel over all applications. It manages
the user-administration. In the case of cascaded services, it acts as an assembly layer. An example is the
OGC Web Map Server, which provides a map with a set of layers from different sources. Another task of a
portal is to organise different data supplier and their sources. A way is to set up a search application for the
user. Another goal in the commercial scenario are negotiations and contracts about prices, licensing and
other conditions. The user has the advantage to get much more data within the same, known system and
perhaps with a harmonised licensing.
A Service is designed for a special task. This software package has an internet interface based on the HTTP
protocol. Modern service communication is based on a HTTP request and XML response protocol. An
enhanced protocol with a XML request is SOAP (Box, Ehnebuske, Kakiyaya, 2001). Web Services offer
an organizational advantage. They may be run on the same webserver as the portal (internal) or on the
supplier site (external). The configuration is changed by another URL.
Portal Architecture With Distrubuted Services
Figure 1 shows a typical three-tier architecture with some services. In this example, a OGC WebCoverage
Service (WCS), WebMap Service (WMS) and a WebFeature Service (WFS) is used as a known services.
The WPOS service is Web Pricing & Ordering Service, which manages pricing and ordering
communication. A necessary data format to exchange pricing information like metadata is described in
Chapter 4.
Fig 1. Three-tier portal architecture
