All peers are equally capable of providing and consuming resources, and they can advertise resources that they want to share to other peers that maybe interested in sharing them. Given the dynamic structure of the GeoWeb, where new geospatially-related data appear rapidly and in ever growing quantities, this is the only architecture that can handle these proliferating environments. This has already been proven in other application domains, such as the use of Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) technologies like Skype for tele-communications.

But a Peer-to-Peer structure alone is not sufficient for a pervasive, dynamically-changing GeoWeb. The architectural infrastructure of Event Driven (ED) capabilities are also needed, for enabling the automation of data sharing and replication as well as for handling notifications about changes and their metadata. An ED architecture is particularly necessary in collaboration environments, such as in crisis management, that require realtime data exchange to gain a common operating picture.

SOAP-based web services, as well as RESTful architectures, are still following a client/server paradigm as they expect a specific functionality to be returned by a request even if the request response is asynchronous. This impedes agility, as the consumer and the provider of the functionality are depending on each other. Both architectures allow a decoupling of the message or interface level from the implementation, but not from the functionality. Even in an orchestrated controller environment, such as a BPEL-driven service component architecture, the controller needs to know which functions to call to get an expected result.

In contrast, in a ED/P2P architecture, the functionality of distributed system components is totally decoupled. The component that creates an event does not need to know what a subscriber to this event will do with it, or even whether any component is interested in the event at all, and the publisher of an event does not direct any event directly to a consumer component. The subscriber to an event relies only on the information published, and is unaware of where and by whom the event was created. The subscriber may change the functionality that is driven by this event at any time, without the event producer having any knowledge of such a change.

Paired with the scalability and flexibility of the P2P network, the GeoWeb becomes a dynamic horizontally- and vertically-scalable infrastructure that can support and integrate many application domains, especially geospatial applications that are driven by realtime information, such as in Aeronautical Information Management. In such an event-driven architecture, the more rigid orchestration component of a web services architecture using SOAP or REST is replaced by a Publication/Subscription framework that is totally decoupled and autonomous. This fulfills the general notion of the Web as having no centralized administration point or authority that drives the overall functionality that is available anywhere to its users.

GeoWeb 2009 Registration

GeoWeb 2009 Academic Track Registration

Business Panel

• Finding Gold in Location! or The Changing Geo Business Landscape - Sponsored by LBx Journal

Architecture Panel

• On what architecture should we build the GeoWeb? REST-ful? SOA? Event Driven? SOAP? Peer to Peer?

Learn more on the Panels page.

I believe that the source of low and declining productivity in the AEC sector is, in part, the poor facilities for collaboration and information sharing. “Fit and Interference” problems, which are the bane of the construction industry, are exceedingly rare in the manufacturing sector, and I believe this difference is largely to be attributed to better information management. Instead of dedicated and permanent systems to share information and collaborate on infrastructure projects, architects, engineers, and construction companies rely on ad hoc exchanges by e-mail or couriers. In spite of the billions spent on physical infrastructure projects, strategic investments in IT for infrastructure management by all levels of government are minuscule.

Fortunately, the solution to the AEC productivity crisis can also go a very long way to helping us with the accounting and management of infrastructure spending from the perspective of climate change and energy management. Information infrastructure that supports collaboration and integration of government and private sector business processes for architecture, engineering, and construction can also provide us with the foundation for energy and environmental “accounting”. It only requires that governments see stimulus as truly an investment!

KEYNOTES [Read More]
Michael T. Jones is Google’s Chief Technology Advocate, charged with advancing the technology to organize the world’’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.  He is a prolific inventor, developer of notable scientific and computer graphics software, an engineering and business executive, and an avid traveler and photographer.

Alex Miller is founder and President of ESRI Canada Limited, a privately held Canadian owned company specializing in the design and implementation of geographic information systems. Mr. Miller is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton with a Bachelor of Science in Surveying Engineering. Mr. Miller has over 35 years experience in surveying, mapping, engineering, information systems design and management consulting. He is past Chair of the Geomatics Industry Association of Canada, Co-Chair of the GeoConnections Policy Advisory Committee, Chair of the Geomatics Canada Advisory Committee and a member of the Federal Department of Natural Resources Minister’s National Advisory Board on Earth Sciences.

INVITED SPEAKERS [Read More]
David Boloker is a Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technical Officer for Emerging Internet Technologies in IBM Software Group. David is recognized in and outside IBM as a technical leader in the Internet software space guiding IBM’s investments as well as internal product development in the Internet space.

Dr. John Stutz helped found the Tellus Institute in 1976.The Tellus Institute is a non-profit organization providing research and consulting services, primarily to clients in the public sector, in the areas of energy, environmental policy and sustainable development. Dr. Stutz has worked for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as well as various U.S. state and Canadian provincial agencies, on issues of regulatory, economic and environmental policy.

One of those interesting directions, to be hi-lighted at GeoWeb 2009, is the role of information sharing and information infrastructures in the urban landscape (Cityscapes). Considering the recent announcements of significant investments in large capital infrastructure projects such as highways, mass transit, and remediation of buildings for energy conservation and pollution reduction, this focus on urban environments is even more relevant than in the past. All of these initiatives demand information management, and systems that deal easily with 3D information, design information, and the whole process and life cycle of construction. This will demand new approaches and new ways of thinking, some of which were highlighted at GeoWeb 2008, and we look forward to expanding our efforts in 2009.

Of course, non-Urban applications (oceanography, national defense, oil and gas, utilities) will continue to form a key part of the GeoWeb conference, as will pure technology presentations and papers; this is all about collision and intersection. Developments in GeoWeb technologies for national defense will have impact in the urban world. Equally developments in the urban world may have important implications for apparently disparate domains like undersea exploration or the study of the atmosphere.

We will be back at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in beautiful Vancouver (plan your holiday), and we will have a full slate of invited speakers, keynotes, workshops, and technical presentations. There will be a fireworks dinner cruise and, of course, the student contest is back!

GeoWeb 2009 has added some new twists to the format of previous conferences, such as the Science/Academic track on 3D modeling, to be held in the adjacent Segal Center. Whether a Cityscaper or not, we hope you will get your presentations in. We are all very excited about 2009 and hope you are too – so plan to attend the most important event on the geospatial calendar!