Cloud / streaming formats

[anitagraser]

The guidelines currently don't provide recommendations for streaming data.

• For raster, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) is a promising candidate. However, it is not yet certified as archival format.
• For vector data, the best streaming format candidate (e.g. GeoParquet, flatgeobuf, GeoFeather, vector tiles) is still undecided. However, using streaming formats could also be helpful to make it easier to access archived data.

See also:

• GEO_33 Rationale - Map Styling / SLD Limitations #50
• Consideration of streaming data sources & OGC API #45

[anitagraser]

COG is "under observation" in https://wiki.gdi-de.org/display/Arch/Verzeichnis+GDI-DE+Standards

[anitagraser]

Potentially interesting projects:

• Cloud Optimized Map Tiles (COMTiles): Based on the ideas of Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF and extended for the usage of raster and in particular vector map tilesets. COMTiles are a streamable and read optimized file archive for hosting map tiles at global scale on a cloud object storage.

[GregorZavrsnik]

These types of formats are currently considered derivatives of production formats and could be stored as a part of a secondary representation within a package.
Should there be a use case from the community to include this type of formats as long-term preservation formats, then we will add them to a road map.
However, they deserve a mention within the Guidelines, just to make the archivists aware of them, so we will mention them in the guidelines.

[GregorZavrsnik]

We aim to deliver more information on the evolving new standards in the future, when more resources become available. However, this topic will not be a part of the 2024 release.

[anitagraser]

See https://github.com/DILCISBoard/CITS-Geospatial/wiki/Cloud-optimized-file-formats for further notes