FOSS4G North America Conference 2013 Preliminary Program

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Micah Wengren and Matt Austin of NOAA/NOS/OCS
This presentation will highlight the open source­based prototype hosting environment NOAA is
using to provide customers standards­based OGC web service access to its critical geospatial
data products. The hosting system was set up as part of the NOAA High Performance
Computing and Communications (HPCC) Incubator research program in 2012. It is based on
GeoServer and PostGIS/PostgreSQL.
NOAA funded OpenGeo to develop several new capabilities in GeoServer 2.2 that included: a
refactored security subsystem with pluggable authentication options such as LDAP;
workspace­level partitioning of styles and layers; the concept of groups and group­based access
restrictions to workspaces; and workspace­specific settings for multi­tenancy of different
organizations within a single GeoServer instance.
These enhancements make GeoServer very well suited as an enterprise­wide deployment
providing a centralized, shared hosting environment for an organization's geospatial data.
Additionally, with GeoServer 2.2's support for OGC­standard time and elevation dimensions in
WMS 1.3.0, it is an ideal platform to support NOAA's frequently­changing and multi­dimensional
scientific data sets.
NOAA is currently investigating the use of these and other open source geospatial software to
improve delivery of its critical weather, oceanographic, and other environmental information to
the public. Included in the discussion are parallel efforts as part of the US Federal GeoCloud
project to deploy a GeoNode 2.0­based front­end to the GeoServer hosting system. The
GeoCloud project evaluates the use of Amazon Web Services for deploying geospatial
applications and software.
Local Government
Opening Of Detroit: Building a Free and Open Detroit using Free and Open­Source
Geospatial Tools
Matthew Baker, Opening Of Detroit and Jeff DeBruyn, Manna Meal House Peacekeeper,
Resident Staff at Dayhouse Shelter for Women and Children
Opening of Detroit uses a combination map and blog to put on the map the changing face of
Detroit that is hidden in the depths of paperwork hidden from the public eye. By mapping the
location and extent of projects planned for the City of Detroit, the public can are now able to see
the size and scale of the plans for their City.
Matthew Baker will explain how the site was built and the knowledge and input from the
community was captured and broadcast. Using an Ubuntu­based laptop running QGIS, Tilemill,
and MapBox along with a few other development tools, community organizers now have a free