Status and Planning Update on Big Data Standardization in OGC and ISO

Earth data are an archetypical case of Big Data, in all their Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Veracity challenges. Since long, therefore, standardization in ISO, OGC, and further bodies is concerned with developing and advancing specifications for structures and services suitable for Big Data. Questions to keep in mind include:
- How can data wrangling be simplified, for example through better suited concepts and elimination of unnecessary technicalities?
- How can specifications support scalable implementations?
- What is necessary to make data ready for analysis, more generally: for the various types of consumption?

Specifically, the commonly accepted concept of multi-dimensional coverages - corresponding to the notion of spatio-temporal "fields" in physics" - addresses Big Data, in practice: regular and irregular grids, point clouds, and general meshes. Recently, ISO has adopted two "abstract" standards with normative definitions of coverage concepts and terminology. 19123-1 addresses the coverage data model whereas 19123-3 is about coverage processing fundamentals, utilizing the OGC Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) model. OGC has adopted both as an update to its Abstract Topic 6.

On the level of "concrete" specifications directed towards implementation and conformance testing there is the joint OGC/ISO Coverage Impementation Schema. In OGC the current version is 1.1 which introduces the General Grid Coverage as a more powerful, yet simplified structure for regular and irregular grids. ISO has commenced work on updating its 19123-2, which is still based on OGC CIS 1.0), with  CIS 1.1. On the processing side, there are various activities in addition to the proven, mature WCS and WCPS, such as drafts for OAPI-Coverages and GeoDataCube.

We present the current status of ISO and OGC standardization work on coverages. The author is active as editor of adopted and in-progress standards in OGC and ISO since over 15 years, and intimately familiar with standardization work there. By sharing the status and plans of standardization the talk provides an opportunity for the community to comment on plans and share any comments and suggestions.