OpenData – Alto Adige/Sudtirol OpenData Portal based on CKAN

GeoSolutions has been contracted in the second half of 2015 by the County of Bozen to design and implement a portal for the aggregation and dissemination of OpenData coming from a variety of sources comprehending the existing GeoPortal (which is heavily based on Open Source products like  GeoServer and GeoNetwork) as well as other internal sources for statistical data as well as mobility data.

Alto Adige OpenData Portal – Detail

The main requirements to be satisfied included:

• Ability to harvest multilingual metadata in Italian and German from the existing GeoPortal exploiting the OGC CSW Protocol
• Ability to link existing resources contained in OGC CSW Metadata records (i.e. maps, data, etc..)
• Ability to retain information about the originating organization for the published resources
• Ability to retain information about the category (within a set of categories configurable both at harvesting as well as publishing time) for the published resources
• Simplicity of administration from both a data administrator as well as system administrator perspective
• Utilisation of Open Source products where applicable
• Complete integration with the existing security subsystem based on Shibboleth and LDAP

Alto Adige OpenData Portal – Detail

At GeoSolutions we have decided to leverage on our vast experience with the CKAN open source data portal software for building a publishing platform that would meet the requirements mentioned above, in particular:

• We have worked with the IT department of the client to set up a Q&A system as well as a Production installation. The Test installation has been hosted on our cloud infrastructure
• We have enhanced and customized the CSW harvester in order to transform multilingual CSW Metadata Records in multilingual datasets in CKAN
• We have enhanced the integration of the CKAN security with the existing security infrastructure of the client in order to provide seamless integration of exusting users and groups and prevent duplications
• We have provided support during the publication phase as well as for what concerns the Look&Feel of the portal, which has been finely aligned with the guidelines provided

Alto Adige OpenData Portal – Detail

Aside from CKAN  it is worth to remark on the fact that we have decided to rely on the PostgreSQL Open Source database for the storage tier and that the chosen operating system has been CentOS 7, as such we have implemented and deployed (together with the IT department of the client, which we thank for the collaboration) a pure Open Source solution in line with our reputation.

It is eventually worth to point out that we will strive to propose all the enhancements and customizations to the larger CKAN communities so that other organizations and entities will benefit from them.

We are proud to work with organizations like the County of Bozen in such challenging projects where we actually see our work impacting important use cases and being able to make a difference.

If you are interested in learning about how we can help you achieving your goals with open source products like GeoServer, MapStore, GeoNode and GeoNetwork through our Enterprise Support Services Subscription Services or Professional Training Services offer, feel free to contact us!

The GeoSolutions Team,