From Geostandards

INSPIRE Requirements

The INSPIRE Directives names five service types:

• Discovery Service
• View Service
• Download Service
• Transformation Service
• Services allowing spatial data services to be invoked (Invoke Service)

Additionally there are the following INSPIRE requirements:

• Discovery Services shall be free of charge and View Services shall be normally free of charge. For all other services charges may be levied.
• Access to services may be restricted.
• Member States shall ensure the technical possibility, for public authorities, to link their spatial data sets and services.
• Services shall be available on request to third parties
• An INSPIRE Geo-portal at Community level shall be established
• INSPIRE services shall follow certain performance criteria, which need to be defined in the INSPIRE implementing rules.

General Approach

Additional to the INSPIRE service types (Discovery, View, Download, Transformation and Invoke Spatial Data Service) the INSPIRE architecture documents recommends the operation of a Registry Service, to manage metadata related to the INSPIRE infrastructure (e.g. feature type catalogues, parameters of spatial reference systems, etc.).

Following the INSPIRE architecture INSPIRE Network Services define interfaces to achieve Interoperability in a pan-European geo spatial service bus and

• different service providers contribute INSPIRE-conforming services (access only)
• the INSPIRE Network Services expose services for machine-to-machine communication (publish-find-bind or direct invocation)
• various INSPIRE Applications involve INSPIRE services
• the INSPIRE geo-portal at the Community level and further Member States access points offer INSPIRE functions to different user groups

The INSPIRE Network Services Infrastructure is understood as a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) which:

• allows automatic service invocation by using INSPIRE Services Metadata ( as defined in the Metadata Implementing Rule)
• allows workflows utilizing services in a chained manner
• provides additional management services like registries, authentication, and access control functionalities, eCommerce services, etc.

Thus, INSPIRE Services are defined as web services and as communication-protocol and binding technology for INSPIRE services SOAP is recommended.

A layered approach is recommended to integrate further e-Licensing and e-Commerce (via the Digital Rights Management layer and as payload of the SOAP-bindings). Currently it lacks a general European framework or a set of recommendations on which standards and rules to follow for Digital Rights Management.

The Directive asks for minimum criteria to ensure Quality of Services of the INSPIRE Network Services. Minimal means a minimal number of criteria and a minimal measurement and reporting effort. The INSPIRE architecture defines criteria framework for the dedicated INSPIRE Network Services Implementing Rules (see following figure).

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