Self-hosted WeoGeo-style geospatial library software

Question

I've been hearing a lot about WeoGeo Library recently, but (a) it costs and (b) it is hosted 'in the cloud', which is not acceptable for the data my organisation is using because of data usage regulations.

Is there anything similar which I can run on my own server within my organisation? The sort of features that I'm looking for are basically managing a library of geospatial data (in various formats - geodatabase, shapefiles, images) and allowing them to be searched, queried and visualised.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

GeoNetwork may be worth a look:

http://www.osgeo.org/geonetwork

GeoNetwork opensource is a catalog application to manage spatially referenced resources. It provides powerful metadata editing and search functions as well as an embedded interactive web map viewer.

GeoNetwork opensource has been developed to connect spatial information communities and their data using a modern architecture, which is at the same time powerful and low cost, based on the principles of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and International and Open Standards for services and protocols (a.o. from ISO/TC211 and OGC).

Stumbled across this comparison of GeoNetwork and the ESRI GIS Portal, although it is a bit dated

http://gridnairobi.unep.org/chm/africa_programme/GeoNetwork_and_ESRI_GIS_Portal_Toolkit_Comparison-GDNBI3027.pdf

Answer 2

Although my knowledge of WebGeo Library is limited and their website was a bit tedious to read I guess that the Open Geo Suite could be something worth taking a look at. There exists a free community edition as well as a supported enterprise version.

It's based on components such as PostGIS, Geoserver and GeoEXT, and should cover your needs. Take a look at http://opengeo.org/technology/suite/

Answer 3

You might check out the ESRI Geoportal Server product. This is an open source project that was released by ESRI late last year. According to the website:

Esri Geoportal Server allows you to catalog the locations and descriptions of your organization's geospatial resources in a central repository called a geoportal, which you can publish to the Internet or your intranet. Visitors to the geoportal can search and access these resources to use with their projects.

I would suggest checking out the demo site. The demo site has a map viewer integrated that is based on the ESRI Flex viewer. I think in order to implement that, you have to have the ArcGIS Server package installed. Since this is a Java based open source project, you should be able to switch that code out to implement your own data viewer based on an OpenLayers or similar web map viewer.

I don't know the limitations of this product, but on the surface, it would seem to serve the need to identify your spatial data resources, regardless of format, and potentially be extended to include other spatially enabled layers like from a PostGIS or Oracle Spatial database.

Answer 4

Sounds like you want something like a spatial data infrastructure. GeoNode might fit your needs. From the official site:

GeoNode is a platform for the management and publication of geospatial data. It brings together mature and stable open-source software projects under a consistent and easy-to-use interface allowing users, with little training, to quickly and easily share data and create interactive maps. GeoNode provides a cost-effective and scalable tool for developing information management systems.

You can think of it as your own YouTube for maps. Complete with ratings, metadata, and the option to download your data.

Another option would be Mapito.

Mapito is opensource project for editing and sharing spatial data. It is map manager, which create new map portal with any WMS layers in a few seconds. Mapito is made available under a MIT-license.

Both those options are free and open source :)