A cloud-based platform for sharing geodata across Europe

The Inspired Geodata Cloud Services (InGeoCloudS) project, coordinated by AKKA Informatique et Systèmes (France) was launched in February 2012 with the aim of establishing the feasibility of using a Cloud-based approach for the publication and use of geodata across Europe. The initiative seeks to leverage the economies of scale achievable for a multi-consumer consortium and its ubiquitous availability of access for the geographically distributed end-users of the European institutions in the environmental field. The purpose is to demonstrate that a Cloud infrastructure can be used by public organizations to provide more efficient, scalable and flexible services for creating, sharing and disseminating spatial environmental data. InGeoCloudS is exploiting this concept based on the work of eight partner institutions from five different countries (including ERCIM members CNR, Italy and FORTH, Greece); some partners are IT enterprises and some are public data providers, covering hydrogeology and natural hazards applications. The project roadmap entails two main steps: Pilot1, which is currently available to project partners, and Pilot2 that will open up the services to a broader audience in summer 2013. The whole set of services will be available for free for the duration of the project.