The specifications of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) are the prerequisite for interoperability in spatial data infrastructures. Their interface specifications don' t define any regulation about the users, authorization and security mechanisms: for instance, via the URL of an known Web Map Service everybody is able to access all the maps and attribute data.

Normally, the entire pool of geospatial data provided by the OWS server can easily be accessed independent of the user or a specific spatial extend - no possibilities of control! Obtaining information about provided data collections of the Web Service is an essential prerequisite (GetCapabilities) and so far absolutely desirable. Furthermore, only insecure connections are supported by the OWS; the use of https is not possible.

A proxy in front of the actual OGC Web Service (OWS) behaves like an adequate OWS, but extends it with additional functions for filtering and manipulating the in- and output. For instance:

• By creating several views on the OWS, different users have just access on a subset of these views (WMS1 for planing data; WMS2 for topographic data, etc.)
• Via a specific owsProxy, for instance, different users are just able to access specific layers, districts, regions, etc. (authorization depending on defined spatial extends)
• The output can be manipulated depending on access rules: Filtering of the capabilities document, the GetFeatureInfoResponse or superimosing a watermark in a map.

Furthermore, deegree iGeoSecurity supports encrypted connections and secured authentication mechanisms.

Downloading the factsheet as pdf.