Search

Spatial Internet Marketplaces are proposed as an extension to Spatial Data Infrastructures, in which on-line access to data and geoprocessing services replace distribution of data sets. A key design challenge is achieving interoperability in a large-scale distributed system with a high degree of heterogeneity in the services. The SMART (Spatial Marketplace) model combines a simple architectural model with only two types of services, a message-passing paradigm for interaction between customers and service providers, and a declarative language for expression of requests by a customer. The language, the Request Specification Language, is aimed at catering for variability in the operations offered by a service provider. It also ensures low complexity of implementation of mediators to connect existing information services to the Marketplace. A set of infrastructural services is proposed to aid a customer search for and combine services. The feasibility of the approach is confirmed by two proof-of-concept systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]