Article under Review for the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research, Special Issue GSDI-11, submitted 2009-03-01 Towards a grid-enabled SDI: Matching the paradigms of OGC Web Services and Grid Computing∗

Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) have been widely adopted within the last years to provide access to spatial data and offer components to visualize maps based on distributed data. The implementation of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications adds a layer of abstraction and interoperability to share and use data and spatial information among different communities. Integration of OGC-compliant interfaces into commercial off the shelf geospatial software is an indicator for the maturity of the standards beyond scientific scope. Whereas the usage of distributed data inside local Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is widely adopted, the distributed processing of data is not yet a common task. The recently defined Web Processing Service (WPS) specification strives to distribute geoprocessing functionality among the web. The paradigm of Grid computing has evolved parallel to distributed spatial information systems. The according standardization organization, the Open Grid Forum (OGF), is responsible for the development of specifications for Grid computing in general. A memorandum o