OGC Issues RFQ and Call for Participation in NGA "NSG Profiles Plugweek" Pilot

WAYLAND, Mass.--(Business Wire)--
The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. has issued a Request For Quotation and Call
for Participation (RFQ/CFP) to solicit proposals for the NSG Profiles Plugweek
Pilot, which will begin in August and end in October. (NSG is the National
System for Geospatial Intelligence.) The sponsor, the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), will provide profiles of the OGC Web Map
Service, Web Feature Service and Web Coverage Service Interface Standards. The
RFQ/CFP is available at: www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/58.

With the help of Plugweek participants, the NGA will examine the suitability and
performance of these profiles and corresponding profile compliance tests. The
NGA is providing cost-sharing funds and seeks to involve as many participants as
possible.

The RFQ/CFP invites prospective participants to submit proposals for providing
and deploying hardware and software and contributing to the final technology
suite for the test network. The sponsor will decide which submitters will be
offered cost-sharing funds. Participants will use the profiles mentioned above
and also schemas and data provided by the NGA.

NSG Profiles Plugweek is an opportunity for vendors, users, and other interested
parties to mutually refine services, interfaces and protocols in the context of
a hands-on engineering experience that is intended to shape the future of the
NGA`s web based information distribution systems. Another benefit is that this
effort has well-defined objectives, while providing a significant opportunity to
explore alternatives in a unique hands-on engineering context.

Instructions for submitting proposals are provided in the RFQ/CFP. Proposals are
due by August 3, 2009. Non-member proposals will be considered if a completed
application for OGC membership accompanies or precedes a letter of intent to
submit a proposal.

The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 385 companies,
government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a
consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications.
OpenGIS Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the
Web, wireless and location services, and mainstream IT. They empower developers
to make complex spatial information and services useful with all kinds of
applications. See http://www.opengeospatial.org.

Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Sam Bacharach, +1-703-352-3938
Executive Director, Outreach Program
sbacharach@opengeospatial.org

Copyright Business Wire 2009