Testing OGC Web Feature and Coverage Service performance: Towards efficient delivery of geospatial data

Abstract

OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) specifications allow interoperable access to distributed geospatial data made available through spatial data infrastructures (SDIs). To ensure that a service is sufficiently responsive to fulfill users’ expectations and requirements, performance of services must be measured and monitored to track latencies, bottlenecks, and errors that may negatively influence its over- all quality. Despite the importance of data retrieval and access, little research has been published on this topic and mostly concentrates on the usability of services when integrating distributed data sources. Considering these issues, this paper extends and validates the FOSS4G approach to measure the server-side performance of different WFS and WCS services provided by various software implementations; and provides guidance to data providers looking to improve the quality of their services. Our results show that performance of tested implementations is generally satisfactory and memory tuning/data and storage optimization are essential to handle increased efficiency and reliability of services.