GeoWebCache Takes the Ouch out of Tile Caching

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Skal dine data i sving skal de kunne konsumeres af nutidens kortspisere og de mest udbredte lever idag af cached tiles ... 
/Sik

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If you want your data distributed widely you must make them consumable and this is most likely done by caching tiles ...
/Sik

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[...] The need for a caching solution that could be easily integrated with GeoServer drove the development of GeoWebCache, a product that seeks to break down the limitations of tile caching. For those unfamiliar with GeoServer, GeoServer is an open source software server written in Java that allows users to share and edit geospatial data. Designed for interoperability, it publishes data from any major spatial data source using open standards. 

Arne Kepp, core developer for GeoServer and the lead developer for GeoWebCache, talked with GISWeekly about the motivation behind GeoWebCache and plans for the product in the future. 

GISWeekly: What was the impetus behind the creation of GeoWebCache? The history? 

Arne Kepp: The motivation behind GeoWebCache was the need for a caching solution that could easily be integrated with GeoServer. OpenGeo has been focusing on an enterprise quality, fully supported open source web application stack. GeoWebCache plays a key role in the OpenGeo Stack, sitting between OpenLayers, the JavaScript front end, and GeoServer, which serves the data from a variety of data sources like PostGIS, Oracle, ArcSDE and more. A tile cache ensures scalability and improves the user experience. Since GeoServer was written in Java it made sense to use the same language, both to provide tight integration and to make it easy to install on all major platforms. 

Through Google Summer of Code Chris Whitney was able to spend a summer creating what became known as jTileCache. It had very basic functionality, but also original ideas like using the Java Caching System to store image objects and compress them on the fly. Over the next nine months that code was then reworked by OpenGeo into what is today known as GeoWebCache. Through external funding we were able to add native interfaces for Virtual Earth and Google Maps, making it easy to use those clients against data served by WMS servers. 

Last summer the project benefited from another generous Summer of Code grant, allowing Marius Suta to contribute code that enabled XML configuration using XStream and a RESTful configuration interface. [...]

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Read more: http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=687542

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