Get GO'ing, Keep GO'ing on INSPIRE

Snowflake Software is announcing its “Get GO’ing Keep GO’ing” initiative with the launch of its INSPIRE ready GO Loader and GO Publisher product at the GSDI11 World Conference in Rotterdam next week.

In order to attain INSPIRE compliance, organisations need to share their data with the wider EU community in accordance with the INSPIRE implementing rules. The rules define formats and services which facilitate the accessibility and interoperability of spatial data across EU member states. As a company specialising in Data Exchange, Snowflake has further developed its products to enable customers to begin the journey towards INSPIRE compliance using proven and industrial strength software.

GO Publisher is a market leading product that enables organisations to publish their existing database infrastructure in the Geography Markup Language (GML) without the need for expensive investment or specialist engineering. An ISO standard, GML is at the heart of the INSPIRE directive and is mandated as the sole means of data exchange between INSPIRE participants.

In its fourth major release, GO Publisher has been enhanced to support the latest version of GML (3.2.1) which the INSPIRE directive is based on. This latest enhancement has been thoroughly tested during the recent EC’s Joint Research Centre INSPIRE testing initiative, where GO Publisher was successfully used by leading organisations across Europe to produce GML 3.2.1 datasets compliant to the Annex 1 Themes. Whilst INSPIRE support is a key feature of this release, GO Publisher has also been enhanced to support the publication of data to Google Earth and Google Maps, enabling organisations to take a more innovated approach to the way it shares data.

*** STOP PRESS *** STOP PRESS *** STOP PRESS *** STOP PRESS *** STOP PRESS ***

As part of its “Get GO’ing, Keep GO’ing” initiative, Snowflake is releasing a FREE Community Edition of its GO Publisher Desktop product. GO Publisher Desktop Community Edition will enable organisations to ‘Get GO’ing’ with INSPIRE by allowing users to create sample datasets to the INSPIRE themes. Customers can then ‘Keep GO’ing’ with a one click deployment to Snowflake’s INSPIRE data services, enabling Enterprise data sharing via Web Features Services and Download Services. Released in July, organisations can pre-register for a copy of GO Publisher Desktop Community Edition on our website from the 15th July.

GO Loader is a generic GML loading tool for Oracle relational databases. A key enabler for data exchange and used widely throughout Europe, this latest release GO Loader has been enhanced to support the latest version of GML (3.2.1) and tested against the INSPIRE Annex 1 data themes. Customers using GO Loader can reap the benefits of data sharing by loading and managing INSPIRE ready datasets from across the EU into one centralised spatial database. Furthermore, users of GO Loader need very little knowledge of spatial databases as the point and click interface deskills the process of loading INSPIRE ready data, enabling organisations to be up and running within hours without investment in expensive IT engineering resource.

Eddie Curtis CTO of Snowflake Software says:

For those organisations requiring additional support in understanding the complexities of the legislation, Snowflake has a dedicated INSPIRE section to its website in order to help client’s bridge the gap between initiative and implementation.

The INSPIRE ready versions of GO Loader and GO Publisher will be available for download on the 15^th June 2009 from our website. Existing customers with a valid maintenance and support contract can obtain these new versions at no additional cost through the Snowflake Support Centre. Organisations new to Snowflake’s products can obtain a fully supported 30 day evaluation by registering on the website. Furthermore, attendees at the GSDI conference in Rotterdam can see demonstrations and presentations of the new releases on Snowflake’s exhibition stand (No 12).