GeoVITe (Geodata Versatile Information Transfer environment) is based on a three-tier architecture, with a clear separation between the data (managed by a back-end data management layer), the application (consisting of server-side geo-services) and the presentation (front-end; client-side user interface).

The available vector and raster datasets are managed in back-end systems such as PostgreSQL geodatabases and Network Attached Storage (NAS) shares. The server-side application layer was developed around servers hosting geoprocessing and view services based on well-known open source software and libraries such as QGIS Server, GDAL/OGR and GeoTools, and enhanced by several Java servlets creating an Application Programming Interface (API) around the data management layer. The portal’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) is built using well-known Web technologies such as HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS) on top of GeoAdmin3 and OpenLayers3 frameworks. The entire GeoVITe GUI is also wrapped by Java server technologies such as Java servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP) in order to enforce authentication and proper communication with the server-side application layer. As a consequence, the “thin” Web-based interface in GeoVITe handles the majority of user interactions by sending requests and listening to responses from the server-side application layer. In turn, the geo-services access the data in the back-end, do the necessary data processing (for viewing or downloading) and return the corresponding responses back to the user interface.

The GeoVITe technologies support the implementation of academic spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) and geoportals that are interoperable with commonly used open source and proprietary GIS software such as QGIS or ESRI ArcGIS.

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