OpenGeo is proud to announce to the release of the OpenGeo Suite 3.0-beta1. This release brings many new features and improvements, including the adoption of GeoServer 2.2, PostGIS 2.0, and GeoWebCache 1.3. Here is just a short list of highlights you’ll find if you try out Suite 3.0-beta1:

Processing

This release brings the OpenGeo Suite closer than ever towards being a comprehensive spatial data toolset. While data processing has historically been a strength for proprietary desktop-based solutions, those of you who have seen Paul Ramsey’s “Spatial IT on the Spatial Web” talk know that we see a future in through-the-web processing. We know that these features are important to our users and in the marketplace and this release makes significant advances across the stack in terms of through-the-web processing of geospatial data.

In addition to a slew of new vector functions, PostGIS 2.0 includes raster data and raster/vector analysis in the database.  PostGIS 2.0 users can merge and recalculate rasters with map algebra expressions, summarize them using vector overlays, and extract new information using vectorization routines — all the power of a raster/vector GIS, exposed within the SQL database.

With the adoption of GeoServer 2.2, this release brings many processing improvements to our spatial data server, including integration of the OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) and the introduction of rendering transformations. WPS provides a standard for inputs and outputs (requests and responses) for geospatial processing services such as polygon overlays, buffers, or even custom processes. Rendering transformations provide custom geoprocessing within the map rendering pipeline in a highly flexible way. This allows for changes in data representation between vector and raster to do things like display observation data points or computed contour lines of a vector layer as as a raster interpolated surface.

We’ll also be integrating server-side Python and Javascript into the final release of OpenGeo Suite 3.0, to allow users to easily roll their own lightweight server-side processes: we call this new feature “GeoScript”. GeoScript will enable developers to do simple processing tasks quickly in a lightweight development environment using concise and straightforward API’s.

Security

Sometimes — well, often — the stars align and a client of ours requests a feature that we’re interested in building. We’re especially pleased when we get to build these because we know they’ll be useful to the greater community of users. So, when NOAA recently requested increased support for various authentication mechanisms, we were able to retrofit the GeoServer security subsystem and add support for a number of new authentication mechanisms, including LDAP, digest, X.509 certificate authentication, and more. These improvements also includes the addition of user groups.

Virtual Services

Also thanks to NOAA, virtual services allow GeoServer to support the notion of multi-tenancy, enabling a single GeoServer instance to publish multiple service endpoints. Workspace local settings allow for specifying service settings such as styles, layer groups, contact information, proxy settings, and output format settings on a per workspace basis.

GeoWebCache UI

For all of the GeoWebCache users out there, it’s now possible to access a new GeoWebCache configuration GUI directly from the GeoServer web admin interface. This includes the ability to define new grid sets, specify which layers to cache, seed or truncate the cache, and more. If you’re not already using GeoWebCache in production there has never been a better time to start!

Try it!

Download the 3.0-beta1 release to see for yourself. Packages are available for Windows and Mac OS X and we’ve provided access to our staging repositories for Ubuntu and CentOS users.

• Download OpenGeo Suite 3.0-beta1 for Windows
• Download OpenGeo Suite 3.0-beta1 for Mac OS X
• Get OpenGeoSuite 3.0-beta1 for Linux

Any feedback you provide will help us continue to make and support great software. If you find any bugs please report them on GetSatisfaction. Don’t forget that this is a beta version — we advise against deploying this in a production environment and remind you to follow the upgrade instructions (for Windows, for Mac OS X) to backup your data directory before upgrading.

Tags: release 3.0, suite