¿Qué es GeoNetwork?

GeoNetwork is a server side application that allows you to maintain a geographic referenced metadata catalogue. This means: a search portal that allows to view metadata combined with maps.

Based on Free and Open Source Software, it strictly follows different standards for metadata, from Inspire to OGC. It implements the CSW interface to be able to interact with generic clients looking for data. It also has built-in harvesters to connect to other servers and populate data.

This has allowed GeoNetwork su gran expansión en muchas organizaciones. For example: the geoportal suizo  o el brasileño,pasando por el neozelandés. GeoNetwork is the most used open sourced spatial catalog in the world. You can find it in most of the public administrations that use free and open source software.

The catalogue deploys on a java application container (like tomcat o jetty). It works over the Jeeves framework. Jeeves is based on XSLT transformation server library. This allows a powerful development of interfaces, for humans (HTML) or machines (XML). Therefore, it makes metadata from GeoNetwork to be easily accessible by different platforms.

Recently half-refactored to Spring and AngularJS, GeoNetwork has a REST API and an event hook system to make extensions and customizations easier.