16.1 WFS Engine

This topic describes the Web Feature Service engine, including its relationship to clients and to the database server.

WFS is implemented as a Java web application and can be deployed in Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.3 or later. The required Java version is JDK 1.8 or later.

WFS has a metadata layer, which stores in the database the metadata needed to reply to the WFS requests. The metadata includes spatial columns, which can be queried and processed using Oracle Spatial interfaces. The metadata also stores the association of nonspatial and spatial attributes of features, as well as the services that the Web Feature Service provides to its clients.

Figure 16-1 shows the WFS architecture.

Figure 16-1 Web Feature Service Architecture

Description of "Figure 16-1 Web Feature Service Architecture"

As shown in Figure 16-1:

• The WFS server is part of the middle tier.

• WFS clients can communicate with a WFS server through requests and responses in SOAP, KVP, or XML format.

• The WFS server performs spatial data and metadata access through JDBC calls to the database.

• The database includes Oracle Spatial with WFS metadata and spatial data, and with PL/SQL packages for administrative operations (see SDO_WFS_PROCESS Package (WFS Processing) and SDO_WFS_LOCK Package (WFS) ).

  Each database can have one WFS schema, which corresponds to one data source in WebLogic Server.