OpenGeo Suite 2.5 Released

OpenGeo released version 2.5 of their flagship product, the OpenGeo Suite. Version 2.5 bundles many improvements and bug fixes from the open source communities and adds special OpenGeo features, including a toolkit for developing and deploying applications powered by the OpenGeo Suite, and improved raster format support. OpenGeo, an innovator who introduced unlimited support on a complete open source mapping stack, continues to innovate with the 2.5 release. The fully integrated suite takes the pain out of installing and upgrading open source components. Stand-alone, production-ready downloads make it simple for users to install and upgrade scalable, multi-tier deployments of the OpenGeo Suite.

According to the announcement, the highlight of version 2.5 is the the introduction of the OpenGeo Suite Client SDK. The much anticipated SDK provides tools for developing and deploying web mapping applications backed by the OpenGeo Suite. By providing a plugin-based architecture and leveraging OpenLayers, Ext JS, andGeoExt the SDK allows users to build powerful web mapping applications by providing a JSON configuration.

When reached for comment about the SDK Tim Schuab, OpenGeo CTO said “The Client SDK provides a robust toolkit for rapidly creating, debugging, and deploying browser based mapping apps. We’re excited to include the initial version of the SDK in the 2.5 release and will continue building on it, focusing on customizing server side functionality and developing mobile applications.”

The 2.5 release also comes with support for publishing data from formats supported by the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL), including: DTED, EHdr, AIG, ENVIHdr, and more. MrSID is available to those with a license for LizardTech’s decoding software development kit. Other noteworthy changes include:

• Improvements to the GeoServer Layer Importer, including Oracle and SQL Server options and support for importing ZIP files containing multiple Shapefiles.
• Options in GeoServer to allow layers to be available but not advertised as well as options for producing lenient capabilities documents to prevent invalid XML output from misconfigured layers.
• Better WFS output from GeoServer, including paging and sorting in the WFS capabilities and user-defined WFS GetFeatureInfo output.
• Better 3D support in GeoServer and GeoTools, including proper handling of read/write of 3D polygons from Oracle and proper handling of 3D data in GML3 encoding.

More specific information is available in the release notes. OpenGeo Suite 2.5 is available for download free of charge with a 30 day trial of OpenGeo’s enterprise support.