State of GeoServer Cloud

Nils Bühner, terrestris GmbH & Co. KG

FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

Nils Bühner

  • Software Engineer
    @terrestris, Bonn, Germany
  • GeoServer Docker project maintainer
  • GeoServer Cloud contributor

State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

Content

  • Why GeoServer cloud?
  • GeoServer Cloud Architecture
  • State of Development
  • GeoServer extensions in GS Cloud
  • Case studies (by Alexandre)
Link to slides:
https://terrestris.github.io/foss4g-e-2025/talks/2025-07-17-buehner-state-of-geoserver-cloud.html
State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

Vanilla GeoServer

  • The GeoServer project has matured in 20+ years
  • github.com/geoserver/geoserver
  • Implements OGC standards:
    WMS, WFS, WCS, WMTS, SLD, etc.
  • Many extensions
  • Active development
  • Proven and robust in production
State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

Why GeoServer Cloud?

  • Cloud techs increasingly important in modern GIS architectures
  • Vanilla GeoServer is not cloud-native
  • It's a monolithic application
  • Lack of native support for horizontal scaling
State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

Scaling the monolithic, vanilla GeoServer

%%{ init: { "theme": "default" } }%%
flowchart TD
    Clients(["🌐 HTTP Requests"])
    Clients-. "https://.../geoserver" .-> Gateway

    subgraph Cloud [" "]
        Gateway[/"⚖️ LoadBalancer / Gateway"/]
        style Gateway fill:#cc99ff
        %% Pods Layer
        subgraph Pods [" "]
            GeoServer1["🌍 GeoServer n"]
            GeoServer2["🌎 GeoServer 2"]
            GeoServer3["🌏 GeoServer 1"]
        end
        %% Storage Layer
        subgraph Data storage [" "]
            GSDataDir[("📁 (Shared) GS Catalog/Datadir (XML)")]
            PostGIS[(🗄️ PostGIS Geodata)]
            style GSDataDir fill:#ffcc99
            style PostGIS fill:#c2d6d6
        end
    end


    Gateway --> GeoServer1
    Gateway --> GeoServer2
    Gateway --> GeoServer3

    GeoServer1 -->|read/write| GSDataDir
    GeoServer2 -->|read/write| GSDataDir
    GeoServer3 -->|read/write| GSDataDir

    Pods --> PostGIS
          
State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

GeoServer Cloud Features

A scalable GeoServer for the Cloud
Repository: github.com/geoserver/geoserver-cloud
Modern Microservice Architecture
Service Discovery & Message Broadcasting with Spring Boot
Cloud-Optimized Features
High-performance catalog access and security features like GeoServer ACL (Geofencing)
Cloud Native & DevOps Friendly
Intuitive usage with Docker, Kubernetes and more
State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

GeoServer Cloud Architecture

State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

GeoServer Cloud Service Registry

State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

CodeSprint (October 2024)

GeoServer Cloud CodeSprint at Camptocamp in Chambéry, France
State of GeoServer Cloud, FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar

Questions?