State of GeoServer Cloud

Nils Bühner, terrestris GmbH & Co. KG

FOSS4G-E 2025, Mostar
https://terrestris.github.io/foss4g-e-2025/talks/gs-cloud.html

Nils Bühner

buehner@terrestris.de
@buehner

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

GeoServer Cloud CodeSprint (October 2024)

GeoServer Cloud CodeSprint at Camptocamp in Chambéry, France

Content

Why GeoServer cloud?
GeoServer Cloud Architecture
Features of GS Cloud
GeoServer extensions in GS Cloud
Case studies (by Alexandre)

Slides:
https://terrestris.github.io/foss4g-e-2025/talks/gs-cloud.html

Traditional GeoServer

The GeoServer project has grown for 20+ years
github.com/geoserver/geoserver
Implements OGC standards:
WMS, WFS, WCS, WMTS, SLD, etc.
Many extensions
Active development
Proven and robust in production

Why GeoServer Cloud?

Cloud technologies become increasingly
important in modern GIS architectures
Traditional GeoServer is not cloud-native
Traditional GeoServer is a monolithic application
Lack of native support for horizontal scaling

Scaling Traditional 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 -->|use| GSDataDir GeoServer2 -->|use| GSDataDir GeoServer3 -->|use| GSDataDir Pods --> PostGIS

...is a pain

Replication of full stack GeoServers with all baggage
GeoServer loads the Catalog/Datadir into memory
Updates on one instance won't propagate to others
Other instances remain unaware of changes and
continue working on their (now outdated) memory state

What could help?

Time-consuming and error-prone approaches:

Use a "prepared", static read-only
shared data directory (GS Catalog)
Create a script/tool that (periodically) checks
for updates to trigger necessary reloads via REST
Other workarounds...

Solution: GeoServer Cloud!

GeoServer Cloud

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 extended security features

Cloud Native & DevOps Friendly
Intuitive usage with Docker, Kubernetes and more

GeoServer Cloud Architecture

GS Cloud builds on the highly modular structure of the GS codebase
Split core functionality into independently scalable, loosely coupled microservices
Service discovery to support elastic scaling and load balancing
Event bus to broadcast messages
(distributed events)

GeoServer Cloud Architecture

Intense usage of the Spring Framework (Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, ...)
Tailor-cut activation of functionality (based on Configuration/Profiles)
Health checks, metrics, monitoring, Logging, Caching, ...
Smooth integration with cloud environments
Flexible deployments

GeoServer Cloud Service Registry

GeoServer Cloud features

PostgreSQL back-end for the GeoServer Catalog
→ Shared data directory also possible, but not suggested
→ Wanna migrate from data directory to PostgreSQL?
→ Talk of Alexandre on Friday: Migrate and Synchronize GeoServer configuration with Terraform
→ Or try https://github.com/terrestris/geoserver_sync
GeoServer ACL (Access Control List)
→ Advanced authorization for GeoServer
→ Born as fork of the GeoFence project
→ Fine-granular access control for services, geographical areas, attributes and more
Cloud-optimized GeoWebCache (GWC) integration
→ distributed event notifications

Integration of GeoServer extensions

WPS
(native integration as microservice)
OGC API Features
INSPIRE
app-schema
Graticule
...

Missing extension?

Extensions need to be integrated in the GS Cloud codebase
Big refactoring in April 2025: https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver-cloud/pull/640
Adding new extensions remains a "dev" thing in GS Cloud. Guide: https://github.com/geoserver/geoserver-cloud/blob/main/docs/develop/extensions/adding_extensions.md
You need to add

Extension Module
Starter Module

Case studies

Questions?
buehner@terrestris.de

Now:
Case studies and practical experiences with GS Cloud by Alexandre