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+# d4c-service-ows
+
+A collection of deployment configurations and code for serving Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant services. This repository provides the infrastructure to serve Canadian geospatial data via:
+
+* **Web Map Service (WMS)** and **Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)**
+* **Web Processing Service (WPS)**
+* **XYZ Tiles (Raster & Vector)**
+
+## Purpose
+
+The goal of this repository is to provide the service layer for the **Data for Canada (d4c)** project. It acts as the gateway for legacy and standard-compliant GIS clients to interact with a decentralized, cloud-native open data infrastructure. By containerizing services like GeoServer and Martin, we ensure high-performance access to national datasets via traditional OGC standards, and next-generation tile formats.
+
+## Core Technologies
+
+This service layer is built to interface with modern cloud-native formats while maintaining broad compatibility:
+
+* **[FAIR Data Catalogue](https://stac-geoparquet.org/):** For cataloging and discovering underlying datasets.
+* **[GeoParquet](https://geoparquet.org/):** An efficient, columnar storage format for vector data, providing the high-performance backend for our services.
+* **[GeoZarr](https://github.com/zarr-developers/geozarr-spec):** For multidimensional data processing and visualization.
+* **HTTP & [P2P](https://tixati.com/specs/bittorrent):** For efficient, decentralized data retrieval and backend distribution.
+
+## Supported Services
+
+We utilize industry-standard open-source applications to provide specific spatial capabilities:
+
+* **GeoServer:** Primary engine for WMS, WMTS, and WFS layers, capable of connecting to cloud-native data stores.
+* **Martin:** High-speed raster and vector tile server (MVT) providing XYZ access to modern file formats.
+* **ZOO-Project:** WPS implementation for server-side geospatial processing and analytics, leveraging modern file formats for complex computations.
+
+## Contributing
+
+New service configurations or updates to existing layers should be proposed via pull requests. All changes to service logic must align with the d4c goal of decentralized distribution.
+
+All contributors must be verified via **[Vouch](https://github.com/mitchellh/vouch)** before their pull requests are reviewed.