Esri has a long-standing commitment to open standards and interoperability. That's why ArcGIS supports more than 100 established standards including data formats, metadata, and services. We work with many standards organisations to develop new standards and update existing ones.
Metadata
Metadata gives people a common way to understand geospatial data. Metadata standards provide a structure for creating and organising metadata such as consistent terminology for catalogues and global search. Esri provides support for multiple metadata management options to meet specific needs or standards profiles.
We support these metadata standards:
ISO 19115
FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)
Dublin Core
INSPIRE
DCAT
We also support custom metadata formats.
Services
Service standards are used to transfer data via the web. They allow users to interact with data. This includes viewing maps and accessing and querying data
WMS: Web Map Service (WMS) for sharing maps across the web.
WFS: Web Feature Service for sharing features across the web.
WMTS: Web Map Tile Service for sharing pre-cached map tiles across the web
WPS: Web Processing Service for sharing geoprocessing services.
WCS: Web Coverage Service for sharing raster data across the web.
CSW: Catalogue Services Web is for sharing metadata information.
Geospatial Standards Organisations
Esri supports several SDOs including:
OGC: Open Geospatial Consortium
ISO/TC211: International Organisation for Standardisation Technical Committee 211
IHO: International Hydrographic Organisation