In recent times, the exponential growth of location-referenced sensor data, combined with exposure to internet of "traditional" GIS data stores has resulted in an increase in the volume of available geospatial data. There is a growing demand for combining all these different sources and resources into new information, in order to improve situational awareness that could lead to better, or "smarter", decisions. Combining data stores or data streams is an operation which requires computer power, memory and storage. This makes geospatial storing and processing a very good candidate for cloud computing.

Cloud computing is a paradigm for enabling , on demand, network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources, which can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort [1]. High availability is a key property of cloud computing, and this is achieved by using techniques which are abstracted from the final user. Another key advantage is removing the management effort of running a similar infrastructure in in-house servers, and the consequent reduced IT costs.

One of the critical issues associated to cloud computing is the existence and adoption standards that will enable cross platform interoperability, consistent security mechanisms, and information sharing. Not relying on standards, risks to result in the creation of data "silos". In the case of geospatial information, OGC standards are a valuable asset, which enables developers to make geospatial information and services accessible, whether or not these services are provided via the cloud. These standards, when combined with the increased availability of a good internet connection, allow a single point of access to distributed data sources, reducing storage redundancy and the risk for data inconsistency.

GeoCat Live is a docker-based solution to provision servers on the cloud, which implement a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The solution takes advantage of the docker framework to achieve an easy and quick setup (one-click), some degree of customization, and resilience to failure. By tackling aspects such as security and backups, we aim to provide a solid, hassle-free and cost-effective, alternative, for homelands to run their SDIs on the cloud. Live relies heavily on geospatial standards, in order to promote the interoperability of services, data and metadata. Examples of these standards include OGC Web Services (OWS) or the INSPIRE profile. It is entirely based on mature Free and Open Source Geospatial software, such as GeoNetwork, GeoServer and PostGIS.

In this talk we will describe the technical background of our solution, as well as the architecture of our product, and the product roadmap. In order to demonstrate its capabilities, we will also give examples of the usage of GeoCat Live, from the point of view of the end user. We aim to demonstrate the usefulness of this solution, which covers a basic need for most homelands: to run a SDI.