Goals in designing the ETF software were to create test reports that are user-friendly and self-explanatory as well as to be able to validate large amounts of data, which can be several hundred GB in size. In order to cover different validation tasks and present them in a unified report, the architecture is modular and different test engines can be used. Currently the following test engines are supported: SoapUI for testing web services, BaseX database for testing XML data, TEAM Engine to validate WFS and OGC Web APIs using the OGC CITE tests, NeoTL Engine for testing WFS, OGC Web APIs and datasets.
ETF is the underlying framework used by the INSPIRE Reference Validator to validate metadata, datasets and services against the INSPIRE requirements. ETF is also used extensively in Germany by the Surveying Authorities of the Laender to validate their datasets. Other European Union (EU) Member States are also reusing the ETF to allow their data providers to test resources against national requirements. Finally, some software tools include validation based on the ETF API in their workflow.
