In the first chapter, we looked at setting up one or more instances of GeoServer in a way that will make them perform well in a production environment. However, configuring instances so that they run well is only a part of the performance equation. Loading well-structured and optimized data for GeoServer to serve is another part.

In this chapter, we will focus on how raster data can be prepared and stored so that GeoServer can serve it efficiently, and in doing so, we will maximize the benefit of the effort that we put in setting up GeoServer. This chapter assumes a basic knowledge of how raster datasets are served by GeoServer and how to use the web administration interface, configure stores, and publish layers.

We will address a range of topics, from looking at how we can increase the types of raster data we can serve to how we can serve vast coverage of raster data efficiently. By the end of this chapter, you will have a better understanding of the following...