Tellurion · systems for a living planet
Carlo Cancellieri
Open Geospatial Systems Architect · Creator of Tellurion
I turn OGC API, STAC and ISO standards into geospatial systems you can run, inspect and keep under your control — from multi-tenant platforms to native Rust services.
About
Standards into systems
I work at the boundary between open geospatial standards and production architecture. As a former GeoServer core developer, I learned how durable open-source infrastructure is built, reviewed and maintained across organizations. At the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, I led architecture and development across GeoID and DynaStore: multi-tenant services for discovery, features, maps, tiles, coverages, processing, joins and 3D delivery.
Tellurion is independently created and owned by Carlo Cancellieri: a Rust geospatial serving engine built around embedded-first deployment, bounded resource use and standards-driven interfaces. Its v0.4.0 release-candidate Community source is available for self-hosted deployment. The public gallery makes seven vector, raster, multidimensional, 3D and protocol paths inspectable through four active read-only services. A fifth service definition remains visibly behind its deployment gate. The separate Italy field case keeps reproduction evidence, measured results and limitations together.
As I conclude my FAO chapter, I am exploring principal architect and senior technical leadership opportunities in open geospatial systems, cloud and hybrid data platforms, and standards-driven infrastructure.
Tech Stack
Featured Projects
STAC discovery → live map
One bounded ESA WorldCover Item, preserved with provenance and served through split GeoPackage and COG lanes as inspectable STAC, Features, TileSet and live PNG resources.
Tellurion
Tellurion v0.4.0 release-candidate Community source is an independently created and owned, self-hosted Rust geospatial serving engine. It covers Features, Tiles, Maps, Styles, STAC, CQL2, COG, Zarr and 3D Tiles; GeoPackage stays the embedded default and PostGIS supports larger deployments.
- Source and operation: v0.4.0 release-candidate Community source is public for self-hosted deployment. There is no Tellurion Cloud and no service-level agreement
- Public gallery: seven visual paths sit in front of four active services; a fifth service definition is explicitly marked as pending
- Deployment: free Render services can sleep after inactivity. Hosted timings are not benchmark evidence
- Release: historical demos still use checksum-pinned 0.3 artifacts until they are redeployed; v0.4.0 release-candidate source is not presented as deployed there
- Rome measurement: the published result remains a Tellurion 0.2.0 smoke-scale benchmark with its method and caveats
- Standards precision: demonstrated behavior is not presented as certification or blanket conformance
DynaStore
A multi-tenant geospatial engine developed at FAO for catalog, map, tile and vector-data workflows. Its architecture separates protocol handling from storage and operational services, with pluggable PostgreSQL/PostGIS, search and analytical data paths across cloud and on-premises deployments.
- Data Catalog: data.apps.fao.org/catalog — Multi-tenant metadata discovery with pluggable storage backends (Iceberg / DuckDB / Parquet)
- Maps & Tiles API: FastAPI + PostGIS serving WMS/WFS/WMTS + Mapbox Vector Tiles for web mapping
- Dual GeoServer Clusters: Separated read and authoring instances for safe editing under load
- GeoID integration: OGC API and STAC extension packages reuse shared catalog, storage and lifecycle services
- Operational hardening (2026): pg_cron-driven task reaper, async PostgreSQL connection pooling, and GCP provisioning resilience for multi-region deployments
- Admin UI: Operator console for catalog provisioning, task inspection, and configuration management
My contribution covered the architecture and technical leadership of these shared services; DynaStore and its institutional deployments remain FAO work.
Remote Sensing Portal
FAO's STAC-native earth observation discovery and access platform. Built on STAC-FastAPI with Elasticsearch / OpenSearch, exposing OGC STAC APIs across agricultural indicators, dekadal time series, and administrative boundary hierarchies.
- STAC-first architecture: OGC STAC standard end-to-end, from collection metadata through catalog search to item retrieval
- Datacube workloads: Handles very large dimension spaces — thousands of agricultural indicators, dekadal time series (36 periods/year), administrative hierarchies
- JSON-safe serialisation: Custom OpenSearch serialiser keeping STAC pydantic models (HttpUrl, datetime, UUID, Decimal) deterministic on ingest
- Datetime range indexing: STAC `[[start, end]]` intervals mapped to Elasticsearch date_range objects with null-handling
- Separate from the main catalog: Distinct runtime and data plane from DynaStore's core catalog, co-deployed on the same Keystone IAM and GCP substrate
The portal is the Organization's entry point for EO-aligned data discovery — complementing DynaStore's generic geospatial catalog with STAC-native search, item retrieval, and OpenSearch-backed faceting.
Keystone
FAO's unified identity and access control platform. Integrates Keycloak with GCP IAM, supporting RBAC and ReBAC policies designed to scale to millions of users per realm.
- OpenID Connect: Industry-standard authentication for federated identity
- Cloud Identity Integration: Seamless sync with GCP organization structure
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Traditional role hierarchy for application access
- Relation-Based Access Control (ReBAC): Fine-grained permissions based on data relationships
- Multi-tenant Support: Isolated realms for different FAO divisions and external partners
Replaced legacy single-sign-on with a modern, zero-trust IAM platform. Reduced access provisioning time from weeks to minutes, enabling agile organizational changes.
Hyrax SQL Handler
A C++ BES module enabling relational database access through the OPeNDAP Hyrax data server. Exposes SQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB) as standard OPeNDAP datasets.
- Google Summer of Code: Mentored by Patrick West (Senior Engineer at Workday)
- Database Support: PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB via ODBC/SQL interfaces
- OPeNDAP Integration: Exposes tabular data through standard netCDF, HDF5, FITS, ASCII formats
- Production Use: Deployed at FAO, NATO, NURC, LaMMa research institutions
- Maintenance: Still actively maintained and used in production environments
This project bridged the gap between enterprise databases and scientific data discovery workflows, enabling transparent access to geospatial and climate data stored in relational databases.
CKAN Extensions
Suite of 5 open-source CKAN extensions for open data platform enhancement, metadata management, and visualization integration.
- ckanext-jsonschema: JSON Schema-based metadata editing (5 GitHub stars)
- ckanext-publisher: Publishing workflow management for CKAN datasets
- ckanext-terriajs: TerriaJS map visualization integration for geospatial data
- ckanext-scheming_dcat: DCAT metadata schema support for semantic web interoperability
- ckanext-cloudstorage: Cloud storage backend support for CKAN resource files
These extensions extend CKAN's capabilities for geospatial data publishing, metadata standardization, and modern web-based data discovery interfaces.
GeoServer Ecosystem
Core contributor to GeoServer (4.3k+ stars), GeoNetwork, GeoTools, and GeoBatch. Led development of advanced features and performance optimization tools.
- GetLegendGraphic JSON Output: Community-adopted feature for JSON-based map legends
- JMX/REST/JMS/WPS Interfaces: Enhanced monitoring, REST API, message integration, processing services
- GeoServerStressTest: Load testing tool for GeoServer performance evaluation (5 GitHub stars)
- Production Deployments: FAO, NATO, NURC, LaMMa research institutions
At GeoSolutions (2010–2014), led development of enterprise features for OGC Web Services, metadata management, and high-performance geospatial data serving.
GeoID
FAO's modular, multi-tenant geospatial platform for turning OGC API and STAC standards into deployable services. Its extension architecture covers discovery, vector and raster access, maps and tiles, processing, joins, dimensions and working 3D delivery paths.
- Standards-to-code: Separate extension packages map OGC API and STAC protocol families onto shared catalog and storage services
- Multi-tenancy: Catalog-scoped routing, authorization and lifecycle management across cloud and on-premises deployments
- Vector, raster and 3D: Features, tiles, maps, coverages and a verified CityJSON-to-3D-Tiles delivery path
- Asynchronous operations: Ingestion and processing workflows designed for large geospatial assets
- Operational honesty: Open issues document scaling boundaries such as geometry-heavy low-zoom tiles, multi-million-feature ingestion and bounded event consumption
GeoID remains an official FAO initiative. This portfolio describes my technical contribution; project ownership and institutional inquiries belong to FAO.
MCP Skill Hub
A local MCP server that gives Claude Code semantic skill search, cross-session task memory, and zero-token command interception — all powered by Ollama running entirely on your machine.
- Semantic Skill Search: Find Claude Code skills by meaning using Ollama embeddings — no keywords needed
- Zero-Token Hook: UserPromptSubmit hook intercepts "save task", "close task" commands locally before Claude sees them
- Cross-Session Memory: Save open tasks, compact closed ones with a local LLM (~200 tokens vs ~5000 raw)
- Three-Signal Learning: Teachings, feedback ratings, and passive session history improve rankings over time
- Plugin Management: Enable/disable Claude plugins live; suggest relevant disabled plugins by context
- Token Profiling: Tracks estimated Claude API tokens saved per hook interception
Designed for developers who run many Claude Code plugins and want to keep context lean.
Runs entirely offline on your machine using Ollama (deepseek-r1, nomic-embed-text).
Install in one command: ./install.sh
Open Source Contributions
Organization Memberships
Experience
Lead Software Engineer, AgroInformatics Division
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Feb 2020–Dec 2026 | Rome, Italy (Remote)
Architect and lead engineer for the Organization's cloud-native geospatial platforms in support of the Hand-in-Hand Initiative. Led architecture and delivery across DynaStore, the Remote Sensing Portal, and Keystone (unified IAM), coordinating work across the Statistics Division, IT, and regional offices. Led a multicultural team, managed GCP infrastructure-as-code, and mentored engineers across staff and consultant categories. OGC Member since September 2025, proposing the Dimensions API and Assets API to the GeoDataCube Standards Working Group. ISO-TC211 contributor, standardizing ISO 19115-4 (JSON encoding) and ISO 19115-5 (GeoDCAT/DCAT). Integrating Vertex AI and LLM-based tooling (Model Context Protocol) into the Organization's geospatial data workflows.
Head of Research & Development
SIGEO S.r.l.
Oct 2018–Sep 2019 | Rome, Italy
Directed a 15-person R&D division with full P&L responsibility, delivering the TAP/SMAI real-time environmental monitoring system for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline — a multi-billion-euro cross-border energy infrastructure programme spanning Greece, Albania, and Italy. Led Agile transformation, managed annual R&D budget, and negotiated scope with consortium partners.
Statistical Working System (SWS) Expert
FAO Statistics Division (ESS)
Jul 2015–Dec 2017 | Rome, Italy
Senior technical lead on the Statistical Working System, FAO's corporate statistics platform supporting Food Balance Sheets, Supply Utilization Accounts, and domain-specific methodologies for 194 member countries. Led the frontend modernization (React/Redux/TypeScript) and built R-based statistical processing pipelines; established CI/CD and SDLC processes for the SWS team.
Senior Software Engineer / System Integrator
Proxima Informatica
May 2014–Jun 2015 | Rome, Italy
Client-facing enterprise engineering for major organizations in the international lottery and payments industry. Led CI/CD and DevOps practices for a 75-developer multicultural team and contributed to the Apache Camel open-source project.
Software Engineer → Product Owner
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Nov 2010–Apr 2014 | Viareggio, Italy
Core contributor to GeoServer, the leading open-source geospatial server. Progressed from software engineer to product owner, delivering solutions for international organizations including FAO, NATO, and NURC. Authored GetLegendGraphic JSON output and contributed to JMX, REST, JMS, and WPS interfaces. Created the GeoServerStressTest load-testing tool.
Google Summer of Code — Software Engineer
OPeNDAP / Google Inc.
Apr 2009–Aug 2010 | Remote (International)
Selected twice (2009, 2010) for Google's international open-source programme under the OPeNDAP organization. Authored the Hyrax SQL Handler — a C++ BES module enabling SQL/ODBC database access through the OPeNDAP protocol — deployed at FAO, NATO, NURC, and LaMMa. Mentored by Patrick West. The module is still actively maintained and in production use 15+ years later.
Education
MBA
Neapolis University Pafos (Cyprus)
2023–2024 | First Class Honours (100/100)
Master of Business Administration, Grade A with 100/100 average (Dissertation: 100/100). Thesis on ethical AI integration and ESG frameworks for sustainable business transformation. Coursework in strategic management, finance, operations, and organizational behaviour.
B.Sc. Computer Science
University of Naples "Parthenope"
2005–2009
Laurea in Informatica (Classe 25). Thesis: "Management of Distributed Data in a Distributed Computational Environment (Grids)" — designed and implemented the data access layer for OPeNDAP Hyrax, leading to Google Summer of Code selection in 2009 and 2010.
Certifications & Professional Training
FAO · IEEE · Six Sigma
2024–2025
FAO technical training: Remote Sensing Data Portal, Global Agricultural Land Use Mapping, Sensing & Data Analytics for Precision Agriculture, Climate Risk Toolbox (CRTB), EX-ACT Tool Integration, Environmental & Social Management Framework. IEEE DataPort: Driving Research and Innovation. Six Sigma Green Belt.
Languages
Linguistic Proficiency
2024
Italian (Native), English (C1), Spanish (B1 DELE). Fluent in technical and professional communication across international teams.
Get in Touch
I am exploring principal architect and senior technical leadership roles across open geospatial systems, standards-driven infrastructure, and cloud or hybrid data platforms. I am also open to selected technical collaborations around Tellurion.