Maintaining and scaling a GIS server can be challenging. In today’s economy, state and local governments and non-governmental organizations struggle with shrinking public budgets and fewer resources. Rod Erickson of Next Tier Concepts provides provides a solution using Software-as-a Service (SaaS).
A GIS requires the following components: hardware, software, databases, and people. A GIS server facilitates the storing and sharing of geospatial information such as imagery and vector data. Maintaining and scaling a GIS server can be challenging. In today’s economy, state and local governments and non-governmental organizations struggle with shrinking public budgets and fewer resources available to support a GIS; while concurrently incurring a greater demand from an increased number of users requesting map data and imagery as a web-based service. Google’s Earth Builder eliminates multiple layers of infrastructure and allows GIS data provider’s to focus on data without maintaining hardware, software, or databases.
The Google Earth Builder SaaS interface and approach is based on the successful, intuitive Google Applications model for services such as Gmail and Documents already familiar to many users. Many consumers of geospatial data and imagery take advantage of products like Google Earth, and as professionals we may encounter the need to leverage a common and reliable geospatial base map as a resource. As of October of 2011, over one billion users have downloaded Google Earth. Regardless of user type, affiliation or service needs we all consume Google Earth from the same, single web-based resource.
The Earth Builder solution by Google is an innovative approach to storing and sharing geospatial data. Using this alternative to a traditional GIS solution, data managers and stewards such as NIFC reduce time and budgets required to serve geospatial data, imagery and a common base map. Expensive middleware and complex administration processes are replaced by a simple, intuitive Google Applications interface. It is time to stop serving the same pixels and vectors over and over again. Serve once and share many, many times.
Written By:- Rod Erickson
The Earth Builder is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS); it eliminates the need for highly-trained information technology staff to administer and maintain a GIS server. As a result, users of Earth Builder such as United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Department of Defense can focus on their missions and support their users without the concerns, costs and overhead of maintaining a traditional GIS. Earth Builder enables organizations to pool resources and collaborate, which facilitates data sharing and reduces duplication of data hosted on multiple servers.
The Google Earth Builder SaaS interface and approach is based on the successful, intuitive Google Applications model for services such as Gmail and Documents already familiar to many users. Many consumers of geospatial data and imagery take advantage of products like Google Earth, and as professionals we may encounter the need to leverage a common and reliable geospatial base map as a resource. As of October of 2011, over one billion users have downloaded Google Earth. Regardless of user type, affiliation or service needs we all consume Google Earth from the same, single web-based resource.
The Earth Builder solution by Google is an innovative approach to storing and sharing geospatial data. Using this alternative to a traditional GIS solution, data managers and stewards such as NIFC reduce time and budgets required to serve geospatial data, imagery and a common base map. Expensive middleware and complex administration processes are replaced by a simple, intuitive Google Applications interface. It is time to stop serving the same pixels and vectors over and over again. Serve once and share many, many times.
Written By:- Rod Erickson
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