There’s no question that the Cloud is here to stay and indeed, this thing known as “Web GIS” is for real and when paired with the ArcGIS Online platform, the GEOPowered Cloud environment from GEO Jobe allows users to create resources (think webmaps and apps) that can reference complex data structures and services that reside in an ArcGIS for Server environment. They share several good reasons to make a move to the cloud. [Read more…] about Reasons to Move GIS to the GEOPowered Cloud
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What is the Cloud? The Cloud, Simplified
Ever had anyone in your family ask you “what is the cloud”? You may hum and fumble a little and fish around a little to explain it… after all, we all work in the cloud these days but when you try to explain to a family member exactly how it works you may launch into some technical jargon that scares them away… so, here’s a simple little video that you can share with them that does a good job simplifying the cloud… enjoy!
ArcGIS Online at the 2012 #esriuc and Geography As A Platform – Top Features
No huge surprise here as much of the story t esriuc2012 was indeed, ArcGIS online (AGO), or as Jack Dangermond might describe it, The mapping platform for your organization! We heard how ago is a ready to use, simple, cloud solution and is the ideal way to reach your users and potential users. AGO provides users and web administrators with effortless sharing via the web, mobile Internet, and even social media. So, why ArcGIS Online? We heard many compelling reasons while at conference this year, some of the main reasons as outlined by the AGO development team and other Esri experts includes:
- Allows you to easily go mobile
- Free downloadable ArcGIS apps
- Collaboration made easy
- Easily add data and put your data in the cloud … Think web enabled services from your data.
- Feature or tile services provide a fast, smooth user experience
- ArcGIS Online provides users and publishers with tools that help maintain ownership
- Data publishers have the option of private or public data sharing via a robust environment to manage security and data ownership
- Publishers and webmap administrators have access to a wealth (understatement) of data and content
- Various levels of administration is enabled for users and content publishers enabling the definition of users as Administrator, publisher, or users
- Your published web service is scalable and can easily support unexpected spikes in traffic that could otherwise crash your system – see billing/license model for more information on this.
In the words of Esri founder and president, Jack Dangermond, from the UC opening plenary, ArcGIS online will amplify geography and with it Esri is Providing geography as a platform.
See more at https://www.arcgis.com/about/
and explore at http://www.arcgis.com/explorer/
Geo Data in The Cloud from the viaEuropa
A new service from an old colleague and friend from Europa Technologies – enter via Europa (http://www.viaeuropa.uk.com/). viaEuropa is a new online service from Europa Technologies for the delivery of high quality digital maps direct to your app. The service uses Europa Technologies’ years of expertise in map tile rendering to deliver high quality map tiles directly to your web mapping application or desktop GIS. The hosted service is an example of Data as a Service (DaaS) and uses cloud computing to provide a scalable level of performance as the number of users grows. The service is availabel in several flavors including: the viaEuropa hosted service; viaEuropa Open – free access to maps created from OS OpenData; and viaEuropa Plus, available to any organisation and includes licensing for commercial use. From the developers… “viaEuropa is compatible with virtually any source of digital map data including OS OpenData”
The viaEuropa hosted service uses a web tile service to deliver pre-rendered map tiles to your application. APIs and applications supported at launch include:
* MapInfo Professional 10.5+
* MapInfo ProViewer 10.5+
* ESRI ArcGIS Desktop
* ESRI Web Mapping APIs
* Google Maps API (Premier)* Bing Maps API
* OpenLayers
* Oracle MapViewer
* OS OpenSpace®
See details in the official announcement
WeoGeo Update – New Release 2.3.16
You may have missed this if you don’t follow the Weogeo team on Twitter @WeoGeo, as last week the company rolled out an update to their service. According to their blog, this latest update provides some improvements along with a number of fixes. USers will find faster downloads with this release as well as a feature that provides auto updates of errors to the WeoGeo support team.
Other Highlights include :
1. Added Get Satisfaction feedback widget to our website.
2. Improvements to Jobs APIs: The API call /jobs/#{token}/download will now accept ssl requests. It is now possible to provide proj4 strings directly via the jobs API. Renamed the output file format option “ESRI_BIL” to “ESRI_HDR”.
3. WeoApp GUI can email error reports to WeoGeo Support.
4. Zoom levels do not need to be specified in the weofile when using –no-tiles.
Find data in the cloud via the WeoGeo Market
Wondering where the future lies in GIS data delivery?? Check out this interesting demo video of the WeoGeo Data Market (market.weogeo.com) from WeoGeo (See @weogeo or weogeo.com) – more details on this SaaS can also be found in their Wiki Need data… simply navigate, search, preview, browse metadata, order, customize… all in the cloud. What’s very handy about this service is the use of GeoRSS feeds whereby users who enable the RSS feed updates will receive notification when new or updated data products of interest (or for a specific area) are made available.
Google’s New mantra – Mobile First (and think Cloud)
I guess I’ve known this was coming (as have many of you), however, when anyone from Google talks people do listen… so think mobile!! This from a report out of the recently held MWC in Barcelona, Spain… Schmidt proclaimed that three unique areas had now converged on the mobile device: computing power, interconnectivity and the cloud: “The phone is where these three all interconnect and you need to get these three waves right if you want to win.” He highlighted Internet phenomenons such as Spotify, Facebook – and Google itself – as leading the cloud concept across both fixed and mobile. “If you don’t use the power of the cloud you will fail,” he said. So, when developing the next release of your web app or web servcie don’t forget to consider the mobile user! See more details