Designing open GIS conformant system architectures for the enterprise
Christopher Tucker
President/CEO, IONIC Enterprise
PO Box 2635
Alexandria, VA 22301
Abstract
This paper provides a review of the state of the art in utilizing specifications from the
Open GIS Consortium (OGC) to develop openly architected enterprise GIS/AM/FM
systems that leverage legacy enterprise spatial data against third party spatial data and
services. This session will offer a practical overview of the value of OGC specifications,
and discuss their use in the development of flexible, multi-tiered, scaleable solutions.
How did we live before interoperability?
In prior years, states and localities have struggled with the requirement to securely
publish their spatial data on the web so that authorized regional and federal authorities
could dynamically access this data on the fly, in their own web applications. Utilities
have had to FME data nightly from one system to another in order to do analysis.
Enterprises have had to convert entire GIS systems over after mergers, in order to
achieve a basic level of data compatibility. Organizations with spatial data in multiple
environments have had to build applications against proprietary APIs, requiring intimate
knowledge of the underlying computational environments and causing combinatorial
development problems (e.g., n- clients against n-resources). Data has been replicated
continuously, undermining the quality and integrity of spatial data resources. And,
system stove-pipes have become a way of life.
Prior to interoperability, most people in GIS viewed this situation simply as the way GIS
worked. No talk of ‘interoperability’ could possibly have swayed them from making
enterprise GIS decisions that re-enforced these limitations. Yet, with the maturation of
standard interoperability (interface and encoding) specifications for distributed geoprocessing,
and their support in many commercial products, these same people are now
seeking to eliminate the costly data and system redundancy, constant system reengineering,
stilted data exchange, and limited functionality offered by traditional GIS.
How did we live before interoperability? Well, we managed just fine, like the drunk
under the lightpost. But, only with the deployment of interoperable products will people
be able to grasp the new functionality and efficiency gains offered by the new frontier of
interoperable distributed geo-processing.
