CLOUD Based GIS

SUBJECT GEOGRAPHY

PAPER REMOTE SENSING, GIS and

GPS

MODULE RS/GIS- CLOUD Based GIS

Module ID 29

Development Team

Principal Investigator

Prof. Masood Ahsan Siddiqui

Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Paper Coordinator Dr M.P. Punia

BITS , Jaipur

Content Writer Dr Seema Mehra Parihar

Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi,

Delhi

Content Reviewer Dr Premendra Kumar

Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi

CLOUD Based GIS

Learning Outcomes: After completing this unit you will be able to :

1. Know what is cloud computing & Cloud Based GIS? 2. Understand essentials of Cloud GIS 3. Identify key steps to move to Cloud GIS 4. Comprehend advantages & disadvantages of Cloud base GIS

Figure 1: TIMELINE OF GIS

1. INTRODUCTION

2000’s Onwards…

Cloud

Based GIS

1990’s Onwards…

Web Based

GIS

1980’s Onwards…

Desktop

Based GIS

1960’s Onwards…

Mainframe

Based GIS

1850’s Onwards…

Paper Based GIS

TIMELINE

OF

GIS

GIS has come a long way since 1960’s. Time line of GIS (figure 1) clearly

illustrates that 2000 onwards the cloud based platform is being used by the users

of this geospatial system. Even after more than 17 years of the advent of cloud

based GIS, only the larger applications of macro level are using this platform.

But, with the scope and the sharing power of cloud based GIS, this can definitely

be branded as a future of GIS. This is cause everything these days seems to be

moving towards cloud. If you recollect your definition of GIS from the

introductory chapter of GIS, Geographical information system is ‘CSTARD’

where “S” is storing spatial and non-spatial data. Today, GIS is all heading

towards cloud because , cloud is gaining momentous in storing contacts,

calendars, documents, articles, images, accounts, presentations, and

everything in the cloud. Consequently, what is happening is that , many private

GIS based companies and foremost vendors are developing cloud based

geospatial solutions. The market is expanding and therefore to understand key

aspects of “cloud GIS” is very important. In this lesson , therefore it is important

to understand the concept, economics, feasibility and advantages and

disadvantages of Cloud GIS. Let us learn about different aspects of this in this

lecture.

Figure 1: Cloud & Services benefitting different Platforms (Source: CA LABS,2014)

2. What is Cloud GIS?

Before embarking on this Cloud based emerging set of technologies, concepts, and

work practices, it is important to understand that it is not a kind of settled set of

services, but require new critical thinking for making decisions. At the same time what

appears to be relevant today in Cloud computing including Cloud GIS is a decision

towards adding cloud computing in your organization, process management, research

methodology, etc.

Cloud computing is a concept and a phrase that has become increasingly popular.

There are a number of competing definitions for what "cloud computing" entails. The

best definition of cloud computing comes from the National Institute of Standards and

Technology (NIST), which consists of (i) essential characteristics; (ii) three service

models, and (iii) four deployment models.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, 2011) defines “Cloud computing

as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of

configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and

services) can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or

service provider interaction.”

According to NIST ,2011 “ cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five

essential characteristics including (i) On-demand self-service; (ii) Broad network access,

(iii) Resource pooling,(iv) Rapid elasticity, and (v) Measured Service); three service

models including (i) Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS), (ii)Cloud Platform as a

Service (PaaS), and (iii) Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)); four deployment

models including (i)Private cloud, (ii) Community cloud, (iii) Public cloud, and (iv)Hybrid

cloud; and key enabling technologies include: (i) fast wide-area networks, (ii) powerful,

inexpensive server computers, and (iii) high-performance virtualization for commodity

hardware, Ferraiola, D., (2011).

Before proceeding further, “let us learn about hosted services on the internet meant for

users of GIS technology or members of public who want to access maps. Services

include map service, data storage and access, powerful analysis with applications, to

manage assets and information. The definitions of related terms are mentioned below,

(https://gislounge.com/)”.

Cloud Status This refers to the real-time view of the performance and uptime of cloud products and services, visible on a dashboard, showing status updates of cloud performance and latency. Community Cloud Community Cloud is a cloud deployment multi tenant model (multiple clients / organizations on a single server) on shared infrastructure; managed and secured by the participating organizations, with common or shared goals. Private Cloud is a cloud deployment model where the cloud infrastructure is accessible by a single organization, for greater data control and security. Public Cloud Public Cloud is a cloud deployment model made available over a public network to multiple clients, with shared infrastructure and pooled physical resources. Hybrid Cloud The hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment in which an organization combines the security of private cloud while running applications from the public cloud. The public and private cloud infrastructures operate in tandem, using an encrypted connection for communication. A hybrid cloud environment can also be a combination of two or more clouds (Private, Public or Community) connected by proprietary technology.

Cloud based GIS can be best understood by simplifying the cloud computing as

‘ANDSEFH’ where ‘A’ means Accessibility Borderless ; ‘N’ means Network access; ‘D’

stands for Demand self-service; ‘S’ represents Sharing & Resource pooling.; ‘E’

stands for Elasticity;and ‘F’ stands for Fixed service and there is External Hosting.

This is well explained in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Cloud Based GIS: ‘ANDSEF’

NOREM EPLANATION/REMARKS

.

A – Accessibility-Borderless

CLOUD GIS is borderless at a basic level. It is accessible to anybody and everybody who wishes to use cloud computing for different GIS based applications. Eg. With data placed in the Cloud ….one can visualize world map, map of India and use seamlessly number of spatial analysis and perform advance level network analysis or create /simulate models.

N- Network Access

Cloud computing services can be accessed from a variety of networked devices, such as workstations, mobile phones, and other servers. A GIS example is a geospatial information service that allows access from browsers and from other servers.

D-Demand based service

Cloud computing services should be accessible at will, without having to consult and get permission from a human being. A GIS example is the ability to start multiple map servers by using a browser interface, or Microsoft, without knowing or caring how these computers are being provisioned (as long as they stay up!)

S-Sharing –Resource pooling

Cloud computing resources such as processing power, storage, and input-output (to use the Von Neumann architecture) are provisioned for different clients from a common set of physical assets. Clients need not know (and often cannot know) exactly where the physical assets are. A GIS example is sharing computers owned and administered by ESRI, Amazon, or Microsoft, without knowing orcaring how these computers are being provisioned (as long as they stay up!)

‘E’ stands for Elasticity. Cloud computing services can be scaled up and down to meet demand and decrease waste. A GIS example is processing a large spatial data set quickly using many cloud computers, which are then discarded when the task is done.

‘F’ stands for Fixed & selective service

Cloud computing services are paid for by resources used (such as processing power, storage capacity, or number of user accounts). A GIS example is paying for a map server only for the hours it is up and the bandwidth it uses, rather than a whole computer

Source: Modified from Ferraiola, D., (2011)

Market recognizes ‘ANDSEF’ characteristics of CLOUD GIS. & following cloud base services are present today:

Map2Net ( http://www.map2net.com )

ArcGIS Online,)

GIS Cloud,

MapBox,

Mango Map,

CartoDB and

MapInfo Stratus.

3. Why it is more difficult to move towards Cloud based GIS by GIS organizations?

“With GIS systems consuming and processing petabytes of data, this is challenging

and unrealistic. For an organization with less than, say, 50 terabytes of data to manage,

it’s easy to move everything there. This is not the case for organizations in the

geospatial industry. The business value of public cloud infrastructure is desirable, but

when there are such large volumes of data, it’s hard to get there.“Lift and shift”

strategies to mimic on-site infrastructure in the cloud are not often viable when

petabytes of data are involved, and many businesses need to keep at least some data

on the premises. Luckily the utilization of public and private infrastructure does not have

to be an either/or decision, Geosk, 2017(https://gislounge.com/geosk-gis-data-as-a-

service-daas/)”

What we need to remember is that the business dynamics of public

infrastructure are desirable, but with so much data to manage, it’s hard to

figure out how to get there.The “hybrid cloud” approach is one option where we can

have some apps running in our data center and other apps can be running in Amazon

or Google.

4. FOUR key steps to accelerate JOURNEY to the CLOUD

(modified from GIS Lounge write up on Colud GIS,2017)

Step 1: Go Cloud-Native

Every Organization has large data and its large size is the primary inhibitor preventing

movement towards the public cloud and cloud architectures in general. There are

separate repositories and they may be using different applications and storing,

retrieving, analyzing and even sharing in this case becomes a challenge. Newer cloud-

native applications use unique interfaces whereas, “Classic” applications use older

STEP1:

Go Cloud-

Native

STEP 3

Go Cloud to

Cloud

STEP4

Go Deep

STEP 2

Go According

to Policy

CLOUD GIS

protocols to access data . , while converting everything to cloud-native format will save

much time, money, and headache in the long run. This does not have to be a massive

project; you can start small and progress over time to phase out last generation’s

technology.

Step 2: Go According to Policy

There is a need to use policies to place data where it’s needed, across

private and public cloud. As far as possible there is a need to follow policies

and principle right from the start. Data management policies in the form of

rules help decide where data should be placed based on the applications and

users that need it – parts of your workflow behind your firewall and other

parts in the public cloud. What is required are the cluster nodes in multiple

geographic regions to protect and location-optimize data.

Step 3: Go Cloud to Cloud

Policies help automate and orchestrate services to your applications based on business

requirements (e.g. cost, capacity, performance, and security), according to the different

capabilities of your on-premise or cloud resources. This also means data is efficiently

discoverable and accessible across multiple clouds – the cloud data management

platform considers the differences in services provided by the different clouds and

moves or copies data to the right one.

Step 4: Go Deep

Cloud-native data holds its own metadata right alongside it, not in a separate database

only its own specific application can read. This also allows the user agency or individual

user to perform large-scale intelligence projects. It’s fair to say agencies with big

datasets use them in a more rigorous way in terms of intelligence than a commercial

enterprise would – metadata is key to these functions, and key to being able to find very

specific information in a large dataset.

5. ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES for CLOUD GIS

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to cloud GIS but it looks like it is

something that is here to stay and maybe worth looking at as a way to simplifying

the needs of your organisation and the needs of your users. Look for a service that

meets your needs, your data formats, your end users and the level of control you

want. Based on Dean M Howell (2013 ) the advantages and disadvantages could

be listed as follows:

ADVANTAGES (Dean M Howell (2013 ) :

1. “Data Access: Access can be via any internet connection, anytime, anywhere.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage, if you have a good internet

connection it is an advantage, otherwise an act of frustration.

2. Distribution: With the facility of remote users - cloud GIS makes the distribution

of data,analysis and systems very simple.

3. Data Capture: Having a cloud GIS allows data capture in real or near real time

to be displayed directly onto your system. One such success story is open street

maps.

4. E-commerce: The ability to sell data or online services to a wider audience can

open up the income streams for various organisation through cloud GIS.

5. IT Management: The need to have dedicated GIS Administrators will be reduced

as you can outsource that to the cloud GIS hosting organization”

DISADVANTAGES FOR CLOUD GIS(Dean M Howell (2013 ) :

1. Data Access: Access can be via any internet connection, anytime, anywhere. I

see this as both an advantage and a disadvantage, if you do not have a good

internet connection then it will quickly become a source of frustration for different

users.

2. Security: Security is an important aspect of any system and therefore cloud GIS

if do not have /hosts a good security system , data has a scope to be accessed

by users who should not be accessing it.

3. Data Volume:GIS data has always been big, taking up gigabytes on your own

server. If you move to a cloud GIS solution then there is both the time to migrate

the data to the host server and also for end users to access and download.

4. .External Hosting: This can be a major concern as the cloud GIS hosting

organisation may not have your best interests at heart.

5. Lack of Control: Another downside of cloud GIS, is the lack of control you may

have over the way your data is used, displayed, manipulated and analysed. To

add a new function or layer may not be as simple as just loading a new dataset

onto the server.

6. Data Format: What formats is the cloud GIS application serving the data out in.

There may be a scope to reformat the data to application.

SUMMARY There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to cloud GIS but it looks like it is

something that is here to stay and maybe worth looking at as a way to simplifying the

needs of GIS organizations and the needs of different GIS users. Whether for

functional need, budgetary alignment, or due to top-down pressure, all companies will

benefit by executing parts of their workflow in the public cloud at some level. With GIS

systems consuming and processing petabytes of data, this is though challenging and

unrealistic, the business value of public cloud infrastructure is desirable, but when there

are such large volumes of data, one come across innumerable challenges. Scope is

immense and combined with benefits this will only lead to expansion of GIS

FOOTPRINTS.