GIS in the cloud: implementing a web map service on Google App Engine

Blower, J. D. (2010) GIS in the cloud: implementing a web map service on Google App Engine. In: Com.Geo 2010: The 1st International Conference and Exhibition on Computing for Geospatial Research & Applications, 21-23 June 2010, Washington, D.C., pp. 1-4. doi: 10.1145/1823854.1823893

Abstract/Summary

Many producers of geographic information are now disseminating their data using open web service protocols, notably those published by the Open Geospatial Consortium. There are many challenges inherent in running robust and reliable services at reasonable cost. Cloud computing provides a new kind of scalable infrastructure that could address many of these challenges. In this study we implement a Web Map Service for raster imagery within the Google App Engine environment. We discuss the challenges of developing GIS applications within this framework and the performance characteristics of the implementation. Results show that the application scales well to multiple simultaneous users and performance will be adequate for many applications, although concerns remain over issues such as latency spikes. We discuss the feasibility of implementing services within the free usage quotas of Google App Engine and the possibility of extending the approaches in this paper to other GIS applications.

Item Type	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/7533
Item Type	Conference or Workshop Item
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Environmental Systems Science Centre
Uncontrolled Keywords	Geographic Information Systems Web Services Cloud computing
Publisher Statement	© ACM, 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference and Exhibition on Computing for Geospatial Research & Application. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. Washington, D.C. Article No.: 34 Year of Publication: 2010. ISBN:978-1-4503-0031-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1823854.1823893
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