Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/43993
Clients who need to transfer terabytes of data send WeoGeo hard drives to overcome this obstacle. Jeff Hobbs, GIS coordinator at San Jose Water Co., wanted to make it easy for users to get CAD files from the company's GIS. He explored available options and identified cloud computing as a possibility. His orga- nization had a lot of internal discussions to evaluate risk, but risk is minimized by stripping off attributes from the GIS data before sending them to the cloud and by having the only functionality be the return of CAD files. "For us, ease of use is the biggest benefit, and then ease of implementation," adds Hobbs. "We also appre- ciate the cost savings, which ranks third as a benefit." For GIS professionals who have spent huge chunks of time clipping an area of interest and delivering it in a particular format, cloud computing can free up that time for more productive work. The data manager can move data to the cloud in native format, and any number of people can access and customize data as and when needed. Victoria Kouyoumjian, Esri IT strategies architect, identifies security as a top concern for certain organi- zations considering using a public cloud provider (in a public cloud, resources can be rented by anyone). To circumvent these concerns, public agencies in particu- lar are considering the deployment of private clouds behind their firewall, on-premises, to control privacy, security and authentication issues. Although they still have capital investment (in con- trast, using a public cloud is an operational expense), they capture many of the benefits of cloud computing. "I have also spoken to representatives of several international companies that have expressed their con- cern with becoming subject to the U.S. Patriot Act," notes Kouyoumjian. "Their companies cannot or will not adopt a cloud provider with U.S.-based data centers." VCE released Vblock, an integrated, preconfigured private cloud infrastructure, which addresses the interest in private clouds. Esri tested Vblock with ArcGIS, and, according to a report, "Using service profile templates and the automation engine designed for the Vblock platform dramatically simplifies the provisioning process for new ArcGIS instances on blades and servers. Where the time it takes to provision a new ArcGIS instance is normally measured in hours, this is now reduced to minutes" (www.vce. com/pdf/solutions/vce-esri-arcgis-white-paper.pdf). Federal Lead An announcement from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Nov. 19, 2010, will affect the mapping community. OMB will require "cloud first" solu- tions, beginning with the 2012 budget. Any effective, secure solution available in the cloud will be selected in preference to any equivalent solution not in the cloud. Army General Keith Alexander, testifying before a House Armed Services subcommittee March 16, 2011, made the case that cloud computing will increase the security of military networks. "The idea is to reduce vulnerabilities inherent in the current architecture and exploit the advantages of 'cloud' computing and thin-client networks, moving the programs and the data that users need away from the thousands of desktops we now use … up to a central- ized configuration that will give us wider availability of applications and data combined with tighter control over accesses and vulnerabilities and more timely mitiga- tion of the latter," notes Alexander. "This architecture would seem at first glance to be vulnerable to insider threats—indeed, no system that human beings use can be made immune to abuse—but we are convinced the controls and tools that will be built into the cloud will ensure that people cannot see any data beyond what they need for their jobs and will be swiftly identified if they make unauthorized attempts to access data." Cloud computing has the potential to revolutionize how, and how much, work is done in the geospatial realm. Early adopters are dealing with slow data-transfer speeds and finding value in the speed and agility with which new capabilities can be brought online. The push by the U.S. federal government for cloud-first secure solutions will increase security and the rate of adoption in the geospatial community. Reference Badger, L., Grance, T., Patt-Corner, R., and Voas, J. 2011. DRAFT "Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations," Special Publication 800-146; csrc.nist.gov/publications/ drafts/800-146/Draft-NIST-SP800-146.pdf. Tina Cary does freelance writing and delivers keynote addresses on geospatial topics, Cary and Associates; e-mail:tcary@caryandassociates.com. SEPTEMBER 2O11 / WWW . GEOPLA CE .C O M 17