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Showing posts from December, 2012

Maps Without Dedicated Server

Geographical Information System (GIS) was designed for engineers. That was good because engineers always work with standards which make interfaces open. Web Map Service (WMS) is one of the open interface standards. WMS focuses on maps portrayal via the Internet. A WMS client will request map graphics from the server which acquires, stores and prepares the maps using GIS back ends. A WMS server can be a full blown GIS engine or it can just be a gateway for other GIS engine. Due to the GIS engineering perspective, many GIS implementation was done by hardcore  programmers who work with C/C++ or Java programming languages. The legacy survives till today. The choice of programming language determines the type of server the GIS requires. Unfortunately, most GIS implementations only work with dedicated servers which incur high operating cost. A dedicated server need a special work force to overlook on the daily operation. We have to be realistic if we want to bring GIS into the mainstrea