One underlying value proposition of employing cloud technology is to benefit from economy of scale—virtualization facilitates service providers to offer GIS traits to a number of users, with many leveraging the same hardware and obtaining private occurrences of the cloud environment.

FREMONT, CA: Cloud computing is considered to be a significant trend with regard to access to computing resources like software, processing, and storage. While the stepping in of Geographic Information Science (GIS) as an adopter of the cloud was quite late, but the convergence of the two—GIS technology and cloud computing has had a profound impact on the capability of GIS professionals to leverage spatial applications and information.

GIS Cloud Computing Deployment Models

GIS cloud computing, like other cloud computing methods, is characteristically divided into three different deployment models.

• GIS Public Cloud: This cloud service model encloses GIS features like map creation that are freely available to anyone. Here, every user’s information is kept separate through virtualized instances, but are stored on the same physical equipment as other users’ data.

• GIS Private Cloud: The private cloud model presents GIS features only to authorized users, typically with hardware dedicated to a single organization.

• GIS Hybrid Cloud: This model of cloud is a mixture of public and private cloud services, where the two are used in conjunction.

How GIS is Used As A Service

While the first use of GIS cloud computing often focuses on storage like storing spatial data, which can be accessed remotely and analyzed using desktop GIS software, GIS as a service has become increasingly prevalent.

Below are some common instances of how GIS is used as a service:

• Open data platforms with inherent geospatial data analytics tools

• Cloud-based mapping tools

• Facilitation of geospatial data sharing

• Spatial data incorporation with cloud-based artificial intelligence

The union of GIS and cloud technology promises to be interesting. In addition to advancing cost-effective infrastructure for managing complex GIS applications, it also expands the potential influence of mobile GIS, since the majority of computer resources can be accessed remotely and stored on a server.

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