Where in the world?
- Article 21 of 26
- M-iD, July 2005
Handling geographic information can be a challenge. But the technology is fast becoming part of the mainstream.
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For years, the management of geographic information was considered a job for the 'tank top, sandals and socks brigade', with only the initiated able to understand and manage it using their own specialist software and systems.
And it is still not widely understood. But through the proper use of technology, best practice and information management policies, it is now possible to integrate geographic information into the mainstream business, bringing with it new information management challenges.
Any organisation that deals with geographic information and wants to bring it under the corporate information policy needs to accept that while spatial data is different from most other forms of data - and requires a certain degree of special treatment - it still needs the same support.
“An organisation that's serious about information as a corporate resource, one that's serious about using spatial data to help with business processes, needs to invest in the same level of infrastructure as they would apply to other corporate data resources,” says Andy Duff, technical director of geographic information specialist ESRI.
“Otherwise,” he adds, “it creates limits in how it can leverage the data across the business. It creates the mindset that the data is less valuable to the organisation and that it doesn't require the same level of integrity and performance as other kinds of data.”
The days of geographic information being kept in a silo, separate from the rest of the organisation, need to be banished if the organisation is to benefit from it.
Standardisation
In the 1990s, there was considerable research and development conducted by both database and geographic information system (GIS) vendors in a bid to work out how to overcome this data divide.
Now, most standard relational database management systems (RDBMS) either have some form of native support for spatial data or can store spatial data through the addition of middleware or extensions to the core database.
This has helped make standard corporate databases more capable of storing geographic data, bringing its management within the realm of corporate information policies and under the power of database administrators' tools.
Database market leader Oracle has been at the forefront of spatial-enablement of databases, with every version of its RDBMS now capable of supporting spatial data using the built-in “Oracle Locator” capability.
Initially, the company provided spatial enablement with an add-on to the enterprise edition of Oracle 8i. This was aimed squarely at GIS users and is still available as the “Oracle Spatial Option”, providing high-end analysis features.
However, the company decided to provide more limited geographic capabilities to mainstream users with 9i, but bundled in as standard.
“Our belief is that location is important to our customer base,” says Xavier Lopez, director of spatial technologies at Oracle. “The ability to provide simple MapQuest-like maps, display nearest stores, handle simple lines, points and polygons: these were all important to people. Once we provided that functionality through Oracle Locator, use [of spatial data] exploded in both the specialist and general markets,” he claims.
The majority of GIS vendors have now signed an interoperability agreement, standardising on Oracle Locator as the default storage area for their software's data, bringing geographical data further under the umbrella of standard corporate technology.
But ESRI's Duff argues that while Locator is fine for some purposes, it does not provide all the capabilities required by many GIS users. “It's in our interest as an industry to make spatial as mainstream as possible, but a vendor like ESRI is here to solve the difficult high-end problems,” he says. And standardised database technologies is not a suitable repository for all GIS applications.
House-keeping
Nevertheless, despite this new ability to unite geographic information with corporate data, database administrators still need to understand something about geographic information's unique characteristics, says Steve Calder of PA Consulting, if they are to manage it effectively.
“If you hold spatial data in Oracle, that data needs to be cleansed. All polygons need to be cleansed, so they don't have slivers, spikes or kickbacks. Those things impinge on the efficiency of something like Oracle, so you have to understand how to make the data clean and then keep it clean,” says Calder.
Although certain GIS vendors, such as LaserScan, can provide software that will help in this task, typically there needs to be communication between the geographic information specialists and database administrators (DBAs) when handling geographic data. However, day-to-day running of the database can remain within the purview of the DBAs without the need for continual consultation with the organisation's GIS specialists.
Organisations also need to consider who should have access to the data and how. Usually, only the people who maintain a particular dataset and understand it should have write access - the ability to change it - and responsibility for it.
Deciding on the job roles and responsibilities for GIS data management is also easier for many organisations as a result of work by the Intragovernmental Group on Geographic Information (IGGI), which provides advice on best practice in dealing with geographic information.
GIS for all
Providing all employees with read-access to geographic information held in geographic information systems might be possible for small organisations. But in larger organisations, the licensing costs will make this prohibitively expensive.
Management will also be a challenge and the network and storage infrastructure would most likely require beefing up because of the data intensive nature of geographic information.
By far the most efficient way of providing access to geographic data to the whole organisation is through the use of simple viewing software or via an intranet portal. And this need not be a major project. For example, Oracle's application server comes with the Java-based MapViewer that can be used within a browser or integrated into other applications.
Selecting instead one of the many spatial web servers, such as ArcIMS from ESRI, MapInfo's MapXtreme or Autodesk's MapGuide, will also reduce licensing costs, avoid a major software implementation and minimise both network congestion and the load on the database server.
It also makes it far easier to provide geographic information to satellite offices and other remote locations that may have poorer network connections.
GIS and ECM
While bringing corporate geographic information into the RDBMS can make it easier to manage, it is still not as amenable to other aspects of information management as other forms of data.
Enterprise content management (ECM) and records management systems, for example, struggle with geographic information, so links between these systems and geographic data usually have to be loosely coupled.
The GIS side will normally be the focus since it can often create links into ECM systems and to flat files while the converse is often not possible. Unified search, automated linking between documents, workflow and the other aspects of ECM that make it attractive to information managers will continue to remain separate or unavailable within the realm of geographic information.
Chris Haden, UK managing director of information management software and services supplier Anacomp, argues that while ECM vendors are trying to work with geographic information, proper integration will not happen any time soon. “The ECM boys are plugging away, trying to get all document content into their systems. But they're going to have to emulate a GIS and they don't support Oracle Locator. It's too big a job and they're trying to be all things to all men.”
An organisation will therefore need to create a separate information policy for spatial data. This policy, like the main policy, needs high-level input and should not overlook the storage and back-up implications that managing geographic information entails. “There's a lack of awareness of how much it's going to cost to keep that information long enough to make it valuable to the business,” says Haden.
“If you use a GIS for your property portfolio, for example, and know the business is going to keep those buildings for 20 years or so, you've got to keep that GIS data for 20 years. I'm not sure organisations are thinking about the cost of maintaining all the GIS data that they've got to store,” he adds.
Indeed, while geographic information can now easily fit into standard corporate databases, it still needs to be handled differently and with appropriate consideration for its unique qualities.
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