Implementing a Server-Based Computing Solution in an Enterprise GIS

Author: James D. Walker
Organization: County of Fairfax

12000 Government Center Parkway
Fairfax, VA 22035-0010
USA

Phone: (703) 324-4064
Fax: (703) 324-3937
james.walker@co.fairfax.va.us

The implementation of an enterprisewide GIS in a large metropolitan county presents many technological and logistical hurdles that must be overcome. With an ever-increasing demand for access to the GIS from more than 50 remote offices and more than 200 concurrent GIS users, providing high-performance data access to 400 GB of raster and vector GIS data becomes an issue.

How to serve the most recent GIS data to more than 50 remote offices? How to provide top-of-the-line computing performance that is easily accessible to the GIS user? How to efficiently perform hardware, software, and operating system upgrades on remotely distributed GIS workstations? How to provide a full suite of GIS applications to more than 10,000 County employees with minimal hardware, software, and infrastructure upgrades? One solution, server-based computing, was implemented in Fairfax County, Virginia, to resolve the above hurdles and provide many additional benefits. "Server-based computing" is a new implementation of an old computing paradigm. The personal computer's Windows environment can now be hosted by large server farms, which communicate to "thin" Web-distributed clients on the end user's computer with minimal network bandwidth.

The server-based computing solution provides many benefits including answers to the questions at the beginning of this article. The most recent GIS data is located on centralized database and file servers with high-speed network connectivity to a farm of GIS application servers. Users access the GIS application server farm through a Web browser, which only consumes 10-20 kb/user of bandwidth. Hardware, software, and operating system upgrades are performed by seamlessly upgrading individual nodes in the server farm. And finally all 10,000+ employees have access to the GIS with no additional client software installations or PC upgrades.

This paper is aimed at people who have a medium to advanced knowledge of Windows NT system and network administration. The aim of the paper is to provide one possible solution to the ever-increasing demand for GIS technology and data within large organizations. Lessons learned at Fairfax County will be provided to show pitfalls that may be encountered when implementing a server-based computing solution for an enterprisewide GIS.