—Matthew Bryant, Bruce Harris & Associates, Inc.
View Presentation [PDF]
The goal of every GIS department is to create an enterprise where geographic data and related data appears seamless and is accessible to interested parties and the public through simple controlled means. Often it is difficult to quickly share current data with the public because the data is fragmented and spread across multiple formats, departments, and even networks. Creating an enterprise GIS and a web application requires a vision and can take many years and many phases. This presentation recounts the history of the Lorain County Auditor's GIS Department and their strategies for integrating CAMA data in its internal workflows as well as sharing geographic and CAMA data with the public. The presentation will explore the challenges and decisions made at every phase of building an enterprise, from the county's first CAD based system with a MapObjects web application, to the conversion to a seamless multi-editor SDE geodatabase, to the implementation of ArcGIS Server and a new ASP.NET web application, and finally the decision to move away from an externally housed mainframe based CAMA to an internal SQL Server based system. Issues to be explored will be designing an enterprise GIS, data integration, determining how to present data to the public, software and hardware considerations, and custom application development. This presentation will be valuable to managers looking to plan and implement an enterprise that can provide CAMA and GIS data to the public through the web.