2011 - Geoinformatics

customers to see where both can meet each
other: “Primarily, my role involves a consultative
business approach to examining
which technologies are worth adopting, particularly
as these emerging technologies
move from a blip to a trend. So I spend a
lot of time in the cloud, so to speak. We look
at various cloud providers, for instance, to
see if there's an opportunity there for Esri
and for our customers. We are fully
engaged with Microsoft and their Windows
Azure platform and we are looking at other
providers going forward. The whole idea of
the cloud is sometimes hard to “get”, so I
help to facilitate that, distilling loads of information
into consumable content, for
instance, through frequent presentations,
white papers and articles.”
Cloud solutions within the Esri
portfolio
One might wonder where exactly does the
cloud fit into Esri's existing portfolio of desktop,
server and mobile solutions. Will it
replace or complement the existing products
and what does the cloud mean in terms of
licensing costs and models? About this,
Kouyoumjian is clear: “One of the channels
of thought that Esri has is that cloud computing
is not exclusively the solution. It complements
the portfolios of solutions we have
and not meant as a 100% replacement.”
Indeed, it is intended to be another platform
for organizations, individuals or business
units that see the benefits of leveraging
cloud storage, or with disaster response
operations, or for economies of scale or cost
purposes. Organizations that already have
on-premise solutions create their data mainly
through their field operations or in-house
and then push that out to the cloud, storing
it there so they can access it through various
applications and services, states
Kouyoumjian.
Licensing for the Cloud
When asked how licensing works for the
cloud in relation to existing software licenses
for desktop and server, Kouyoumjian
answers that currently, to leverage ArcGIS
for Server on Amazon EC2, you need to
have an ArcGIS for Server license. Term
licenses are also an option: “Term license
are attractive to a lot of people because, in
lieu of 'pay as you go' licenses for Server,
Esri offers licenses in 1-month, 3-month and
12-month terms.” Of course, with ArcGIS
Online, you don’t need a license to initialize
a SaaS-based solution to immediately
start building a cloud-based application
through ArcGIS Exporer Online or the Web
Map Viewer.
Victoria Kouyoumjian, Esri IT Strategies Architect
I n t e r v i e w
Going forward, Esri will be expanding
ArcGIS Online to include the ability for organizations
to store, manage, and host
services, personalizing their geo-cloud presence
for on-premise or off-premise con -
sumption. Esri will have a subscription
based offering for hosting map services
depending on what you're doing with
ArcGIS Online: With private cloud enablement
through Portal for ArcGIS, and Esri
leveraging SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, in a way,
Esri is taking on the role of a comprehensive
geo cloud broker.”
Looking ahead, out of all the many cloud
providers, only the select few will remain:
“So you've got Microsoft, Amazon and
there's all these other ones coming out of the
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