Geospatial World Magazine - GeoSpatialWorld.net

E d i t o r Speak
ational mapping organisations (NMOs) are perhaps the oldest geospatial practitioners in
any country. Charged with the accurate mapping of their respective countries, they carry
a huge responsibility of determining the international boundaries as well as the demarcation
of internal administrative boundaries. One would have imagined that agencies with such
huge responsibilities would be using cutting edge technologies to bolster their capabilities. It is
therefore surprising to know that most NMOs from developing countries are operating on
shoestring budgets and are using time tested but obsolete technologies which are unequal to
the tasks on hand. The problem is that NMOs, being the oldest organisations, are also saddled
with the baggage of legacy. Many of them have old fashioned
laws governing the use and dissemination of the data they
create. New technologies and systems are either unaffordable
or unusable due to lack of capacity to use these systems.
Last but not least the scope of geospatial data usage
has changed so dramatically that the NMOs are unable to
keep pace with the new developments like LBS, 3D city
maps, crowd sourcing and citizen services.
This brings me to our cover story which is on the impact of
cloud computing on the geospatial world. Cloud computing
evolved from distributed computing, utility computing and
grid computing. It brings in a paradigm shift by making available
computing power and applications to individuals on a
pay as you go basis. It frees individuals and small businesses
from the overheads of costly compute facilities which are
evolving so rapidly that, systems become obsolete in a couple
of years. What is true for IT in general is also true for geospatial
information technology. In addition, geospatial applica-
Prof. Arup Dasgupta
tions have become increasingly personalised and accessible
Managing Editor
to the public at large; users are very cost conscious and seek
arup.dasgupta@GISdevelopment.net
value for money they spend on services. From the viewpoint
of service providers, data is expensive and needs to be reused to realise a higher return on
investment. Cloud computing provides an excellent opportunity to meet all these requirements.
To bring these two stories together, it is clear that cloud computing could provide that game
changing technology to the NMOs to overcome their operational difficulties. SDI initiatives,
which are languishing world over, could find an answer in this technology. On the other hand,
like all disruptive technologies, the technology also demands changes from their adopters. It
requires a genuine desire to share data and applications. It requires an approach to security
that does not start with a presumption of blanket denial but a nuanced and graded approach for
different communities of users. The technology also needs to provide much better assurance of
its reliability and security possibly with metrics for assessing them.
The future is exciting.
Geospatial World I May 2011
Game changing technology
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