DTEI's GIS Technology Strategy
Greg van Gaans
GIS Enterprise Architect
GIS Office
greg.vangaans@sa.gov.au
About South Australia
• South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part
of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the
continent; with a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres
(379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and
two territories.
• A majority of the state's population lives within Adelaide's
metropolitan area with a population of 1,158,259.
• South Australia possesses the world's single largest known
deposit of uranium, at the Olympic Dam mine. Olympic Dam
contains 40% of the world's known uranium reserves. The Olympic
Dam mine is also the world's fourth largest remaining copper
deposit, and the world's fifth largest gold deposit.
South Australian Landscape
Some other South Australians
The Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure
DTEI has many diverse responsibilities
• Transport Services
• Policy and Planning
• Safety and Regulation
• Public Transport
• Energy
• Office of Major Projects and Infrastructure
• Road Safety Directorate
• Government Relations and Reform Office
• Office of the Chief Information Officer
• Government ICT Services
• Building Management
• Lands and Service SA
Considerations when Architecting a
Future GIS Technology Strategy
GIS in DTEI has been Map and Data Centric
• Creating maps and data for specific infrastructure projects
• Capturing and maintaining foundation data (cadastre, roads,
rail, administrative boundaries, survey marks etc.)
• Delivering Maps – paper and digital (e.g. PLB)
• Delivering Data – shape files, CAD files and SDE
• Limited (well known) Customers – local and state government,
PSMA, land/property industry, construction industry
– This has remained unchanged for many years…
Considerations when Architecting a
Future GIS Technology Strategy
GIS in DTEI is facing new challenges
• Demand for digital data and services
– More ad hoc queries
– Fast (online) response
– Integrated with the business
• Broadening Customer Base – our regular customers, plus a
larger number of government agencies, private firms and
public consumers wanting location based services
• Increased focus on quality and efficiency
Considerations when Architecting a
Future GIS Technology Strategy
GIS in Government – Trends:
Proprietary Open, Interoperable
Manual Data Conversions Extract, Transform & Load (ETL) Data
Map Sheets & Files Seamless Database
CAD based Cartography Database Driven Cartography
Compartmented Production Efficient Workflow Management
Expert Users Intelligent Tools
Map Products Spatial Data Infrastructure
DO MORE WITH LESS
Considerations when Architecting a
Future GIS Technology Strategy
Executive Look for Maximum Return On Investment
Finances Customers
Raise Increase
Revenues Satisfaction
Lower Improve
Costs Quality
Geographic
Information
Increase Increase
Productivity Efficiency
Increase Decrease
Capacity Risk
Outputs Processes
Considerations when Architecting a
Future GIS Technology Strategy
Return On Investment
Income generated / maximise use Customer complaints
Currency of products
Raise Increase
Capture once, Revenues Satisfaction
Errors reported
use many times
Lower Improve Rework
Costs Quality avoided
Time saved Geographic
Information
Increase Increase
Speed of update
Amount of reuse Productivity Efficiency
of input information Number of
processes /steps
Increase Decrease
# of Products produced Capacity Risk
Data integrity / data redundancy
Volume of information served
Considerations when Architecting a
Future Technology Strategy
• Data
• Processes
• Workflow
• Technology
• Services
• Products
• People
• Hardware
• Interoperability
• more…
Many aspects to consider
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
Today
Distributed
• Many Authors & Publishers Collaboration
• Lots of Communities GIS Services
– Interconnected
– Interoperable Later
– Integrative Mapping &
– Dynamic Visualization
Legacy
Client / Server Supporting
• Distributed Data Management
• Collaborative Computing
• Application Integration
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• The GIS needs to fully integrated across the Enterprise
– Support a diverse range of business requirements
• Utilities, Land and Property Information, Transportation, Asset Management
– Support a diverse range of client types
• CAD, GIS Desktop, Reporting, Data Visualisation, Enquiry Systems, Aspatial
business systems (Address Validation and Geocoding)
• The GIS needs to be always available and scaleable; able to grow
as the uptake increases without needing to be re-architected
• All GIS information is to be sourced from a single repository
– A single source of truth
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• Supports Data Modelling Geodatabases Model and Manage
most Geographic Data Types
• Use File and Enterprise Geodatabases
Surveys
• Enables Distributed Data Management Networks Addresses
• Allows for Spatial SQL (ST_GEOMETRY) Vectors
Annotation
• History / Archiving
• High Precision Coordinates
3D Objects
Attribute
Topology
Dimensions
Terrain
Cadastral
CAD
Geodatabase Cartography
Scalable Platforms
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• RedHat Cluster
– 3 HP Blade Servers in an Active/Passive configuration
• 8 core (2 CPU)
• 64Gb RAM
• Fibre Channel connected to shared storage on the SAN
• Scalable to 16 servers
– Oracle 11 Standard Edition
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• KML/KMZ ESRI application servers
• Geocoding disseminate information via
Standards Based Services and
• Geodata ESRI Desktop
Open API’s
• Geometry
• Geoprocessing OGC Standards
WMS, WFS, Google Map Clients
• OGIS GML, . . .
AutoCAD KML
Custom clients
CAD
REST
XML, SQL
ArcGIS
Services
Metadata
ISO 19139
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• Windows 2008 Server
• ArcGIS Server Enterprise Advanced Edition (9.3.1 SP1)
– 6 HP Blade Servers in a Load Balanced cluster
• 8 Core (2 CPU)
• 64 Gb RAM
• Fibre Channel connected to the SAN
• All application development is performed in C#
• All web development is JavaScript or Silverlight
• Make no use of the ESRI .Net Web ADF
• Make extensive use of REST services
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• Adopted Web 2 Approaches
• ESRI’s Silverlight and JavaScript APIs
• Server-side Geoprocessing
• Making extensive use of Web Services
• Multi-core – ‘background worker thread’
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• Careful to only include layers that support the business need
– Logical grouping of layers
– Small number of layers to turn on and off
– Choose the best option for publishing the map
• Cached tiles
• Dynamic layers
• Client-side graphics
• Base Maps provide a common reference
– Our own resources
• Imagery, agency base map
– Other City Map
• OSM, Bing, Google, NearMap, (ArcGIS Online)
Topo Map Imagery
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• Dynamic Maps for dynamic content
– Observations, sensor feeds, incidents
– Query or computation results
– Result layers derived from Geoprocessing
– Editing and data access layers
Inundation Areas & Affected
Buildings
Accidents, Traffic Volume, Road
Works
Implementing the GIS Enterprise Architecture
• DTEI has successfully integrated GIS throughout its business
– GIS is ubiquitous in our agency, but the information comes from a single
source of truth
• Minimised the number of products to deliver the solution
– One supplier for all our GIS (ESRI) whom we have an ELA with
– Gives and end-to-end solution from data tier to web tier, improves the Total
Cost of Ownership and maximises the ROI
• Used Blade Servers for all tiers
– Allows us to scale outwards easily as demand increases
• Reduced the number of APIs and development platforms
– Manageable
– Re-useable