Xincai: The biggest impact of cloud GIS is architecture

In recent years, the voice of the cloud is increasingly strong, everywhere in the discussion cloud, from the IT industry to the information field, there is nowhere to talk about the cloud, can be described as "cloud". As the cloud has become the most advanced technology, from cloud to cloud computing, and even extended to a more professional field-The Geographical information field, resulting in cloud GIS.

What are the requirements for implementing cloud GIS? What changes does cloud GIS bring to the geographic information field? A range of issues are being explored, as cloud computing itself is not yet mature in China, and most people are still waiting or watching. The Chinese software Network reporter was fortunate enough to interview Professor Geosciences Xincai, explaining what he understood about cloud computing and the impact of cloud computing on GIS.

Professor Xincai has over ten years of research and practical experience in digital cartography and GIS. In addition to being the Dean of the Geosciences (Wuhan) School of Information Engineering, Professor Xincai is the director of the Ministry of Education's GIS software and its Applied Engineering Research Center as well as the chairman of the China Digital Group. In the more than 10 years of scientific research, Professor Xincai has developed a high-quality research and development team, which has made a positive contribution to the development of China's GIS industry.

For cloud computing, Professor Xincai that the first "cloud" has a narrow and broad sense, "narrow cloud" is to provide different computing resources, "broad cloud" is to provide services. and "Cloud" and "cloud" is also different, "cloud" is the machine to provide services. "Cloud computing" is to provide a variety of functions, according to the new requirements of the combination, to build the calculation model.

From "Parallel Computing" to "distributed computing" to "Network Computing", and finally to "cloud computing", the development process is very rapid. The development of cloud computing is inseparable from the architecture support, Professor Xincai that the biggest impact of cloud GIS is "architecture."

The development of architecture after three periods: first, process-oriented architecture; second, system-oriented architecture; third, service oriented architecture. has now developed to the third stage, service-oriented architecture. and specific to the GIS industry cloud computing System framework, what should be the conditions?

Professor Xincai that the Cloud GIS architecture should have the following two conditions:

First, function and data should be separated. The machine-oriented service is related to the data, and platform-related, can not adapt to the development of cloud GIS. To adapt to the development of cloud GIS, we must loose coupling and mobility, so that cloud function and cloud cell can move. Can be arbitrarily inserted, scalable, so deployment is more convenient;

Second, the function can be built, can be repeated according to need. The current SOA architecture is oriented to electromechanical, machine-type architecture, is a rigid framework, is not scalable, no regenerative capacity, this is very unscientific. The suspension architecture can be adapted to cloud computing. The suspension architecture has two features, one is scalability. Resources can be aggregated and, as needed, can be aggregated according to business attributes and can be customized. The second is that the scale can be scaled dynamically to meet the needs of applications and large-scale user growth. Compute node or cell, can be replaced at any time, a cloud cells out of the problem, the new cloud cells can be gathered at any time, can be replaced. Vitality is relatively long, the system structure and vitality is relatively strong. Provide infinitely many ever-changing applications.

Therefore, the biggest impact of cloud GIS is to change the original architecture, the cloud services can be separated from the data, all kinds of data can be separated, and other data to regroup. And the bottom of the micro-core and middleware and so on the combination of functions. function library, component library and component library can build each other. In addition, the top tier can tailor new systems to requirements and tasks, and provide different services by industry, scale, process, and business.