Matt Bertrand

Building GIS Apps in the Cloud

• Infrastructure - Provides computer infrastructure,typically a platform virtualization environment, as aservice.

• Flexible and scalable

• Providers include Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Cloud, Microsoft Azure

Cloud Computing

Amazon Web ServicesElastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Provides resizable computing capacityDesigned to make web-scale computing easy &

accessible to developersCreate and use “Amazon Machine Images” (AMI)

Launch identical virtual servers based on an AMIMany templates available

Choose your operating system (Linux, Windows)Choose your horsepower (RAM, processor, etc).

Amazon Web ServicesElastic Block Store

Persistent storage for Amazon EC2 virtual servers (instances)

Ideal for databasesEasily switch an EBS from one instance to another

Use to swap database from a small instance to a faster, more powerful instance

Scalability

Data PostGreSQL

GeoServer

Apache

Data PostGreSQL GeoServer

Apache

EBSSmall AMI

EBS

X-Large AMI X-Large AMI

Light Load Setup Potential Heavy Load Setup

Small AMI:1.7 GB RAM1 32-bit Virtual Core =1 EC2 Compute Unit

Extra Large AMI:15 GB RAM4 64-bit Virtual Cores =8 EC2 Compute Units

Sample GIS Cloud App

Sample GIS Cloud App

AWS Setup1. Register for an account

Not free - cost is based on use of AMI’s and storage ~ $2/day for a small running AMI instance

2. Pick a management console AWS Web Console ElasticFox addon for Firefox Use to Manage AMI and EBS instances

AWS Management Console

AWS Setup3. Select (or create) an AMI and launch an instance4. Log in to the instance using SSH (secure shell)5. Install and configure required software

Apache, GeoServer, PostGIS, etc

6. Create an Elastic Block Store (EBS)7. Attach the EBS to the running instance8. Use the EBS to store data or applications

LinksAmazon Web Services – aws.amazon.comArcGIS Server on AWS - http://bit.ly/9yT15CWorldMap Alpha - worldmap.harvard.edu/alpha