Presentation by SKE president Darko Poletto to URISA conference in Athens Georgia Oct 2012

1. Spatial Cloud
Computing
Darko Poletto
President
dpoletto@skeinc.com
Presentation to URISA Conference
Athens Georgia, October 2012
www.skeinc.com

2. 2

3. 3

4. So, While You’re Digesting...
• Why Talk About Cloud?
– Corporate IT Challenges
• What is Cloud Computing?
• Why is the cloud appealing?
• Are there issues?
• Is GIS cloud-appropriate?
• Sign me up?
4
www.skeinc.com

5. Corporate IT Challenges
1. Complexity
– Security, Architecture, Policy, Procedures, Servers, Data
Centres, SANs, FW, Networks, Disaster Recovery, ...
2. Cost
– Hundreds thousands to millions of $ to implement
business solutions
– Require on-going maintenance and support
– Specialized technologies and skills
3. Dealing with the Unreasonable Demands of the
GIS Department.
Result => Huge $ and Effort Commitment
5
www.skeinc.com

6. And then there was
cloud....

7. What is Cloud Computing
• The provision of software, hardware
and networking solutions as a service
over the web.
7
www.skeinc.com

8. What Makes it Appealing?
• Scalable – right-size resources based on demand
• Agile – deploy quickly
• Accessible – web based (any time, anywhere)
• Low Technical Risk - No installation required, no
servers, no specialized software, no additional staff,
automatic updates,...
– Technology someone else's responsibility/headache
– Ability to leverage proven solutions based on industry best
practices.
• Overhead – less: staff, computers, energy, space..
• Affordable – based on use / accounts.
– Economies of scale, because there are typically multiple
different clients on the same infrastructure.
8
www.skeinc.com

9. How Does it Work?
9

10. Cloud Service Models
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
– End user app’s delivered as a service
– Examples:
• Google Apps,
• Social media,
• Virtual Desktops,
• Salesforce.com
10
www.skeinc.com

11. Cloud Service Models
• Platform as a Service (PaaS)
– Combination of SaaS and IaaS purposed
for development and deployment
– Examples: Development and Testing
Tools, Database Management Systems,
Directory Services.
11
www.skeinc.com

12. Cloud Service Models
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
– Computing resources: Virtual
Machines, VLAN’s, Virtual Storage,
etc.
– Examples: Virtualized Computers,
Storage Systems, Networking
12
www.skeinc.com

13. Cloud Deployment
• Private Clouds
– Specific to an organization (usually internally hosted)
• Public Clouds
– Available to anyone (Internet based)
• Community Clouds
– Shared resources for a community/industry
• Hybrid Clouds
– A mix of the above
13
www.skeinc.com

14. Cloud Issues
• Security
– Where is your data?, who can see it?
– How reliable/trustworthy is the provider?
– Where is the provider and what are their IT practices?
• Physical premises
• System security
• SW upgrades and patching
• SLA’s
• Responsibility
is shared...
14
www.skeinc.com

15. Cloud Issues
• Security controls by service type...
• Disaster recovery
• Absence of industry standards
• Integration with existing systems
• Dependant on Internet access speed and reliability.
• Often less functionality than desktop.
15
www.skeinc.com

16. Amazon Outage
• Amazon cloud went down in April, 2011
– Many high profile sites went down: Foursquare,
Reddit, Quora, Hootsuite…
• Lessons Learned:
– Plan for failure
– Retain expertise to develop and implement Disaster
Recovery Plan
– Security and disaster recovery is a joint responsibility
– Create internal back-up options
• Can you get your data if your service provider goes down
– Distribute your risk across different sites/providers
– Know your service provider and what they will/will
not do
• SLA’s matter
16
www.skeinc.com

17. Go Daddy Outage
• Go Daddy web sites and DNS servers go down
went down in September 2012.
– A DNS (Domain Name Server)
is like a telephone exchange for
the Internet. Directs traffic to appropriate site.
– Thousands of sites affected.
• We host our own cloud service in a secure
facility, but we use the Go Daddy DNS.
• So, even though our services remained up
and running just fine, for several hours, no
one could “find” them.
• #$*@**@&^^@@!! 17
www.skeinc.com

18. Lessons Learned
• Clients demand more from
service providers.
• Even the best laid plans...
• OWASP (IT security standards),
isn’t necessarily the standard.
• Cloud is in constant change. OWASP Logo
(and, that doesn’t change.)
18
www.skeinc.com

19. Cloud Standards
19

20. Cloud Adoption
• Public Sector: Slow, primarily because
of security concerns
– Non-sensitive data storage
– Public web sites
– Development and testing environments
– Data disaster recovery sites
– US Govt ahead of Canadian Govt
• Private Sector: High adoption rate
– Social media Sites: Facebook, Twitter, ...
– Google, MS, Amazon, SalesForce...
20
www.skeinc.com

21. Municipal Cloud
• Rationalize IT infrastructure.
• More easily enable growth and change.
• Less dependency on internal expertise; e.g. security,
IT hardware, network administration.
• Increased options for remote access and the
portable office.
• Increase GIS deployment options.
21
www.skeinc.com

22. Cloud Companies
22

23. Cloud GIS / Spatial Cloud
Computing (SC2)
• Software as a Service: Highly suitable for
basic to intermediate GIS functionality.
– E.g. www.giscloud.com
• Platform as a Service: Highly suitable for
basic to intermediate GIS functionality.
– E.g. Google Aps; ArcGIS Online
• Infrastructure as a Service: High
potential for replacing internal high-end
GIS infrastructure.
– E.g. Infrastructure Ontario.
23
www.skeinc.com

24. SC2 Introduces DaaS
• New key component of cloud computing.
• Spatial data essential to any GIS – and most
organizations don’t have it.
• Also, significant money saving potential:
– According to ESRI 2012 almost 90% of data used by
petroleum sector companies comes from external
source.
– Massive potential if data provided as a service rather
than handled locally.
– 100s of data sources
– Interoperability still an issue.
24
www.skeinc.com

25. Compare Cloud GIS vs.
Traditional Enterprise GIS
• Functionality (specific vs. general)
• Infrastructure (lease vs. own)
• Time and ease
• Spatial content
• Security
• Business continuity
• Client support
• Cost
25
www.skeinc.com

26. SKE’s SC2 - GeoPortal
• A hosted, cloud computing solution that uses
geography to integrate business information.
• A common geo-base for an organization’s
information and data with Google maps and
imagery.
– maps; tabular data; and, documents / unstructured
content
• Clients subscribe… nothing to buy.
• Secure and reliable: Audit approved.
• Standards-based and integrates with dozens of
technologies, such as…
www.skeinc.com

27. Benefits of Ontario GeoPortal
• Data: Spatial data and info. services provided.
• Technology: Always available (HA). Scalable. SLA
guaranteed.
• Applications: Comes with full suite of applications.
Enables business info. system integration.
• Simple: Easy to learn and implement. No GIS specialty
required.
• Cost Effective: Reduces our client’s IT operating costs
by app. 25%/annum ($250,000).
Subscription costs well defined.
• Subscription model: $1/day/user (1600 named users)
• Resource utilization model: App. $2000/month
27
www.skeinc.com

28. How We Handle Security
a. Distributed Model – your data stay behind your
firewall.
b. Data hosted in Toronto – which is important for
some Canadian clients.
c. Security Model
– Uses Windows Authentication
– TRA-tested to meet rigid standards
– Users only see the information to which they have been
granted access.
d. Multiple redundancy ensures your solution is
always available.
28
www.skeinc.com

29. Distributed Model

30. Important Considerations
• Cloud implementation is:
– optimal for collaboration
– optimal for GIS implementation (eliminates
complexity, cost, skill requirements).
• Build / design for leverage. One-off
projects are expensive; leveraged
technology is much cheaper and easier to
maintain.
• Geography brings new capacity for
information access, sharing, and
understanding.
www.skeinc.com

31. Thank you
Darko Poletto
President
SKE Inc.
416-221-4363
dpoletto@skeinc.com
Please join the Spatial Cloud
Computing Group on LinkedIn.
10/26/2012 31
www.skeinc.com