Defining Methodology for Selecting of Most Appropriate GIS Software

Defining Methodology for Selecting of Most Appropriate GIS Software

Bashkim IDRIZI, Sali ZHAKU, Subija IZEIROSKI, Ismail KABASHI and Pal NIKOLLI

Presenter: Assoc.Prof.Dr. Bashkim [email protected]

Defining Methodology for Selecting Most Appropriate GIS Software

www.unite.edu.mk www.uni-pr.eduwww.geo-see.org

CONTENTS:CONTENTS:

1. INTRODUCTION 2. COMMERCIAL AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

National free and open source software policy in MacedoniaComparative analyses between open and commercial software

3. COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF SOME GIS SOFTWARE’s Detecting of most utilized GIS platforms in Macedonia and regionComparative analyses - Price for purchasing a server license - Price for purchasing a desktop license - Price for regular annual upgrade of the software - Price on application development - System requirements for operating system and database types that support the appropriate GIS software - Specification of the hardware requirements - Types of development languages that support the GIS software - The type and level of supporting from the national/regional providers - Difficulties during developing a GIS applications Selecting of most appropriate GIS software

4. CONCLUSIONS




In most of cases is conditioned by local trends, such as: -local tradition, -university curricula’s, -purchasing and maintenance cost, -interface language, -official and non-official software providers, -local representative’s support, -experience, -existing data formats, -national legislation, policies and standards, as well as-Global trends which have significant influence on the software usage in local level also!

Process of selecting software:




Thus, selecting of most appropriate software in most of cases is understood as:-process of continuing the previous data processing lines, -keeping the same format of existing data and knowledge of GIS team, -without any deep and additional analyses for most appropriate software base on many criteria and improving the methodology of data developing and processing.




The analysis methodology: -Detecting of most utilized GIS platforms in Macedonia and region-Comparative analyses between commercial and open source software-Comparative analyses between some GIS platforms, and-Defining of most appropriate GIS platform for the project.




COMMERCIAL AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

Lack of technical support 33,3%

Lack of sufficient information 16,7%

Lack of knowledge of implementation and maintenance 33,3%

Other: lack of training, insufficient FOSS affirmation. 16,7%

Availability of appropriate training and support. 44,4%

Availability of local vendor and/or consultant. 11,1%

Lowering the total cost of ownership. 38,9%

In any case. 0%

In case of compatibility with current software solutions. 5,6%

Reasons for not using FOSS

Conditions for migration to FOSS




Most important factors to use commercial: One vendor can provide all required software, Software is off the shelf, and ready for implementation, Software is OGC compliant, so it is interoperable, …Negative side to use FOSS: No FOSS awareness, Low penetration of knowledge and expertise in FOSS, Tradition of working with commercial software, Need efforts for new trainings and education, …Positive side to use FOSS: No initial software licensing cost, In long term, created local capacity, Training employees on FOSS is investing in the future not for individual but for organization,

IT is cheaper, No lesser professional as the leader commercial products, OS software’s are very flexible, easy configurable, Easy to integrate them in the current, Great compatibility, Each employee could to use them even at home without any limitation of functions, There is no limitation in use, there is no „student version”, „campus version” only the „full

version” exists, …

Positive and negative sides of using FOSS and commercial software




Question Commercial FOSSWho makes? 1. Various firms and business.

Especially corporations with large invested values.2. Research institutes and universities

1. Research institutes and universities2. Various business3. Individuals or civil associations

Where from to get? 1. Hard copy by mail-order service.2. Download only for registered users.

Downloadable from the Internet with or without registration.

Is it creditable? Usually yes. Many of them very powerful and has a large amount of function.

Usually yes. Usually more peoples develop theses than commercial software. (For example: how many employee of Microsoft? And how many peoples develop Linux?

Is it controllable? Usually not. The source code is secret that’s why nobody knows (except the developers) what the program makes and how it makes.

Absolutely. Source code is open and editable if needed.

Is it redistributable? No YesIs there any license? Yes, always, EULA Usually yes, GPL, Creative Commons or similar

Is the owner/authorprotected by law(copyright)

Yes, always Yes, always

Have to pay any fee to use it? Yes No

Is there a national version? Usually not; supported only for the greatest languages (English French etc.)

Usually not (because there is a lot of language) but there is more localized version than of commercial software’s. If the given software not yet localized, easy to do it because of the open source code.

Compatibility? Usually average(I-CS: 74 file format)

Usually at least average(GRASS: approx. 100 raster file format and approx. 40 vector file format)

Some special questions for comparative analyses between FOSS and commercial software




Item FOSS Commercial Hardware XXXXXX (6) XXXXX (5)Training for users XXX (3) XXX (3)Training for developers XXXXXX (6) XXX (3)Software license XXXXXXXX (8)Maintenance XX (2) XXXX (4)Total 17X 24X

Cost benefit of FOSS and commercial software




Comparative analyses of eight selected GIS software packages have been performed based on nine criteria’s:- Price for purchasing a server license- Price for purchasing a desktop license- Price for regular annual upgrade of the software- Price on application development- System requirements for operating system and database types that support the appropriate GIS software- Specification of the hardware requirements- Types of development languages that support the GIS software- The type and level of supporting from the national/regional providers - Difficulties during developing a GIS applications

By taking in account -the main objectives of the project, -GIS software providers in Macedonia, -most utilized GIS platforms in the region, -the general situation regarding to GIS in Macedonia, and -the current situation with the GIS in Macedonian organizations




Our purpose is not to introduce the differences between the software packages and not to make indirect marketing for them, but to publish the methodology which has been used by our site for selecting of most appropriate GIS software package in a real project one year ago!

As abbreviations have been used two codes: CS which means Commercial Software, and FOSS which means Free and Open Source Software.

From the family of commercial software’s, six of them have been used for our analyses, and from FOSS family of GIS software just 2 have been used for our research. Thus, commercial software’s are designated as CS from 1 to 6 (I-CS, II-CS, … VI-CS), and FOSS from 1 to 2 (I-FOSS and II-FOSS)




GIS PLATFORM COSTS (PROCUREMENT AND OPERATING) - SERVER LICENCE

NO. Company GIS platform

Purchase Operating costs (Maintenance Fee??)

TOTAL

Sume for all (three) servers

(8+8+4=20 CORE)YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5

1 I-CS

ArcGIS Server Standard Enterprise(4 core) 22000*2=44000 12200 12200 12200 12200 92800 232000

2 II-CS

DbMAP ASJ Runtime Server (2 core) 6000*4=24000 4800 4800 4800 4800 43200 108000

3 I-FOSS GeoServer 2.1.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

4 II-FOSS MapServer 6.0.1. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

5 III-CS

Enterprice Developer Kit (EDK) (4core) 12800*2=25600 5120 5120 5120 5120 46080 115200

6 IV-CS

MapXtremeт WEB deployment (2 core) 13125*4=52500 11800 11800 11800 11800 99700 249250

7 V-CS NETGIS|Server Standard 18750*2=37500 5625 5625 5625 5625 60000 150000

8 VI-CS ERDAS Apollo (2core) 8000*4=32000 ? ? ? ? ? ?




GIS PLATFORM COSTS (PROCUREMENT AND OPERATING) - DESKTOP LICENCE

NO. Software

Purchase Operating costs (Maintenance Fee??)

TOTAL

Sume for two

desktopsYEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5

1 I-CS 10000 2140 2140 2140 2140 18560 37120

2 II-CS 2400 480 480 480 480 4320 8640

3 I-FOSS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

4 II-FOSS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

5 III-CS 5020 2008 2008 2008 2008 13052 26104

6 IV-CS 1990 393 393 393 393 3562 7124

7 V-CS 2400 360 360 360 360 3840 7680

8 VI-CS 2920 410 410 410 410 4560 9120




GIS PLATFORM Support

Type of Support

No. SOFTWARE

Telephone Support

Mail Support

Onsite support

Product Documentation

Web Help

Training

Service Packs Patches

Arc Scripts

Local representative

1 I-CS yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

2 II-CS yes yes yes yes no yes no no no yes

3 I-FOSS yes yes yes yes no yes no no no no

4 II-FOSS yes yes yes yes no yes no no no no

5 III-CS yes yes yes yes no yes no no no no

6 IV-CS yes yes yes yes no yes no no no yes

7 V-CS yes yes yes yes no yes no yes no no

8 VI-CS yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes no yes




Estimated COSTS for Development

NO. GIS PLATFORM Development

1 I-CS 32 II-CS 23 I-FOSS 54 II-FOSS 55 III-CS 46 IV-CS 37 V-CS 48 VI-CS 3

GIS PLATFORM Hardware Specification

NO. GIS PLATFORM

Web GIS with editing support

CPU Memory

1I-CS

4CPUrecommended 8-16gb

2 II-CS at least 2CPU 8GB

3I-FOSS

QuadCore Xeon 2,6 GHz, at least 8GB RAM

minimum 5 GB

4II-FOSS

QuadCore Xeon 2,6 GHz, at least 8GB RAM

minimum 5 GB

5III-CS

4CPU 32GB

6 IV-CS Dual core Xeon 8GB

7 V-CS 4CPU 8GB

8 VI-CS 4CPU 8GB




GIS PLATFORM System Requirement

NO. GIS PLATFORM OS Web Server Application Server Database

1

I-CS

Windows 7 Ultimate, Professional Edition (32-bit and 64-bit (EM64T))

Windows 2008 SP1, SP2 (64-bit (EM64T)) Server

Standard, Enterprise & Datacenter

Windows 2008 SP1, SP2 (64-bit (EM64T)) Server Standard, Enterprise &

Datacenter

IBM DB2, INFORMIX dynamic server, microsoft

sql server, Oracle, PostgreSQL

2II-CS

Windows, Linux, MAC OS

Apache, Tomcat, WebSphere, Oracle AS

Apache, Tomcat, WebSphere, Oracle AS

Access, MS SQL, My SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL

3I-FOSS

WindowsXP, Windows7, WindowsServer, Linux

WindowsIIS & Apache WindowsIIS & ApacheOracle, SQLServer,

MySQL, PostGres etc.

4II-FOSS

WindowsXP, Windows7, WindowsServer, Linux

WindowsIIS & Apache WindowsIIS & ApacheOracle, SQLServer,

MySQL, PostGres etc.

5

III-CS

Windows Server 2008 Standard

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Windows Server 2008 R2 2008







Oracle, PostGIS, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft

Access, Any other ODBC/OLE-DB

6

IV-CS

Windows 2003, 2008,XP and Vista

Windows 2003, 2008,XP and Vista

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and 2005, Oracle 11g and

10g, Microsoft Access 2000and 97, SpatialWare for

Microsoft SQL Server and IBM Informix

7

V-CS

Windows, Linux, MAC OS

Oracle and Oracle Spatial, MS SQL Server, postGres,

postGIS and MS Access

8

VI-CS

Windows Server ® 2003 Standard and Enterprise

Edition (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit




GIS PLATFORM Development Language

NO.

Software Development Language

1 I-CS C# Java VB.NET 2 II-CS Java .NET C++ 3 I-FOSS Java 4 II-FOSS C# 5

III-CS Visual Basic C++Visual Studio.NET (VB and C#)

6

IV-CSVisualBasic.Net

ASP.NET C#

7

V-CS .NET Java C#Delphi

VB

javascript

8 VI-CS

Running/developing difficulties

NO. GIS PLATFORM Ranging

1 I-CS 42 II-CS 33 I-FOSS 34 II-FOSS 35 III-CS 36 IV-CS 37 V-CS 48 VI-CS 4




GIS Server price Desktop price Development Support Difficulties SUME

No platform 40% 15% 25% 10% 10% 0-100

1 I-CS 232000 3 37120 0 3 13 10 10 4 8 34

2 II-CS 108000 23 8640 12 2 18 6 6 3 6 64

3 I-FOSS0

400

15 5 0 5 5 3 6 66

4 II-FOSS 0 40 0 15 5 0 5 5 3 6 66

5 III-CS115200

2226104

4 4 6 5 5 3 6 43

6 IV-CS 249250 0 7124 12 3 13 6 6 3 6 37

7 V-CS 150000 16 7680 12 4 6 6 6 4 8 488 VI-CS --- --- 9120 11 3 13 8 8 4 8 ----




Thank you for your attention!

Defining Methodology for Selecting of Most Appropriate GIS Software

Documents

appropriate gis platform

gis softwares

appropriate software

utilized gis platforms

methodology of data

knowledge of gis team

open source software

software usage