IT-Review

Oracle Supports Open Spatial Enterprises

Customers take advantage of interoperability and spatial standards to leverage data sharing for better business performance.

The open spatial enterprise concept continues to gain momentum, with data increasingly recognised as an organisation's most valuable asset and data sharing applications a critical commodity. Autodesk, Intergraph, Laser-Scan, MapInfo, and Oracle's collaborative effort to leverage and advance the spatial capabilities of an open spatial enterprise helps customers use critical location information in an IT environment and with multiple applications.

All members of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the initiative participants have encouraged customers and vendors in the GIS markets to leverage the value of data for making enterprise system decisions that are data-centric instead of GIS-centric. Increasingly, organisations can leverage existing data investments, enabling employees and customers to share information enterprise-wide. Geospatial data can be integrated for better infrastructure planning and decision making.

Autodesk, Intergraph, Laser-Scan, MapInfo, and other geospatial vendors interoperate with an open and secure enterprise database, Oracle Spatial, to simplify data access and data sharing so that all information is interconnected and centralised. Compliant with OGC standards, an open spatial enterprise helps lower costs and achieve greater return on investment by providing immediate access to data throughout project workflow, independent of the data location or original format, helping to meet real-time information demands.

Organisations and companies such as UK Defence Geographic and Imagery Intelligence Agency; Staffordshire County Council; city of Winnipeg; Army Corps of Engineers; City-Parish of Baton Rouge; Thames Water; Environment Canada, National Park Service, City of Los Angeles, General Directorate of Roads, Catalan Ministry of Public Works and Land Planning; and Forestry Tasmania benefit from existing data and technology investments integrating geospatial, IT and business systems for better infrastructure planning and decision making.

An open spatial enterprise approach enables Homeland Security and emergency response agencies to easily integrate GIS information with building floor plans typically stored in CAD systems. Mobile users, such as customer service agents and field surveyors, are empowered in an open spatial enterprise to collect data, access information, and send immediate updates to the enterprise database. Government agencies can now share existing GIS and CAD data without having to re-translate or re-draw data. Civil engineers have access to up-to-date changes in maps that may have project implications and mapping professionals can be more productive by avoiding redundant data entry by working from an open, central data store with seamless access to design information. An open spatial enterprise brings key point products and database solutions together so that end-users can apply the appropriate technology at the right phase of the business process or infrastructure workflow.

Source: press release

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