Showing posts with label wms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wms. Show all posts

Monday, March 15, 2010

GIS in the cloud: A Web Map Service on Google App Engine

Cloud computing might be a useful method for hosting web services in a reliable, scalable environment.  Google App Engine (GAE) is an unusual cloud system in that it provides an application hosting environment rather than a "bare" operating system.  GAE applications scale automatically in response to increasing load, and usage of this cloud is free up to a certain set of quotas.

Attracted by these qualities, and motivated by a need to develop a fast and reliable Web Map Service (WMS) for base maps, we have performed an investigation of the suitability of GAE for hosting a WMS.  Full details, including a paper we have submitted to COM.Geo 2010, can be found at http://code.google.com/p/gae-wms/.