Integrating Enterprise GIS with Cloud Computing for Transportation Planning and Modeling

Today´s enterprise information systems (EIS) are rapidly evolving both in terms of architecture and content. The various modern operating systems, applications, and databases that form today´s EIS are made more usable and scalable by integration into the cloud, while also becoming more complicated. There is a critical need for organizations that house big data, such as the Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (DCHC MPO), to leverage cloud computing as part of their EIS strategy to serve geospatial data and applications to external stakeholders. Integration with the cloud enables the use of online applications that are flexible, distributed, and scalable to achieve greater operational efficiency, backup/archival capabilities, and other benefits. The key to success in integration is the ability to deploy distributed cloud-based enterprise service bus (ESB) and service oriented architecture (SOA) processes to integrate value chains in a continually changing environment. DCHC MPO has developed two applications that integrate enterprise GIS with cloud computing using Esri products. The first application is a regional travel demand model (Triangle Regional Model) which facilitates information sharing between state, regional, and municipal transportation modelers who find it easier to collaborate over the web rather than by email, FTP, or other means. The second application is a regional land use model (CommunityViz) in which planners from several dozen stakeholder agencies edit parcel attribute data using a selection of client tools. This paper will identify the foundational architecture required to enable the seamless integration of an enterprise system with a public cloud to achieve better collaboration and more streamlined organizational processes. It will also discuss the pros and cons of public cloud and integrated cloud architectures.