iWay Adapters for Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

iWay Intelligent Adapter Geographical Information Systems (GIS) (PDF).
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Deliver Enriched Data From Any Source to GIS Technologies

Analysts estimate that the GIS software marketplace will exceed $2 billion by 2006. Although large, this number is dwarfed by the additional $6 billion of consulting services used in deploying GIS applications. In coming to grips with this three-to-one ratio in consulting to software, many organizations are trying to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their GIS deployments in order to increase their total return on investment (ROI).

But maps alone don't provide ROI. They must incorporate a wide variety of information about the enterprise, which has traditionally been very difficult to bring into the geographic information system.

iWay breaks the barriers between GIS and other enterprise systems, ensuring that GIS isn't relegated to a few stovepipes. Using the iWay Universal Adapter Suite, manufacturers can easily create maps that show how SAP has geographically allocated the distribution of products. Law enforcement officers can access multiple systems to plot current or historical criminal activity. Health inspectors can poll databases to plot disease occurrences when symptoms exceed unacceptable thresholds.

In the past, programmers needed to write the custom code that populated the GIS in these types of applications. iWay allows GIS to seamlessly interact with all enterprise information systems, dramatically reducing the time, cost, and effort of GIS implementations.

Streamlining GIS Deployments

GIS deployments are complex and time-consuming today because data access and geocoding are manual processes. iWay automates these processes with its flexible and comprehensive family of adapters.

Operational data that needs to be fed into a geospatial data structure must be delivered from a wide variety of sources including databases, transaction processors, packaged applications, and feeds from external agencies. In addition, this operational data must be delivered across protocols, such as TCP/IP, JMS, SOAP, ebXML, and messaging systems, such as Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ), WebSphere MQ, BEA MessageQ, and Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ).

iWay eliminates the custom code that's normally needed to get information out of stovepipes, through the enterprise, and into the GIS application. The iWay Universal Adapter Suite, including the iWay Adapters for Geographic Information Systems, ensures a short implementation cycle and a robust architecture for any type of GIS application.

iWay Value Proposition for GIS Deployments

The iWay Universal Adapter Suite automates these processes:

• Retrieving data from any information system, whether inside the enterprise or from a B2B protocol
• Enriching the data with information from other applications, databases, or agencies
• Geocoding the data by calling an application or service to obtain location coordinates and census data
• Delivering information to the appropriate layers of geospatial data stores

By simplifying these processes, iWay dramatically reduces the cost and complexity involved in GIS implementations – up to a savings of one-half the deployment time, one-half the software cost, and one-half the services cost.

iWay Access to the Enterprise

Developers often spend most of their time on a GIS project writing code to retrieve and enrich the information that needs to be loaded into the GIS system. iWay Software specializes in adapters, which allow code-free access to data, applications, and technologies, to simplify the integration process. Two adapters, specifically designed for working with geocoding and geospatial technologies, can integrate with any other iWay adapters to bring information into the GIS application using point-and-click tools.

With over 300 adapters, a proven development process, and 29 years' experience accessing complex enterprise information systems, iWay is a one-stop shop for all enterprise connectivity requirements, whether being used for .NET or J2EE applications, Web Services, or any SOA framework.

Location Data: The iWay Geocoding Adapter

Data presented to GIS systems typically has features and properties that include location information represented as points, lines, and areas. With traditional enterprise data assets these points are commonly represented in applications by user-friendly addresses that lack latitude and longitude coordinates.

The information in this input record must be enriched with latitude, longitude, and other GIS information (for example, census block, census track, and match quality) to correctly identify its location on a map. For example, the input record below is an XML document that contains this typical user-friendly address information, and the output record that follows it is the result of submitting that information to a geocoding service.

The iWay Geocoding Adapter accesses the GDT/Tele Atlas geocoding product and leverages their application programming interface (API) to collect latitude and longitude information, as well as rationalizing other information (for example, street designations, ZIP+4 numbers). The iWay Geocoding Adapter can be easily adjusted to provide lookup capability to any other geocoding product from vendors such as Questsoft, Mapinfo, or MapPoint.

Geospatial Data: The iWay Geospatial Adapter

Once an application has collected all of the information it needs, the data points and other information must be loaded into the correct layer of the GIS system. The iWay Geospatial Adapter loads any type of information into ESRI ArcSDE and can retrieve information upon request. It can also be customized to support other GIS technologies like Intergraph, and Autodesk.

ESRI ArcSDE manages the representation and storage of geographic data sets. The iWay Geospatial Adapter uses the ArcSDE API to expose ArcSDE services and events.

• To support ArcSDE services, the iWay geospatial adapter accepts an XML document from an application or load process, calls the ArcSDE API to insert, delete, update, or retrieve the geospatial information as requested, and returns a result in XML.
• To support ArcSDE events, the iWay geospatial adapter detects geospatial data insertion, deletion, and update events, transforms them into XML, and sends them to any registered application.

The iWay ArcSDE Adapter can deliver rich data, such as survey, address, terrain, and network information, into any geographical layer of the GIS. This information includes schemas and rules for each geographical data set, as well as the actual spatial and attribute data. Data delivered to ArcSDE is immediately available to other ESRI products, including ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, and ArcIMS. These include, but are not limited to, ESRI's Desktop/GIS-based products, Server GIS and Mobile GIS.

For More Information

No other company provides the kind of sophisticated data integration and SOA-based integration technology that iWay Software does. To find out more, call toll-free (866) 297-4929 or e-mail us at info@iwaysoftware.com.