2010 Second IITA International Conference on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Studies on Application of Cloud Computing Techniques in GIS
YANG Jinnan, WU Sheng*
Spatial Information Research Center of Fujian Province,
Fuzhou University, Key Lab of Spatial Data Mining and Information Sharing, Ministry of Education,
Fuzhou, China
*correspond to e-mail: ws0110@163.com
Abstract—Cloud computing is a new internet-based
supercomputing principle and practice, which supplies
dynamic, scalable, and pay-per-use services and has huge
computing and storage capacity with high reliability and
security. This paper first summarized the concept, features
and the development of the cloud computing, and then
discussed the application of cloud computing techniques in
spatial analysis, decision support and the storage of spatial
data, and the impact on software development and product
patterns of GIS. Finally, we proposed several issues about
cloud security, how to monitor cloud services and to develop
cloud specifications in using cloud computing techniques.
Keywords-GIS; cloud computing; spatial data storage;
cloud security;
I. INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is associated with a new paradigm
for the provision of computing infrastructure. This
paradigm shifts the location of infrastructure from desktop
to the network to reduce the costs in management of
hardware and software resources [1]. Cloud computing is
evolution of grid computing, and this evolution is the
development of grid computing, web 2.0 and particularly
the virtualization technology.
Geographic Information System (GIS) aims at helping
people to present nature changes, discover the law of social
and economic development through analyzing massive
spatial and attributed data of the earth surface. The
emergence of cloud computing brings a new solution to
massive data storage, data processing, spatial analysis.
Thanks to cloud computing, the massive data that
knowledge acquisition and decision support information
needs can be scheduled and parallel processed entirely
within the cloud instead of being transferred on the
network. Data security has been well guaranteed for the
centralized storage and backup. Enterprises can not only
rent data and hardware resources, but also can deploy their
services in the cloud, providing unique data processing
services.
II. CLOUD COMPUTING TECHNIQUES
Cloud computing is a completely new Internet-based
principle and practice of supercomputing, which provides
scalable and on-demand services on computing, storage,
software and hardware with high reliability and safety to
Internet users. In this section most of the available cloud
definitions are gathered together as shown in Table 1[2],
especially those proposed by cloud computing experts,
which is marked in reference [5].
Though cloud computing is a new form of web service,
some of the existing technologies the cloud concept draws
on (such as virtualization, utility computing or distributed
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computing) are not new. However, the core feature which
differentiates cloud computing from the other computing
models is its nature of ‘service driven’ [9]. Currently
Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Dell,
SUN and other world famous IT companies are actively
researching and deploying their cloud computing and have
started to provide some commercial services.
III. STUDYS ON APPLICATION OF CLOUD COMPUTING
IN GIS
Geographic Information System includes a variety of
advanced features in information processing, and its basic
functionality is data collection, management, processing,
analysis and output. Relying on these basic functions, GIS
implements a variety of applications through the use of
spatial analysis, modeling, network technology, database
and data integration technology, and further development
environment to meet the broad needs of users[10]. The
emergence of cloud computing, no doubt brings new
opportunities for GIS.
A. Enhance the Storage Capacity and Security of Spatial
Data, Provide Strong Support of Mass Data Storage
for GIS
There are many different types of spatial data: attribute
data, geometric data, relational data that expresses the
mutual relationship of map elements, auxiliary data which
facilitates the map processing. While the data changes
respectively with time, and the amount of data is very large,
so the management and maintenance of spatial data storage
costs a lot of hardware, human and financial resources.
Cloud storage, which assembles different kinds of storage
devices to work together by software with functionality of
clustering, grid or distributed file systems, is a complex
system composed by various parts such as network device,
storage equipments, servers, applications, public access
interface, the access network, and client programs. The
storage equipments are core, and other part provides
services of data storage and business access through the
application software.
For massive spatial data stored in the cloud, the cloud
platform provides services for data storage, management,
backup, maintenance by using its cluster and distributed
file systems technology and builds the user interface of
application layer for authorized users to access through a
unified application program interface (API). Authorized
users can not only rent cloud server to store their own data
on demand, but also can paid use the data of other
providers stored in the cloud, which greatly reduces the
costs of upgrades and maintenance of hardware and
software.
GRS2010
 Take Hadoop technology of Apache open source for
example, with the support of Hadoop Distributed File
System (HDFS), data is stored in each node, and each node
reads its own data to process, thus avoiding the large
amount of data transmission on net, which realized shifting
calculation to storage. HDFS has a master/slave
architecture showed in Fig. 1. An HDFS cluster consists of
a single Namenode, a master server that manages the file
system namespace and regulates access to files by clients.
In addition, there are a number of Datanodes, usually one
per node in the cluster, which manage storage attached to
the nodes that they run on. Inside the Datanode, a file is
divided into multiple blocks [11].
Figure 1. HDFS architecture
HDFS is designed to reliably store very large files
across machines in a large cluster. It stores each file as a
sequence of blocks; all blocks in a file except the last block
are the same size. The blocks of a file are replicated for
fault tolerance. The block size and replication factor are
configurable per file. The Namenode makes all decisions
regarding replication of blocks. It periodically receives a
Heartbeat and a Blockreport from each of the Datanodes in
the cluster. Receipt of a Heartbeat implies that the
Datanode is functioning properly. A Blockreport contains
a list of all blocks on a Datanode. Fig. 2 shows block
replication.
Figure 2. Block replication
B. Enhance the Efficient Processing Capabilities of
Spatial Analysis and Facilitate Decision-Making
Support by Combining Cloud Computing and Spatial
Analysis
As mentioned in the previous section, cloud computing
avoids the defects caused by bad bandwidth to transfer
data from storage nodes to processing nodes in data-
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intense applications. And it stores data distributed in each
node, when computing, each node reads and processes
their own storing data, showing its advantage in dealing
with massive data. Therefore, once applying high
computing capacity of cloud computing in overlay analysis,
buffer analysis, network analysis, statistical analysis,
terrain analysis and other analysis algorithm, the data
processing capacity will be significantly enhanced, and the
knowledge mining and information acquisition for making
decision will be more quickly and efficiently.
C. Have a Great Impact on Software Development and
Product Models of GIS
The rise of cloud computing, changes the traditional
business model of IT enterprises from selling the entity
software and hardware products into the appropriate
software and hardware services. And through cloud
computing, more applications can work in the form of
internet service. Google, one of the cloud computing
pioneers, claimed that in future almost all software can be
loaded onto the internet and be replaced by services.
Using model of cloud computing, the advantage of
sharing their services will reduce project costs, reduce
duplication and waste of resources invested, thus GIS
applications can be quickly build and deploy on it.
GIS enterprises only need hire on-demand
infrastructure, services, software and hardware resources
offered by cloud service providers to develop GIS software
products, to deploy its services layer on the cloud and to
supply services by means of the unique API of application
layer, which makes the functions of geographic
information browsing, querying, analyzing and interacting
a reality, and at the same time meets the high concurrent
user requests. Thus enterprises do not need to build their
own data centers, large computer room and sever centers
to save cost. The traditional project-centered or product-
centered development approach will transit to the
platform-centric way of cloud computing.
April 27, 2010, SuperMap software Co. Ltd
cooperating Red Hat released GIS platform solution-
SuperMap SGS based on the open source architecture of
cloud computing. The platform serves for digital city in the
mapping-related GIS applications. The full name for the
SuperMap SGS is SuperMap digital city geographic
information platform software, it is a public software
platform based on the SuperMap iServer Java 2008 that
specially targets to our country’s mapping units and the
information service centers where the regional geo-spatial
framework is being built and needs the platform to provide
services. The platform includes the “Data Management
Subsystem”, “Information Services Subsystem”,
“Auxiliary Application Subsystem” and “Operation
Management Subsystem” to provide two-dimensional and
three-dimensional map services and to support geographic
information browsing, querying, analyzing and interacting
functions.
Through KVM virtualization technologies and
visualization management techniques, Red Hat RHEV
virtualization platform has improved the ability of
SuperMap SGS in five aspects[12]: support rapid
deployment of SuperMap SGS product and applications
and support business agility; make the dynamic monitoring
and management of software and hardware a reality; meet
the high concurrent requests of applications and provide
excellent service performance; support the separation and
automatic backup and restoring of applications;
intelligently release server resources to save energy.
SuperMap SGS system architecture is shown in Fig. 3.
Figure 3. SuperMap SGS architecture
IV. ISSUES IN THE APPLICATION OF CLOUD
COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES IN GIS
As an emerging technology with broad prospects,
cloud computing receives great regard, but at the same
time it also needs to face and solve the problems in actual
operation, such as not transparent to users, regulatory
measures. However, with the further development of cloud
computing technology and the deepening of cloud concept,
this application platform will achieve its large-scale
popularity in the future and turn the information life upside
down. While the new technique offering great prospects
for development of GIS, we should also consider carefully
any problem that may come along during combining
technologies of cloud computing with GIS industry.
A. Spatial Data Security and Cconfidentiality
In cloud computing, cloud providers will be
responsible for the security of data transmission. Once the
spatial data is stored in the cloud, GIS users will have no
idea in what place or even in which country the data is
stored, its exact location is transparent to users. For
including the location attribute, the spatial data must be
kept strictly confidential in several areas such as military,
thus if the data is delivered to cloud service providers, the
third party, besides the GIS users and developers, data
security and confidentiality will be an extreme test. So,
how to ensure the GIS industry have trust in the cloud
providers is one of the most important issues before using
cloud techniques in GIS industry.
Given the sensitivity of geospatial data and the current
cloud providers are foreign companies, the author
recommends that in our country a private cloud center
especially for geographic information industry should be
established so all of the GIS applications could be based
on this platform, while spatial data and the access to the
storage resources being controlled entirely by the GIS
industry itself, thus avoiding various risks. In this way, the
whole operating costs of the entire industry will be
reducing effectively and at the same time a new industry
chain will form.
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B. Supervision Issue
Supervision issue is also one big problem that cloud
computing should face. If a private cloud platform is built
for geographic information system industry, then who
would be responsible for monitoring the cloud providers in
order to prevent leakage of data and services? Whether or
not to introduce the third-party organizations? What role
should government departments act as and how to use the
two methods—law and moral—in the process of
monitoring of cloud provider? These fundamental
problems need to be worked out.
C. Regulations Establishing
Now cloud computing is still in its early stage of
development, there is still a long way for it to get widely
accepted and applied. Establishing regulations about
technology, service customization, price and other aspects
of cloud computing will be also of great concern. At the
same time people also look forward to applying these
norms and policies in the private cloud of GIS industry.
V. CONCLUSION AND FURTURE RESEARCH
This paper discussed cloud computing applications in
the GIS field, first introduced the concept, characteristics
and research of the basic profiles of cloud computing;
Then the paper focused on how to apply the cloud
computing techniques in the GIS spatial data storage,
spatial analysis and decision support, as well as its impact
on GIS software development and product patterns; At last
we proposed several issues in the process of using cloud:
data security and confidentiality, supervision of cloud
service providers and the development of norms. There are
still problems that needed to be improved in this article: (1)
Lack of the examples about cloud techniques applying in
GIS; (2) Because of the limited knowledge of author,
problems that emerging in applying the cloud technologies
to GIS may be considered incompletely. It is very
necessary to make sure that as mature as the techniques of
cloud computing develop, the research on the application
of cloud computing techniques in the field of GIS will
become a hot spot.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the National Key
Technology R&D Program of CHINA (Grant No.
2007BAH16B00).
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TABLE I. CLOUD DEFINITIONS

Author/Reference Year Definition/Excerpt

you can scale your infrastructure on demand within minutes or even seconds, instead of days or weeks, thereby
M.klems[5] 2008
avoiding under utilization (idle servers)and over-utilization(blue screen) of in-house resources...
using the internet to allow people to access technology-enabled services. Those services must be massively
P.Gaw[5] 2008
scalable ...
A Cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of interconnected and virtualized
R.Buyya[4] 2008 computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources based on
service-level agreements established through negotiation between the service provider and consumers.
Cloud Computing is one of those catch all buzz words that tries to encompass a variety of aspects ranging from
deployment, load balancing, provisioning, business model and architecture (like Web2.0).It's the next logical step
R.Cohen[5] 2008
in software(software 10.0).For me the simplest explanation for Cloud Computing is describing it as, internet
centric software ...
a broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a
'pay-as-you-go' basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills
J.Kaplan[5] 2008
to acquire. Cloud Computing is the realization of the earlier ideals of utility computing without the technical
complexities or complicated deployment worries...
D.Gourlay[5] 2008 ...the next hype-term...building off of the software models that virtualization enabled
D.Edwards[5] 2008 ...what is possible when you leverage web-scale infrastructure (application and physical) in an on-demand way
...There really are only three types of services that are Cloud based: SaaS ,PaaS, and Cloud Computing Platforms.
B.de Haff[5] 2008
I am not sure being massively scalable is a requirement to fit into any one category.
…Put simply Cloud Computing is the infrastructural paradigm shift that enables the ascension of SaaS. …It is a
broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a
B.Kepes[5] 2008
pay-as-you -go basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills
to acquire.
Clouds focused on making the hardware layer consumable as on-demand compute and storage capacity. This is
an important first step, but for companies to harness the power of the Cloud, complete application infrastructure
K.Sheynkman[5] 2008
needs to be easily configured, deployed, dynamically-scaled and managed in these virtualized hardware
environments.
…In a fully implemented Data Center 3.0 environment, you can decide if an app is run locally (cook at home), in
someone else’s data center (take-out) and you can change your mind on the fly in case you are short on data
O.Sultan[5] 2008
center resources (pantry is empty) or you having environmental/facilities issues (too hot to cook).In fact, with
automation, a lot of this can be done with policy and real-time triggers...
…really is accessing resources and services needed to perform functions with dynamically changing needs… is a
K.Hartig[5] 2008
virtualization of resources that maintains and manages itself…
J.Pritzker[5] 2008 Clouds are vast resource pools with on-demand resource allocation… virtualized…and priced like utilities
T.Doerksen[5] 2008 Cloud computing is…the user-friendly version of Grid computing
T.von Eicken[5] 2008 outsourced, pay-as-you-go, on-demand, somewhere in the internet, etc
…'Cloud Pyramid' to help differentiate the various Cloud offerings out there… Top: Saas; Middle: PaaS; Bottom:
M.Sheedan[5] 2008
IaaS
…Cloud Computing projects are more powerful and crash-proof than Grid systems developed even in recent
A.Ricadela[5] 2008
years
…the key thing we want to virtualize or hide from the user is complexity…all that software will be virtualized of
I.Wladawshy
2008 hidden from us and taken care of by systems and/or professionals that are somewhere else - out there in The
Berger[5]
Cloud
Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use services that, in real time over the Internet,
B.Martin[5] 2008
extends IT's existing capabilities
The key concept behind the Cloud is Web application…a more developed and reliable Cloud. Many find it's now
R.Bragg[3] 2008 cheaper to migrate to the Web Cloud than invest in their own server farm… it is a desktop for people without a
computer
G.Gruman and Cloud is all about: SaaS… utility computing… Web Services… PaaS… Internet integration… commerce
2008
E.Knorr[6] platforms…
Cloud Computing, in which not just our data but even our software resides within the Cloud, and we access
everything not only through our PCs but also Cloud- friendly devices, such as smart phones, PDAs… the mega-
P.McFedries[8] [7] 2008
computer enabled by virtualization and software as a service...This is utility computing powered by massive
utility data centers.

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