what is an enterprise class app? (was MapServer and Foundation naming)

[Gary Lang]

" I personally would much rather use html/ajax for gui (I am not sure
how Autodesk's MapGuide does GUI... if it does it in any way that is
not web-compliant then I have little interest in it)."'

We have AJAX out of the box. No add-ons required. An app written for Tux
will work the same way using AJAX or the ActiveX control. If someone
writes an SVG driver, that would work too.

Take a look! 

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of P Kishor
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 2:40 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] what is an enterprise class app? (was
MapServer and Foundation naming)

Jason Birch wrote:
> P Kishor Wrote:
>> I still don't understand why no one is talking about MapServer +
> PostGIS.
>> That is about as enterprise as one's gonna get.
>
> Is that a red herring?  I don't like seafood, but I guess I'll bite :)

no, it was a legit question, and I am thankful you have answered,
because I do want this discussed. Because it can end up becoming a
smoke-screen for bigger issues.

>
> That combination does not address a number of issues that are commonly

> addressed by commercial solutions that are touted as "enterprise".
> Authentication and authorization (feature or layer level, not 
> application level), geoprocessing, data update, SOA, and GUI 
> capabilities are a few that come to mind and rank among the primary 
> reasons I am not currently using Mapserver.  I don't dispute that the 
> Mapserver/PostGIS combination is an enterprise-quality application, 
> but it certainly does not meet all enterprise needs.

all of the above you speak of can be done with MapServer in conjunction
with other tools. Someone else also mentioned similar qualities making
for an "enterprise" class application. Stuff like thread safety, Java
and .net support, real database transactions, user-session management,
distributed servers were mentioned.

It is a matter of philosophy. MapServer itself does one thing, and does
it amazingly well. Give it an envelope and a bunch of query params,
point it in the direction of a datasource, and it will generate a map
and hand it to the webserver. Well, it can now send that map as an image
or as a WMS/WFS. The rest, it leaves it up to the application. It does
its job, does it exceedingly fast, and very reliably.

I recently had the misfortune of working with WebSphere (hey! how about
"MapSphere"?). Man, what a boatload that was. Sure, it could do a
billion things, but when I wanted just a fast, nimble car, it insisted
on give me the entire car assembly line.

I personally would much rather use html/ajax for gui (I am not sure how
Autodesk's MapGuide does GUI... if it does it in any way that is not
web-compliant then I have little interest in it). I would use some
language level framework such as Catalyst or Maypole or Ruby on Rails or
Zope or... see, the freedom I get to choose my scaffolding.

I would leave the real db transactions to a real db such as... hey!
PostGres. PostGIS can do data updates.

I don't even know what SOA is other than the latest buzzword-du-jour.
I mean, isn't WMS/WFS SOA enough?

See, it is a matter of philosophy. I prefer small, separate tools that
do their job, and do it well. Then I want to glue them together. I can
mix and match them with my requirements, my capabilities, my budget,
etc.

Others might want to take all those itty-bitty pieces, mush them
together, create a 125 Mb download, and call it enterprise class.
Sure, it is a big world, and they can have their way. But, lord...
enterprises are not a new thing, and enterprise class applications have
been built for long time before the new marketing heads came and started
jacking up the price of things by prefixing them with "..
Enterprise." It is like the whole J2EE mess. Sounds sexy, but is a pain
in the derriere.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time and giving your perspective. I
disagree with it, but at least I have learned of another point of view.