future directions for mapserver

[Matt.Wilkie]

Good questions Mike,

I have some of my own I would like to add:

Some of you may remember my earlier questions and summary 
about ArcIMS vs Mapserver:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wilma_hiliter/mapserver-users/0011/msg0
0143.html

There were two points brought up which were clearly in 
ArcIMS's favour which could not be easily addressed or 
dismissed.

1) Distributed servers and failover architecture: ArcIMS
is designed for a multiserver hosting environment, fetching
data from any server and passing it on to the browser, and
other related sercives/technologies.

2) Serving vector data as well as images:
http://x67.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=696207202&CONTEXT=978725920.1488191528&hitn
um=0
Do note though that I did not find a site taking advantage
of this functionality though I was assured some do exist.

Now I know Mapserver and ArcIMS are answers to different
questions and solutions to different problems, they just
happen to share significant overlaps. What I'd like to
know is, is Mapserver content with it's current problem 
domain? (serving images of maps to browsers, displaying 
selected database records)

I'm particularily interested in using a Mapserver-like
interface/tool-set to serve data, not just pictures of
data. It would be a a year or two before our particular
shop could use or implement it, but I do see it as being
increasingly more important. Just like XML is becoming
more important (read: useful) than html.

The OGDI protocol addresses this, but there is not yet
an Open Source solution, or even a good closed source
client... anyway, that's a sidetrack at the moment.

I'm not asking Mapserver developers (ie: Stephen) to
tackle this montrous job. I would just like to know if 
this area has been thought about, and if the architecture
of Mapserver allows a "plugin" data server, should such 
a beast ever be developed, by UMN or anybody else.

cheers,

-matt
========================================
Matt Wilkie * GIS Technician * Yukon Renewable Resources GIS
http://renres.gov.yk.ca/pubs/rrgis/