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

[Paul Spencer]

"Take a look!" but not in Safari :( (hopefully soon though?)

I agree that it could be done with MapServer and I have been actively  
involved in the design and development of tools that fit some of the  
pieces here, plus applications that really do meet these criteria.

The point is one of choice I think.

MapServer does what it does extremely well, and it doesn't do  
enterprise apps (as defined here) unless you add a bunch of stuff to  
it.  If you are very knowledgeable with MapServer, it would still  
take some serious effort to build an enterprise app, but you would  
know exactly how it was built and why it worked.

MSE does what it does (but it has yet to prove that it does it well I  
think), and you have this capability more or less out of the box but  
at the cost of not getting to hand pick all the pieces and perhaps  
having more of a black box solution ... but then any sufficiently  
complex code written around MapServer would probably be mostly a  
black box too (do I hear anyone say Chameleon?)

Personally I will pick and choose the best solution for a given  
problem.  I am more than willing to give MSE a chance to prove itself  
capable and to define the space that it is most capable in, but I  
will never give up MapServer as a tried and true way of getting maps  
to the web as quickly as possible.

(Sorry Gary, I just don't believe that MSE will be faster than  
MapServer in some cases ;))

Cheers

Paul

On 30-Nov-05, at 5:55 PM, Gary Lang wrote:

> " 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.
>

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|Paul Spencer                           pspencer at dmsolutions.ca   |
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|Applications & Software Development                              |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/|
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