[mapserver-users] Best integration with dynamic map information

[Lime, Steve D (MNIT)]

MapCache would be a *much* better option than using MapServer in tile mode. You still need something to render tiles (e.g. MapServer) but MapCache manages the tiles and is the interface between your client application and the tiled data. The brute force method would be replace the data and then blow away the cache and let MapCache (and MapServer) rebuild as users request tiles. The first request will result in MapCache making a call to MapServer to generate the tile/metatile, but subsequent requests for tiles will use the cached tiles.

Others on the list may well have more experience and better ideas.

Steve

From: Ahmed Aboulenein [mailto:aboulenein.ahmed at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 2:54 PM
To: Lime, Steve D (MNIT)
Cc: mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] Best integration with dynamic map information

Hi Steve,
Thank you so much for the informative reply, much appreciated!
It's actually a new dataset copy every 5 minutes, it seems like replacing a shape file would be most efficient.
We are not using MapCache, do you think it would be a good option for our use case with this frequent updates?
Thanks again, Steve!
Best regards,
Ahmed

On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 8:03 PM, Lime, Steve D (MNIT) <Steve.Lime at state.mn.us<mailto:Steve.Lime at state.mn.us>> wrote:
I’ll let others weigh in on throughput. Seems like that should be a matter of resources and how much hardware you can throw at the problem. Are you using MapCache to serve tiles? MapServer itself is good for rendering tiles or more likely, metatiles.

On thread safety MapServer itself isn’t doing any file locking. Presumably the OS or database is handling contention issues. I’d think the right way to go for data storage depends on your update process itself. If you want to incrementally tweak lines as new information becomes available then a database backend seems more reasonable – I’d think you could detect change easier and perhaps only retile very specific areas as a result. If instead you’re getting a new copy of your entire dataset every 5 minutes then perhaps a shapefile would work best – just replace the file and trigger retiling.

Steve

From: mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [mailto:mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Ahmed Aboulenein
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 9:19 AM
To: mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [mapserver-users] Best integration with dynamic map information

Hi ALL,
We serve traffic lines that gets updated every 5 minutes from our feeds. We would like to use Map Server to generate transparent tiles showing colored polylines of the traffic.
I am newbie to Map Server, I got the server and workshop running and also I think I have some good understanding of the map file and layers concept. I have a question about integrating our traffic information as a data source to the MapServer.
Important aspects for us:
1. Performance: since we are updating large areas every 5 minutes. We will need throughput like 10K images per second. Does this sound okay?
2. Threads safety: my concern what happens if while updating the source, the MapServer is actually rendering an image from old data. Any locks?
I understand our options are:
1. Data files: such as shape files or KML files.
2. Database: PostGIS for example.
3. Service that pulls data: WMS server - I didn't dig much here.
Thanks in advance for your help, some pointers or information to go further.
Best regards,
Ahmed

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