[postgis] PostGIS Installations?

[Erik Brenn]

Hello,

Regarding Paul's poll for "real" use of PostGIS.

Please allow me to introduce my self and our project. My name is Erik Brenn
and I'm currently working on and off in a project for the Sri Lankan
Waterboard in Colombo, mapping section. I'm hired in as a database
consultant through my company Blom ASA.
The first thing we did when we started the work was to abandon plans of
expensive spatial Oracle solutions. The reasons for this was both technical
and financial. Technically because the scope of work does not require the
expensive Oracle enterprise server, and financially because sustainability
would be very difficult for the organization because of the high maintenance
cost of such a system.

The project data comprise two main data sources, water network utility data
managed by the Sri Lankan waterboard, and basemap data acquired by the
national survey department in Sri Lanka. The latter data is only going to be
used as a backdrop for the editing and displaying of water utility data. The
water utility data comprise a quite simple pipeline network with nodes,
valves, fire-hydrants, etc. The basemap data comprise about 1-2 GB for the
greater colombo area, while the water utility data amout is very small.

We are currently implementing a PostgreSQL/PostGIS system. Timing has been
important, since the PostGIS system has been, and still is evolving quite
much. Fortunately our project will go on until midth next year 2002, and
this enables us to take advantage of new PostGIS developments as we go
along. We are especially happy to see the higher and higher degree of OGIS
compliance in the solution.

The database server is PostgreSQL 7.1.2 running on a RedHat 7.0 Dell
PowerEdge 2400 server with a SCSI RAID5 system, aprox 140GB of disk. On the
client side the project is using AutoCad Map software. At the moment we have
about 10 clients, but more will come later. We are currently working on
integrating everything so that AutoCad Map operators can use some VBA
utilities to check out data from the PostreSQL/PostGIS, work on these, and
check them in again.  Our first ambition level simple, and is to do this as
a "quasi" long transaction without a live connection from the client to the
database. We will do some simple locking and adminstration ourselves. But
later we wish to implement a RDO connection from AutoCad's VBA environment,
to enable live editing of the PostGIS tables from AutoCad Map. It wil be a
matter of using the PostgreSQL ODBC driver and parsing WKT strings, and draw
data via the AutoCad ActiveX API. As AutoCad users are changing data we use
VBA events to catch this and write the respective changes back to PostGIS.
Our initial tests for this looks promising.

We think this project is perfect as a "pilot" for building up
PostGIS/PostgreSQL knowledge in our company, as well as in GIS oriented
organizations that cannot afford the expensive comercial solutions (most
government agencies in developing countries cannot). The PostgreSQL/PostGIS
solution will enable them to establish the required knowledge of a true
spatial database system and to better plan their future developments..
In our case data sizes are relatively small, and number of users are few for
the moment. The challenge will be a smooth integration with the AutoCad Map
clients. Lately our client has also been brining up questions about use of
Web to display data in regional offices, so we will look into the mapserver
stuff as well.

I've had a lot of fun to teach our client about the PostGIS, PostgreSQL, and
opensource movement. But they still are a bit sceptical about things. It's
seems to be a too common perception out there that you need Oracle for any
database related work. I've been marketing the PosgreSQL/PostGIS movement
actively within my company and everywhere else lately, I'm very enthusiastic
about the development of PostGIS and PostgreSQL. I've been doing GIS and
spatial information system related work for about 6 years.

I hope to give you more feedback as the project proceed later this year and
next year.

Thank you and best regards,
Erik Brenn
Senior Consultant
Blom ASA
www.blom.no


----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Ramsey" <pramsey at refractions.net>
To: <postgis at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 12:16
Subject: [postgis] PostGIS Installations?


> Hi folks. I'll probably make this query every few months, please bear
> with me. :)
> Are there any active PostGIS installations out there being used for real
> work?
> Is anyone evaluating it for use in real work?
> I am putting together a presentation on open source GIS, so references
> to people using PostGIS would be a nice kicker to add. (Particularly
> since the project is barely 3 months old.)
>
> Thanks much,
> Paul
>
> PS - Apologies for not getting an official 0.6 out, but if I don't get
> (a) this presentation (b) a proposal out the door, I will be remiss in
> doing my job to keep our business healthy. I promise, not getting it out
> gnaws at my soul :)
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> postgis-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>


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