[postgis-users] MapServer with PostGIS: motivations

[Brent Wood]

Apologies for this second post. A couple of aspects I forgot to mention :-)


Where performance is an issue, it is possible to parallelise a PostGIS system
by having the PostGIS database on a separate box (or even multiple separate
boxes) from mapserver, whereas I understand shapefiles need to be "local".

Local gets a bit interesting with NAS/SAN/NFS drives etc, but even if the
shapefiles are stored on a remote filesystem, they are still mounted locally.  

So I suggest a PostGIS solution provides a more scalable solution than local
files.


Another advantage I have found, is that the PostGIS "simplify" function
provides a very simple & effective way to produce zoom (scale dependent) layers
of vector data. One specific example of the value of having your data in a
manageable structure, rather than simple files.



Brent