Just before the 2010 ESRI UC got cooking this year, this press release from ESRI hit the street. In short, ESRI is announcing that they'll be going beyond the ELA-only licensing of ArcGIS Server for the Amazon Web Services cloud.  What is apparent that there is a two-pronged licensing arrangement here where you still bring your own license to the cloud but if you're not an ELA customer, you can "lease" a license on 1, 3, or 12 month terms.

In my mind this is a very good thing because without this option, ESRI was cutting off a potentially large business segment of non-ELA customers as well as short circuiting the scalability and flexibility options of the cloud.  How do I ramp up capacity if I can't do a short term software lease?

Clearly there will be some "glass half empty" folks who want to buy ArcGIS Server on an hourly basis but the flexible short term options are a start and very big step in the right direction.

Some outstanding questions and issues that will likely come to light over the next few weeks:

1. No word yet on pricing. 
2. I assume short term lease options will roll in the cost of the AMI, but no final word on that yet
3. If I'm a company hosting client sites and am using the cloud as my hosting platform, am I subject to ASP licensing costs or can I just pay the normal server license fee?
4. Is the 12 month lease done at the traditional server license costs annually (no maintenance option) or will it be the traditional license model of up front cost plus maintenance?

I've got questions on these and other issues into the ESRI folks presently.  More to follow as the story evolves.

Awhile back, Dave and I had the privelege of delivering the keynote at the TNGIC annual conference in Gatlinburg, TN.  While we were preparing our slide deck and honing our message for that event, we happened upon a post by the folks at Carsonified declaring that "mobile is the new black".  Clearly applications in the mobile space are important...but let's have a look at why.

All about the numbers
According to the Internet World Stats website, the total market penetration of internet service via notebooks and PCs in the US in 2009 was 74.1%.  Personally I find this number appalling but that's an economics and equity issue for another post.  At the same time, mobile subscriptions were at 88% penetration in 2008 and the projected penetration of by 2014 is 104%.  In 2009, that market penetration figure stood at 91%.  What does that 104% figure mean?  It means that many individuals will be carrying multiple plans.  A Blackberry for work, supplemented by an iPhone, Android, iPad, or other device for personal use. 

Read the rest of this post »

Just in time for the 2010 ESRI User Conference, our team has been doing some investigation and testing of several apps running against ArcGIS Server 10 in the Amazon cloud.  What follows is a summary of our experience building and deploying a couple of apps against ESRI’s cloud-based solution.

Background and Business Case

In several presentations, blog posts, and articles of the recent past, Dave and I have detailed some of the Flex API work we have been doing for the USDA Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET). Historically, the FHTET team has collected and analyzed data describing the effects of major forest pests on the landscape. To this point in time, information has been disseminated by means of an annual pest report in hard copy format. While GIS and hard copy maps play a role in the preparation of this report, as a static report it does not fully leverage the data exploration and analysis tools available within today’s geoweb applications.

Read the rest of this post »