is Web GIS?
Web GIS is the combination of the web and GIS. The web removed the constraint of distance in cyberspace, and thus allows people the freedom to interact with GIS apps globally and access information almost instantly. Web GIS uses web technologies, including, but not limited to, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Uniform Resource Locator (URL), JavaScript, Web Graphics Library (WebGL), WebSocket, and more.
The first operational GIS was developed in the 1960s by Roger Tomlinson. Since then, GIS has continuously evolved from a local file-based single computer system to a central database-based client/server system, often with multiple servers and many more client computers. The invention of the internet in the late 1950s and the World Wide Web in the early 1990s laid the foundation for an evolutionary leap toward Web GIS. In 1993, the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) developed a mapping web page, which marked the origin of Web GIS. In the 2000s, Web GIS evolved into a new generation—a system of distributed web services you can access in the cloud, as represented by the Esri ArcGIS platform.
Inheriting the power of the internet and the web, Web GIS offers many advantages:
Global reach: you can share your geographic information easily within your organization and with people all over the world.
Large number of users: you can share your app with dozens, or even millions, of users supported by the scalable cloud technology.
Low cost per user: the cost of building one Web GIS app is often cheaper than building a stand-alone desktop solution and installing it for every user.
Better cross-platform capabilities: web apps, especially those built with JavaScript, can run on desktop and mobile browsers running a wide range of operating systems, from Windows, Mac OS, and Linux to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
Easy to use: Web GIS apps typically incorporate simplicity, intuition, and convenience into their design. Therefore, public users can use these apps without having prior knowledge.
Easy to maintain: web clients can benefit from the latest program and data updates each time they access a web app. The web administrator does not have to update all the clients separately.
Web GIS presents a pattern for delivering GIS capabilities, and it enables all members of an organization to easily access and use geographic information within a collaborative environment. GIS professionals working on the desktop create and share information to the Web GIS and extend geospatial intelligence to broad users across organizations and throughout communities.
GIS is the science about locations, or The Science of WhereTM. The term has two meanings. One meaning is that GIS is itself a science, as the scientific basis for GIS technology. The other meaning is that GIS has been used for science as an effective tool for making scientific discoveries. The Science of Where is now recognized as a force for solving problems and understanding our world. Web GIS takes the science to a whole new scale, transforming how we share and collaborate, and revealing deeper insight into data. Web GIS unlocks and delivers the science to offices and homes and puts GIS technology in the hands of billions of people. Web GIS demonstrated immense value to government, business, science, and daily life. Recently, the concept and importance of spatial location has become more mainstream, and Web GIS awareness is growing more prominent in many organizations.
For government: Web GIS offers an ideal channel for sharing public information services and delivering open data, an engaging medium for encouraging public participation, and a powerful framework for supporting decision making.
For business: Web GIS helps create novel business models and reshape existing ones. It enhances the power of location-based advertising, business analysis, and volunteered geographic information, generating tremendous revenue, both directly and indirectly.
For science: Web GIS creates new research areas and renews existing avenues of research.
In daily life: Web GIS helps people decide where to eat, stay, and shop, and how to get from here to there.
ArcGIS is a Web GIS platform
Web GIS is central to Esri’s strategic direction for implementing GIS as a platform. ArcGIS represents a cutting-edge and complete Web GIS platform that enables users to easily discover, use, make, and share maps from any device, anywhere, anytime.
ArcGIS is a new generation Web GIS platform that provides mapping, analysis, data management, and collaboration.
At the center of this Web GIS pattern is a portal, namely ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS, which represents a gateway for accessing all spatial products in an organization. The portal helps organize, secure, and facilitate access to geographic information products.
Client applications on desktops, web apps, tablets, and smartphones interact with the portal to search, discover, and access maps and other spatial content.
In the back-office infrastructure, the portal is powered by two components: GIS servers and ready-to-use content.
Web GIS deployment models
The ArcGIS Web GIS platform offers three deployment models.
The online model uses only ArcGIS Online, the cloud-based Web GIS offering, in which all components are hosted in the public cloud. There is no hardware infrastructure for an organization to maintain because Esri manages and maintains ArcGIS Online.
The on-premises model uses only ArcGIS Enterprise. Organizations manage the hardware and software infrastructure by themselves to implement the Web GIS platform. ArcGIS Enterprise includes four software components: Portal for ArcGIS, ArcGIS® Server, ArcGIS® Data Store, and ArcGIS® Web Adaptor. ArcGIS Enterprise has additional server roles such as ArcGIS® GeoEventTM Server, ArcGIS® GeoAnalyticsTM Server, ArcGIS® Image Server, and ArcGIS® Business AnalystTM Server. Later chapters will have more details on these software components and server roles.
The hybrid model combines parts of the online-based model with parts of the on-premises model. Hybrid deployment is by far the most common Web GIS deployment pattern. Details of such a model depend on an organization’s business workflows and security requirements.
ArcGIS Web GIS platform can be deployed in three models. The dotted dash line represents the boundary between Esri-owned infrastructure and customer-owned infrastructure.
Compared to ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Online provides more ready-to-use contents, such as ArcGIS® Living Atlas of the World, and more ready-to-use-analysis services that are supported by these contents. ArcGIS Enterprise with its various license roles allows users to create more types of services than ArcGIS Online can create. But in general, ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise share similar capabilities and similar workflows for creating services, web maps, and web apps. The tutorials in the book apply to both ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise unless specifically stated.
Technology evolution and trends in Web GIS
Since its inception, Web GIS has been coevolving with geographic science and information technology. These evolutions and trends will be discussed in greater
