GIS Servers

To get started creating web sites with spatial data, you can rent space on a server that is hosted by another company. Most organizations will find that this is more expensive and more limiting than purchasing their own server. A traditional web server will work find until you want to serve your data into a dynamic map, then you will probably want to use a GIS Server.

A GIS Server will serve up your data through standard web service protocols to the browser. Currently, I recommend GeoServer because it free, relatively easy to install and maintain, and pretty reliable. It also comes with a client-side (browser) library called OpenLayers that will get you started building a dynamic map. There is also a new client-side library that creates more attractive dynamic maps called Leaflet and I find it even easier to use than OpenLayers.

GIS Web Servers

Below is a quick summary of the available GIS Server solutions.

GeoServer

• Free
• Client: OpenLayers
• Looking pretty good
• Examples:
  • NOAA's ERMA

ArcGIS Server

• Can provide services to a range of Esri products
• Expensive, slow, buggy (have to reboot it regularly)
• Requires a dedicated suport person

MapServer

• Free
• Moderately fast
• Hard to configure

Custom Solutions

• Must be assembled
• Can be very fast

Other Examples

• Open Street Map: Boasts user contributed data (but it's not all from users)
• EROS EarthExplorer: One of the best sites to reliably obtain GIS data
• Greeley Colorado's GIS Website (this used to be an award winning site but something has gone wrong!)
• Crime Spotters (also appears to have died - welcome to web mapping!)

 

Test Your Knowledge

 

Next >