However, they (the US govt.) don’t even need a specific legal provision to spy 
on data that is hosted outside the US, and they’ve been doing that since 
forever…

;-)



From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] 
On Behalf Of Richard Desrochers
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 8:34 PM
To: [email protected]; OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Comparison between MapServer/OpenLayers and 
ESRI ArcIMS

One thing to consider using a cloud approach with Amazon is the license 
agreement concerning your data.
Under the Patriot Act in the US all data hosted in the US could be made 
available to the US government.

Not all corporations are ready to live with that.

Richard

2009/5/30 Randy George <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cloud options are looking interesting.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/  Windows, Linux, Solaris options

I imagine ESRI license entanglement with virtual servers could be a problem. 
But no problem at all with Open Source GIS stacks. No license to get tangled 
with load balancing and auto scaling where servers come and go as needed. 
Mostly I've seen small business interest since they tend to take overhead costs 
more seriously.

It might be useful to include a Cloud based server solution addendum, because 
that would be less optimal for an ESRI vendor and could look good compared to 
in-house hardware.

Unfortunately, medium and large organizations seem to have budget allocations 
already in place for the big ticket approach. But then in this economy even 
that could be changing.

AWS now includes Load Balancing and Auto Scaling options as well as S3 Backup, 
multiple offsite elastic block store duplication, edge cache, and elastic IP.
http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2009/05/17/monitoring-auto-scaling-elastic-load-balancing/

And for the real bleeding edge http://aws.amazon.com/elasticmapreduce/
(Not a selling point to small, medium, or large organizations, unless 
academically oriented :-)

rkgeorge

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
 On Behalf Of Jason Birch
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 5:49 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Comparision between MapServer/OpenLayers and 
ESRI ArcIMS

I think that it's generally less fear of the unknown or job security than it is 
the cost of adding complexity to what is often an already over-extended support 
load.  In many cases it just makes sense to spend $1000 for a server OS that 
doesn't require additional training, is easy to get qualified techs for, and 
"just works" with the existing systems.  It doesn't matter how easy Linux is; 
it's one more thing to keep track of and one more thing to go wrong.

If you want to "win" the open source battle at small organisations that don't 
already have OS operating system tendencies, focus on the application level 
where you can make a strong business case on a feature-by-feature level, and 
with additional arguments about truly open data being more sustainable and less 
risky.  Personally I think that an "open source or bust" attitude is not very 
pragmatic.  "Sell" open source software where it is the best tool for the job, 
but pick your battles.

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Mandel
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 4:25 PM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Comparision between MapServer/OpenLayers and 
ESRI ArcIMS

That would be fear of the unknown(non gui) and job security at work.
Wouldn't want someone else in the org who knows more about running servers.
Maybe you can get them to throw a bone to demo something on a virtual machine 
hosted elsewhere(Amazon) just to show how easy it is.

Welcome to the land of small to medium government agencies, etc.
The best thing here is showing examples from equivalent groups, of which there 
are plenty online now.

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