Luca Matteis wrote:
Hello all,
I have a scenario where I'm working with a friend of mine that
maintains a bunch of spatial data in a MS Access database. I want to
put this data online, as a web-site, and allow people to query it
using an interface and a RESTful API. So I thought CouchDB + GeoCouch
would be perfect for this.
The issue is, how do I upload the MS Access data to my online Couch
instance? I want the process to be seamless - in the sense that my
friend will continue making modifications to his MS Access db, and
then he should "upload" it to the couch using some tool.
Do I need to write extra code to parse the MS Access into JSON and
then upload that to my couch? Or is there an easier way? Dunno, maybe
upload it the MS Access as an attachment and parse it with client side
JavaScript?
Also the MS Access is quite large: ~2gb
I think you've jumped a couple of design steps:
- what kinds of spatial data?
- is one person updating the data, or more?
- does the database live on a single PC, or on a server?
- how frequently is it updated?
- is it preferable for updates to propagate live to the online serve, or
is a periodic dump enough (or preferred)?
- what kinds of queries are going to be made against the data?
- how many queries per unit of time?
- RESTful API implies a liklihood of combining the data with other
data/services - so what kinds of things will people be doing?
When I hear "geospatial stack" I don't generally think MS Access and
CouchDB. I tend to think more:
- Google Maps & KML, and/or
- GeoServer + PostGIS, and/or
- OpenLayers, and/or
- ESRI ArcGIS (for really serious commercial capabilities)
Depending on the details of the problem at hand (the answers to the
above questions), it could be that:
- MS Access -> <some glue> -> CouchDB/GeoCouch might be a perfectly good
solution
Or, you might think about something more like:
- MS Access -> GeoServer (w/ some RESTful glue) -> CouchDB -> user
facing i/f
Or it might make sense to keep some stuff in a geodatabase, other stuff
in Couch, and mash stuff together in browser-side code.
Your problem statement is way too amorphous at this point.
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
