Distributed GIS

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Distributed GIS refers to GI Systems that do not have all of the system components in the same physical location.^[1] This could be the processing, the database, the rendering or the user interface. It represents a special case of distributed computing, with examples of distributed systems including Internet GIS, Web GIS, and Mobile GIS. Distribution of resources provides corporate and enterprise-based models for GIS (involving multiple databases, different computers undertaking spatial analysis and a diverse ecosystem of often spatially-enabled client devices). Distributed GIS permits a shared services model, including data fusion (or mashups) based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. Distributed GIS technology enables modern online mapping systems (such as Google Maps and Bing Maps), Location-based services (LBS), web-based GIS (such as ArcGIS Online) and numerous map-enabled applications. Other applications include transportation, logistics, utilities, farm / agricultural information systems, real-time environmental information systems and the analysis of the movement of people. In terms of data, the concept has been extended to include volunteered geographical information. Distributed processing allows improvements to the performance of spatial analysis through the use of techniques such as parallel processing.