ROK Blog

Hello folks! Yvonne Jones here, Marketing Manager, with ROK. For this month's update we have decided to pick the brain of our Sales Director Carey Jenkins and discuss her thoughts on customer service and its impact on the GIS community!

 

YJ: Good Morning Carey, glad to have you on board this morning!

 

CJ: Good Morning Yvonne, great to be here.

 

YJ: With all the options customers and potentials customers have for hosting GIS maps and/or data in the cloud, why choose ROK Technologies? What sets you apart from the others?

CJ: Let’s set product discussion aside for now and simply focus on service. What good is a product or service without support behind it? At ROK we focus on a custom experience. Every client is different and ever client has different needs. We pride ourselves on developing unique quality options for every client. Not only are the applications and maps unique per client, but every client gets personalized support for their services. Our team is thorough with the setup and will guide each client through any problem they may have. You are never without support from the ROK team. I think that makes us unique.

YJ: What about the product quality itself?

CJ: As an Esri business partner we are equipped with great knowledge of ArcGIS server and ArcGIS Online. Our team is well versed and can streamline the process for many clients. Not only that but we can create custom maps and applications as well. Whatever the client may need in regards to GIS map hosting we can handle with practiced care. With our team’s expertise and great customer service the clients are in for a great experience with our products.  

YJ: So you mainly focus on GIS Map hosting and development?

 

CJ: We do emphasize our map hosting abilities but like I said we can create custom maps and applications as well. We can also create mobile applications. That way the clients can pass on their product to their customers in an easy to access form. Not only that but we are now partnered with eGroup and can host IT solutions and data in the cloud for our clients. We are evolving every day and finding new ways to bring solutions to our valued and potential clients. It is truly an exciting time for ROK technologies!

 

 YJ: Wow! Ok so could you provide the readers with a scenario of a happy client and how they utilized your services?

CJ: Absolutely. We just received a raving testimonial from Franklin County in Alabama. This past summer, the Franklin County GIS Consortium used ArcGIS Online, together with map services hosted by ROK Technologies to create web maps for two local events.

The City of Russellville hosts an annual 4th of July celebration, attracting thousands of spectators. Also, in August, the City hosts a downtown festival, attracting dozens of vendors and thousands of patrons. Interactive web maps were used to display the locations of vendors, parking, first aid, attractions, and roadblocks, along with many other features. Public safety personnel and event organizers had access to maps showing the locations of emergency personnel, vehicles, and facilities.

ArcGIS Online was used because of the ability to embed the easy to use application within an existing website, use it in a mobile device, display map services hosted by ROK Technologies, and access a great variety of base maps.

 They were very happy with the results!

 

YJ: You heard it best from our Sales Director. ROK Technologies really delivers in customer service and product. Way to go ROK!

 

Hello folks! Yvonne Jones here, Marketing Manager, with ROK. For this week's update we have decided to pick the brain of our CTO Jason Harris and discuss his thoughts on GIS hosting and cloud services!

 

YJ: Good Morning Jason. We are very excited to hear your thoughts on this very hot and trending topic!

 

JH: Good Morning Yvonne, great to be here.

 

YJ: Let's jump right in to the thick of things and start off with, why is a cloud hosted GIS solution important?

JH: It is funny, when I first heard the term 'Cloud Computing' many years ago, I said to myself 'This just means a server that's sitting somewhere outside of your building, it just a new buzzword that the industry is pushing'.  It didn’t take me long to realize just how wrong I was. It is all about data redundancy, security, speed, scalability, and optimal use of available computing power.  GIS, like other industries, can take advantage of these real world benefits right now. All industries and organizations should want to serve their data faster, more securely, and of course less expensively - and using the Cloud to serve geographic data and services should be no exception.


YJ: How does one make an informed decision in regards to what program to choose?

JH: As the industry continues to mature, we are given more and more options when it comes to serving GIS through the cloud.  There are many factors to consider when choosing a vendor or service.  The very first thing I discuss when making recommendations to folks is how hands on do you want to be?  Many people opt to use a service such as Amazon EC2, where you 'rent' an entire server in which you must administer from start to finish. From licensing, to publishing maps, server maintenance, etc.  Everything.  It is your server and you are ultimately responsible for it.  It is not a role that some folks want to take on though.  There can be some budgetary issues because the cost for this service can vary quite a bit from month to month due to bandwidth demand, extra CPU cycles, etc. You pay for that server even if it sits idle for hours. For the very high volume and demanding map services, along with the right personnel administer it, this option works well. 

For folks that wish to take a more hands-off approach, the latest offering from Esri called ArcGIS Online is an excellent choice.  It allows non technical users the ability to quickly and easily publish their maps and data to web using the power of the Esri hosted cloud.  Simple web maps can be easily configured from a wealth of ready to use templates - and then shared within your organization, or the world.  There can be some downsides to this service, mainly the limited ability to utilize the more advanced features of ArcGIS Server. ArcGIS online is a 'metered' solution meaning you pay for what you use - which can be both good and bad.   As your monthly usage can vary widely, these situations can be difficult to budget for.   Overall, if you are looking to get your feet wet in 'Cloud Hosted GIS' and looking to easily share your data, then ArcGIS Online is a great option.

Then there is a hybrid type of cloud solution, which I like to call the 'Personalized Cloud'.  In this scenario, you partner with an existing company, such as ROK, to host GIS data and map services for you on their cloud.  This approach allows you to be hands on, while maintaining all the benefits of the cloud infrastructure - such as scalability and redundancy.  In addition, the full power of Esri's ArcGIS Server is exposed.  However, you get one more very important benefit - the expertise of a dedicated team backing you up. Managing servers and dealing with intricacies of serving spatial data can be time consuming.  When you have a talented team that is there to help, it can make all the difference.  Using this approach allows you to focus on your core competencies, and leave the heavy-lifting and server maintenance to others. 

YJ: Wow. Jason that is a pretty lengthy answer, could you narrow it down to the single most important point?

JH: Well Yvonne, it really all comes down to the economics of scalability. Some options use the 'metered' pricing tier, while others, such as ROK, use a fixed price.  The very first thing that we do here at ROK is to talk to the customer.  We are all developers at heart and understand what it takes to successfully launch a service or new web app.  So, in these initial discussions, we get a good feel for the requirements and target audience.  This lets us estimate out the resources needed and determine a fixed monthly price that won’t vary - and one that the customer is comfortable with.  Let us look at this scenario - Suppose you are hosting an emergency management application during hurricane season along the gulf coast of Florida. As a hurricane approaches, more and more citizens use these hosted services to, for example determine an evacuation zone.  This scenario would sharply raise your monthly bill, since more and more 'credits' were used.  Again, as we discussed before, this can be a budget concern if using the metered approach.  The good news is that service is not susceptible to this rapidly increasing load.  The cloud is able to quickly scale up, allot additional bandwidth as needed - all to effectively serve your GIS services.

 YJ: Ok, so you spent a good time on how but now tell us why to
 choose a hosted GIS solution.

JH: We are all expected to do more with less these days.  No matter which approach you take, the benefits of utilizing a cloud hosted GIS are compelling.  Taking into consideration a lower total cost of ownership, server uptime/redundancy, scalability, along with far fewer management headaches, moving your GIS to the cloud just makes sense.

 

YJ: You heard it best from our resident CTO. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us here or contact Jason Harris at jharris@roktech.net. 

As a strategic partner of eGroup, we have expanded our ArcGIS Cloud offerings to include Infrastructure and/or Desktop as a service. These GIS services enable clients to efficiently integrate their enterprise software with ROK GIS solutions, products, and services.

Are you a small business or local government and have an Enterprise License Agreement(ELA) with Esri? Are you short on the resources to get this implemented? Are you struggling with:
-IT Resources?
-Hardware, Servers, bandwidth, etc.?
-Application Map Services?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then ROK Full Service GIS can assist you with your ELA. ROK Full Service GIS can take your licensing and host it on our cloud, providing you a remote access through Citrix. This frees you up to continue with your day-to-day activities, such as editing and updating your data.

ROK Full Service GIS offers you peace of mind by providing:
-All IT Infrastructure
-Backup/Data disaster recovery (eGroup)
-40 years GIS experience which can assist you with data conversion, migration, configuration, upgrades of all service packs. By allowing us to help you with your Geographic Information System needs, we allow you to more effectively focus on your core competencies and day-to-day jobs.

Training in Charleston, SC: We're happy to announce that on June 12th – 14th, we will be teaming up with Panda Consulting to bring you an in-depth look at The Parcel Fabric. What is parcel fabric? How does it relate to GIS and custom mapping? How can you best implement it into your technology services? This comprehensive, three day training program will answer these questions, and cover all aspects of the Parcel Fabric, and it's applications to GIS.

Frank Conkling of Panda Consulting will provide an intensive examination of the Parcel Fabric structure, the inter-dependencies of the sub layers, how the Parcel Fabric really works, what you need to do to make the transition, and how to integrate the Parcel fabric into your daily work flow, to ensure that you are getting the most out of your GIS.

Meet us at the College of Charleston on June 12th – 14th to expand your GIS knowledge, and more fully understand the capabilities of the Parcel Fabric. For $1,200 per attendee, this three day class is a must for anyone in the GIS industry: 

The parcel fabric training that my co-workers and I received was top-notch. The instructor was very thoughtful in the way he delivered the information we needed to plan for, create, and maintain the fabric. By the end of the training I felt confident that I had learned the skills necessary to implement the parcel fabric for our County Tax Map.  I am very pleased with the whole experience and highly recommend it.

Kevin Wiles, Anderson County, SC 

Contact us to find out more or to register for the Parcel Fabric training.  For a more complete description, you can download the training PDF below. Or, check out our Services page to find out more about our Geographic Information Services.\

The Parcel Fabric Training June (92 KB)

Esri’s Parcel fabric offers a clean and efficient way to maintain and edit high quality land records. The fabric joins data into a cohesive structure allowing edits to apply across multiple features in a database. This creates easier workflows, increased data integrity, and reduced headaches for land record managers.

So how do land records transcend the old school’s messy data models into the fluid structure of Esri’s parcel fabric?

1.  Create and set up a staging geodatabase             

• Data clean up with topology rules
• Parcel line preparation

Creation of necessary source data attributes for migration
2.  Create and set up a future geodatabase that will contain the parcel fabric inside Esri’s Local Government Information Model  schema

• Tailor this geodatabase to original land records data (i.e. spatial reference, creation of structure to support migration of source attributes, etc.)

3.  Migrate the data

• This step is computer process intensive and could tie up a machine for a while
• Paramaterization of data migration tool

4.  Review the migration

• It is essential that a thorough review of the newly created parcel fabric is conducted for quality control purposes. There are a few known issues and fixes to employ if a parcel does not migrate into the fabric.

Check out this Esri whitepaper for more information.

For more information regarding the parcel fabric, check out the comprehensive parcel fabric training seminar co-hosted by ROK technologies and Panda Consulting at the college of Charleston March 13-15.

Saw this on a google search, it made me laugh, so I thought I would share. Names have been blurred to protect the stupid.


Jason Harris

Jason Harris

Jason Harris

Jason Harris