Tip Guide

BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

With dramatic advances in internet technology, bandwidth is no longer a problem. Enterprises increasingly use remote storage and computing to hold and process data they need. Business intelligence (BI) systems increasingly use in-memory storage, which is best served using cloudbased remote server farms. Explore this Tip-Guide to find out how the cloud enables processing of data sourced outside and within the enterprise -- largely without compromise.

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ebizQ.net Tip Guide BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

Tip Guide

BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

Table of Contents
BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing Resources from Esri

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ebizQ.net Tip Guide BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

By Margot Rudell, Director, Space-Time Insight and Krishna Kumar, CTO, Space-Time Insight Location, location, location. Every action has a location component and a time component. That is precisely why companies must monitor, understand and adjust to business signals when and where they occur. Competitive superiority and prosperity require timely interpretation of space and time variables for contextual, condition-based decision making and timely action. Geospatial cockpits with cloud computing capabilities can now integrate the wealth of cloud data like macroeconomic indicators on the web with internal operations information to help define and execute optimal business decisions in real-time. Enterprise planning used to take place behind the firewall. Circumstances have changed. Much of today's most valued information for the supply chain comes from outside the firewall. Key information comes from web feeds, RSS and GeoRSS data, wireless messaging, and external data searches. With dramatic advances in internet technology, bandwidth is no longer a problem. Enterprises increasingly use remote storage and computing to hold and process data they need. Business intelligence (BI) systems increasingly use in-memory storage, which is best served using cloud-based remote server farms. The cloud enables processing of data sourced outside the enterprise and within the enterprise -- largely without compromise. Location-based data processing, which accesses a large web of distributed resources, is an ideal candidate for cloud-based offerings. The number of location-based services is rapidly increasing. Companies like Microsoft, Google and others are using their computing and networking muscle to harness and deliver street-level and satellite location data in image, video, text, and numeric formats. Next generation geospatial analytics software companies are taking cloud-based location processing to the next level. They are using geospatial software platforms to correlate

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ebizQ.net Tip Guide BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

multi-source data, compute space-time analytics, process real-time events, and visualize the results on a satellite image backdrop. The new geospatial analytics platforms can do simultaneous, rule-based aggregation and correlation of data and functionality from the cloud, GPS-enabled devices, enterprise applications, and databases to deliver full-context information. Their core technology is optimized for location-sensitive and time-specific calculations, processing, correlation, search, and analytics of multi-source data. They can perform high volume, high speed space and time-aware functions that simply cannot be done by other systems. Harnessing the cloud enables fast responses to critical, geospatially-sensitive information ranging from geo-economic signals to weather events, online customer feedback, sentiment, security events, cultural drifts and population shifts. A virtual stream of locationbased data becomes information and is transformed into understanding that inform actions, shapes outcomes and controls corporate destiny. Enterprises benefit from greater context and deeper insight that make complex and realtime data actionable. Geospatial analytics platforms harness the cloud for the supply chain. They leverage information from the cloud and the enterprise, enabling simultaneous, rule-based aggregation and correlation of data, ensuring that all relevant information is captured in context for informed decision-making. They produce relevant and timely visual notifications, alerts, geospatial analytics and operating status key performance indicators (KPIs) intuitively displayed on an interactive satellite image with geo-links to real-time work processes. This, in turn, enables geospatially and context sensitive decision-making and action. Real-time geo-links to underlying applications (ERP, SCM) and on-screen contextual workflows that trigger informed decisions that help retailers, e-tailers, manufacturers, and participants throughout the supply chain to capitalize on real-time information from the cloud for competitive advantage and higher profits. Historical playback of events in full context contributes to improved supply chain planning, auditing, forensics, problem solving,

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ebizQ.net Tip Guide BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

and staff training. Retailers and e-etailers that can respond quickly to geo-economic signals gain competitive advantage. Real-time, location-based information from the web, such as demographic break-downs and macroeconomic data -- about everything from consumer confidence to home foreclosures to unemployment to and consumer buying patterns -- is an increasingly critical component of effective BI. For trade promotions, retailers and e-tailers like Walmart and Amazon benefit from using location-based web feeds for selecting and appropriately pricing local sales promotions. Retailers and e-tailers can determine how a high fashion-oriented promotion that would appeal to an affluent community, or a cost-savings promotion, more likely to appeal to an economically disadvantaged community, might perform at different price points or in combination with other items. Twitter is another tool that can and should be used in the geospatially smart supply chain. Social media applications like Twitter are geo-sensitive. Twitter's GeoAPI technology adds geo-signals to Tweets. When enterprises use marketing algorithms to access and process public sentiment from bulk social media inputs, they get a much better understanding of their customer base. In addition to processing Tweet streams in a geo-location context, enterprises can also process blogs to identify opinion leaders and other influencers in a given geography and assess their response to products, promotions, and prices. Companies like Amazon have studied Tweets for a geospatial view of what people think of their products. The ability to integrate, process, and present information from Tweet streams, blogs and data from other social media can be a powerful advantage for savvy enterprises. The geospatial cloud enables better questions and answers. More and more, people want to ask plain English business questions rather than talking in code. Here's an example of a plain English question: "Show me my most profitable winter-season customers on a map." The ability to parse English language queries for space-time information dramatically

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ebizQ.net Tip Guide BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

increases the range of possible questions and answers, as well as the overall utility of the results. Geospatial analytics platforms let people ask their questions in plain English; the platform takes care of the rest. Collaboration in the cloud also informs the supply chain. Geospatial service providers use spatial dashboards in the cloud as a forum for idea exchange. For example, a user can rightclick on San Francisco, California and add their comments about the city -- and their thoughts on appropriate clothes for each season in San Francisco, where an average summer can be colder than the winter. Manufacturers of winter accessories study consumer preferences by reviewing Wikimedia streams and buying trends. This information contributes to promotion selection and targeting, as well as supply chain knowledge, including the selection of supply chain hub locations. Wikis are another source of space-time demand signals that can be imported into ERP, SCM, business intelligence, and geospatial platforms as Web 2.0 data feeds.

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ebizQ.net Tip Guide BIs Next Frontier: Geospatial Cloud Computing

Resources from Esri

Analytic Architectures: Approaches to Supporting Analytic Users and Workloads Taking a COTS-Based Approach to Implementing Enterprise GIS GIS in the Cloud: The New age of cloud computing and Geographic information systems

About Esri
Esris geographic information system (GIS) technology gives you the power to think and plan geographically. Used today in more than 350,000 organizations worldwide, Esri's GIS helps governments, universities, and businesses save money, lives, and our environment. GIS helps you understand and question data in ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends. So whether you are transporting ethanol or studying landslides, you can use GIS to solve problems and make better decisions, because a GIS enables you to look at your valuable data in a way that is quickly understood and easily shared. Esri supports the implementation of GIS technology on the desktop, servers, online services, and mobile devices.

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