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Introduction to Enterprise GIS with FOSS

CPD: 2 points (category 1b)

Enterprise GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is all about doing GIS on a larger scale than just your PC with local files. Is this course for you? Here are some aspects of Enterprise GIS to help you decide:

  • you need to supply GIS to a whole department or organisation or enterprise
  • multiple users, with different roles
  • integration with other systems, technologies and data
  • supplying standards-based services
  • managing large quantities of data, many different themes
  • powering websites and desktops
  • 24/7/365 availability, scalable, flexible

Aims of the course

This course will give you the basic skills and knowledge to get going with establishing an enterprise GIS or transforming or improving your current system. We will use FOSS (Free and Open Source) tools because they are world class! Experience how a full, professional Enterprise GIS can be achieved with FOSS. These are some core objectives:
  • create and populate a spatial database
  • install a web map server
  • publish OGC map services
  • compose a web map; view and search it in a desktop and a web client
  • understand some architectural guidelines for a corporate environment
  • administer and troubleshoot the system.

Software

  • Ubuntu Linux server; any OS for clients
  • Apache and Tomcat
  • OpenGeo Enterprise Suite
    • PostgreSQL RDBMS with PostGIS
    • GeoServer
    • GeoWebCache
    • GeoExt, OpenLayers
  • Quantum GIS (desktop and server)
  • various others

Some software we will cover in depth, others we will just touch on or use or review. Where practical we will mention, review or work with alternatives. FOSS gives you freedom of choice!

Course outline

Day 1:
  • System setup and configuration, architecture, system administration.
  • Introduction to Linux and servers.
  • Have your own enterprise GIS up and running within minutes.
  • Overview of FOSS GIS software and components.

Days 2 and 3:

  • Data management and processing
  • Database setup, configuration, loading
  • Working with a spatial database
Days 4 and 5:
  • Web servers and web map servers
  • Publishing web services
  • Styling, tiling, caching
  • Using web services
This is a very broad outline and is subject to change. We are open to suggestions if there is something you would like us to cover.

Prerequisites
This course is not for beginners. Neither is it a typical 'learn GIS' course. It is focused on systems, technologies, data and architecture. To attend this course you should be computer literate. you should be an experienced GIS user or system or database  adminstrator or webmaster or developer or have been tasked with this sort of work by your employer. On the other hand it IS introductory. A week is enough to give you the grounding to get going on your own but is not enough time to go into too much in depth. Please bring your own laptop running Linux (preferably Ubuntu) or Windows. All the software is also supported on Macs but we don't support that in the course. 

Price: R7500, excl. VAT applicable per person attending (teas and lunches will be provided, excludes accommodation).

T&Cs apply





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