Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008 Roll Out - Community Driven = Enterprise Solution
Written by Glenn Letham
Tuesday, 10 July 2007 The pitch from Autodesk... "Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise delivers valuable spatial data and analysis over the web, while reducing distribution costs. Enjoy a more efficient workflow, as well as improved communication among internal teams, mobile field force, and customers". At the heart of this release: enhanced FDO Data Access Technology, native support for Google Earth, speed and stability. Read on for a quick look at the new features, the benefits and 12 Cool Things About MapGuide Enterprise.
Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008 builds on Autodesk's support for open source software to help public agencies, utilities and telecommunications customers extend the reach and value of geospatial information and knowledge through their organizations and beyond. As a central component of the Autodesk geospatial solution, Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise software utilizes the Internet to deliver important, up-to-date asset and infrastructure information to the people who need it. "The open source community plays an essential role in Autodesk's commitment to providing geospatial solutions that enable the convergence of data, knowledge and people," said Lisa Campbell, vice president, Autodesk Geospatial. "Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008 reflects the open source community's input on the features most important to organizations, such as native support for Google Earth.
What’s New
- Now faster than ever with improved scalability and stability - Improved cartographic output, including user-defined symbology - Ability to publish data natively and directly to the Google Earth™ application - Tighter integration with AutoCAD, Map 3D and AutoCAD Raster Design software - Work Seamlessly with Multiple Data Types
So, what is MapGuide Enterprise?
This latest offering is an application server that offers a mapping component to enterprise systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. The solution provides direct integration with business apps from vendors such as Oracle and SAP and gives developers more flexibility. The systems interact seamlessly, often without the need to generate and view a map. With its ability to integrate data from a variety of sources and systems, Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise acts as a simple yet powerful infrastructure intelligence tool that delivers improved decision support to users across the organization.
Members of the geospatial community such as DM Solutions Group have driven the development of features important to their customers, which are now incorporated in Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008. "Today's news demonstrates the advantages of collaboration with the open source community," said David McIlhagga, president of DM Solutions Group. "Everybody wins: open source developers don't have to clear huge cost or technical hurdles to build the tools they feel are most important, while our solutions and Autodesk customers gain relevant, enterprise-class features and functions."
Please note, Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise software is commercial software and NOT Open Source. There is an active open source project, called MapGuide Open Source, available from the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) at mapguide.osgeo.org, which has substantially the same functionality as Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise
FDO Data Access
FDO Data Access Technology is at the heart of Autodesk Geospatial Solutions. A feature of Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Raster Design, and Autodesk Topobase software products, FDO Data Access Technology increases productivity by helping you work on a variety of spatial and nonspatial databases and files without translation or data loss. Professionals can easily access, manage, edit, and share data stored in their GIS easily and make all new map and design work ready for web publishing as soon as it’s created.
To take advantage of developer support and the great variety of data types, Autodesk in partnership with OSGeo, released FDO as an open source project. As with MapGuide Open Source, developers all over the world can now tap into a powerful new technology and make their own contribution.
Raster Integration - Easily Move Engineering GIS Data from Desktop to Web
AutoCAD Raster Design is a proven tool for raster data editing, manipulation, and analysis. When combined with Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise, these products deliver a powerful solution to move your organization smoothly from initial design and mapping to web deployment. Because of the shared FDO Data Access Technology, you can publish any work completed in Map 3D and Raster Design directly with Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise. Integrate. Analyze. Distribute. With Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise, organizations can easily publish data from AutoCAD®, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Raster Design, AutoCAD Civil 3D, and Autodesk Topobase software as well as from popular GIS sources such as Oracle Spatial, Microsoft SQL Server™, and MySQL databases; ESRI® Geodatabase, ArcSDE®, SHP, and popular raster formats.
FME and MapGuide Enterprise 2008
Safe Software is currently developing a product that will extend Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008 to serve data in dozens of additional FME-supported formats and databases, without the need for translation. Supported databases and file formats will include Intergraph GeoMedia, PostGIS, DB2 Spatial, ESRI ArcSDE, GML, MapInfo TAB, PostGIS and Oracle Spatial (raster). Owners of the FME Provider for MapGuide 6.5 who have an up-to-date FME Annual Maintenance Contract will be eligible for a free upgrade to the FME extension for MapGuide Enterprise when it becomes available. For more information, email us at info@safe.com.
12 Cool Things About MapGuide Enterprise
Platform Flexibility - Autodesk® MapGuide Enterprise offers broader support for more operating systems (Windows and Linux), web servers (IIS and Apache), and browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox™, and others).
Single Authoring Tool - Autodesk MapGuide Studio provides a single developer-friendly authoring environment based on popular web development tools that help you to integrate data and build applications fast.
Programming Flexibility - MapGuide Enterprise applications are written using PHP, ASP.NET, or Java™ using a new API on the web tier.
Simpler Viewing - With Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise developers can develop a single application for users performing DWF™-based viewing of vector-based maps or pure raster viewing using AJAX technology.
More Innovation - Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise benefits from faster innovation than normal commercial software release cycles, brought about by collaborative software development.
Lower Cost of Ownership - Support for the Linux operating system and Apache web server gives you a choice of platform
Server-Side Processing - the “server-side” architecture offered by Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise simplifies application development and deployment.
The DWF Advantage - DWF-based viewing in Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise allows easier printing and plotting, as well as support for a “disconnected mode”
Share / Distribute your data - Easily distribute geospatial information internally, over the web, or using Autodesk’s DWF viewing technology for offline portability
Pretty Maps - MapGuide Enterprise gives you true color support, greatly improved labeling, and persistence in styling of features from Autodesk Map® 3D.
Easier Data Access - Use of Feature Data Object (FDO) - makes accessing remote data sources easier and faster than ever.
Remote Administration - Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise includes a browser-based tool that allows remote administration of server resources.
Publish Directly to Google Earth - Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise allows you to directly publish MapGuide maps and layers to Google Earth
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Community 
The pitch from Autodesk... "Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise delivers valuable spatial data and analysis over the web, while reducing distribution costs. Enjoy a more efficient workflow, as well as improved communication among internal teams, mobile field force, and customers". At the heart of this release: enhanced FDO Data Access Technology, native support for Google Earth, speed and stability. Read on for a quick look at the new features, the benefits and 12 Cool Things About MapGuide Enterprise.
Members of the geospatial community such as DM Solutions Group have driven the development of features important to their customers, which are now incorporated in Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise 2008. "Today's news demonstrates the advantages of collaboration with the open source community," said David McIlhagga, president of DM Solutions Group. "Everybody wins: open source developers don't have to clear huge cost or technical hurdles to build the tools they feel are most important, while our solutions and Autodesk customers gain relevant, enterprise-class features and functions." 
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