My bookshelf is chock-full of great stuff, many of the titles gathering dust… and so, I felt it was time to dust off something interesting and share with you a few details. Enter “Building a GIS System Architecture Design Strategies for Managers” by Dave Peters (ESRI Press 2008).
When looking at my collection for something of interest this one jumped out at me, after all, who doesn’t need a little help in building the enterprise GIS? At 292 pages + a commpanion CD-ROM/Planning Tool, this title wastes no time delivering useful material as Chapter 1 covers off (in not too much detail) the System Design process followed by detailed look at software, the network, security issues, and data administration. The book finishes off with a detailed, step by step system design and hypothetical City implementation.
Some key items the manager will take away from this book are valuable tips for a system organizational structure and requirements of staffing, software, hardware and network. A look at system performance and data administration will be particularly valuable in the planning stages as are the strong reminders about security and security related issues.
Building a GIS is a must-have for any GIS manager, particularly those in the enterprise or local government, who already has identified their needs but has now moved on to a desire to implement or revamp their corporate GIS. The included, Capacity Planning Tool, an excel-based design analysis tool will be particularly useful and alone will offset the small cost for the book! For a good technology overview and detailed how-to develop a system design this title delivers.
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