Abstract
Over the past few years, several technology trends, notably big data analytics, volunteered geographic information, cloud computing, free and open source software, internet of things, and linked data, have emerged. This study reviews the contribution of some of these trends to Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) development, particularly in Africa. A geospatial application based on Google Container Engine, an Infrastructure as a Service cloud, has been developed. Data was sourced from the 2015 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, the Kenya school mapping project of 2007 from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and Kenya's administrative boundary layers from the Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission. By using the cloud, several operations and analyses typically common in SDIs were carried out. In addition, a cost estimate of a cloud-based Kenya National Spatial Data Infrastructure deployment is presented. Although the new technologies may not necessarily lead to wider SDI adoption, the study shows that the trends can increase the chances of SDI development and adoption, by permitting highly scalable geoservices, and facilitating cost-effective free and open source software.
Highlights
It is often argued that technical components are easier to deal with than the non-technical ones when developing Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) [1]
The low level of web connectivity and infrastructure in Africa could be contributing to the reported slow rate of SDI development [3]
The application should have been developed within the context of an existing SDI geoportal, which did not exist in the study context in 2016
Summary
It is often argued that technical components are easier to deal with than the non-technical ones when developing SDIs [1]. In spite of being easier to deal with, a significant amount of financial resources are often expended in technical components. There are several other reasons why consideration of technology components is important in SDIs. First, distributed network access through various applications and geoportals, is what makes spatial data more readily available to the end users. This section reviews literature on IT trends that have the potential to contribute and positively influence SDI development. There are two notable implementations of SOA: Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and Representational State Transfer (REST). The latter is a set of architectural
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