Swiss Cantons Migrate GIS to Esri Platforms

In close cooperation, the cantons of Geneva and Vaud (Lausanne) in Switzerland have recently chosen a complement of Esri software packages to expand and revitalize their regional GIS software.

The two cantons are long-time users of GIS and launched an initiative more than two years ago to determine whether or not their existing ARGIS systems would continue to meet their expanding GIS needs. The fact-finding process included a GIS technology status report researched and published by a local polytechnical school as well as a pilot study initiated by the canton of Geneva. Esri–Germany's Swiss regional office won the bid after the subsequent call for offers.

Esri's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) was chosen to act as the GIS server for the cantons. Running on Sun computers, each SDE implementation will host 50 connections and use Oracle8 as its database management system (DBMS). SDE enables the Oracle DBMS to store the spatial geometry in Oracle8. ArcView GIS, ArcExplorer, and MapObjects Internet Map Server will provide the extensive manipulation and Internet publishing capabilities required by each canton. The IMS applications will run on Windows NT machines.

The new GIS implementation will allow the cantons to integrate their existing spatial databases, including cadastre and environment, as well as various networks and provide easy access to the databases via the Web. SDE will access a variety of data including ARGIS and GeoConcept databases.

Emanuele Gennai, managing director at Esri's office in Geneva, Switzerland, comments, "Today, a GIS must offer the surety of database interoperability among a variety of file formats and hardware platforms. Esri's new generation GIS software provides such compatibility."

For more information, contact Emanuele Gennai (e-mail: E.Gennai@Esri-Suisse.ch).

ArcNews home page