ArcGIS Seamlessly Scales in Alibaba Cloud for Ningxia’s “One-Stop” Geographic Information Library

The Geographic Center of the Land and Resources Bureau in the Ningxia region of north-central China sought to establish a “one-stop” cross-agency geographic information management, processing and shared cloud services platform for both government and private use. Such a platform would provide authoritative geographic information services and maps to government agencies to help them execute development programs in a more holistic and integrated manner. It would also give residents of Ningxia access to high quality geographical data and maps. The shared library would serve as the government’s database for basic geographic information.

The solution chosen by the Ningxia authorities was Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise combined with Cloud Computing services provided by Alibaba Cloud, and implemented by solution provider GISUNI.

The implementation team discovered early that there was no consistent inventory or standard for the large volume of data that each agency individually held. The consolidation of the data was further complicated by the need to adhere to strict data confidentiality policies and ensure that storage and access to sensitive data conformed with all applicable laws.

Engagement with the potential users revealed that a majority were unfamiliar with geographic information management and processing yet planned to use the data for advanced analysis and visualization. Furthermore, they had expectations of a flexible, web-based and easy-to-use system that could adapt to rapidly changing needs and a growing number of users in each agency.

Each agency was provided with ArcGIS Desktop software and specialist support to standardize and inventory their data holdings. The agencies then published OGC-compliant services using ArcGIS Server, whilst retaining ownership and control of their data.

A single unified geographic information portal was established using Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise hosted in Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Services, whilst GISUNI’s GIStack solution monitors and scales the software and services to match the growing demands of users.

Once authenticated, all users are provided with distinct permissions to the appropriate and authoritative data services, which can be employed in two-dimensional Web Maps and three-dimensional Web Scenes. Users are also provided with access to ArcGIS WebApp Builder, allowing them to rapidly author smart and effective web apps.

The platform was delivered in 10 months, and has delivered on the promise of real-time, analytical and visualization tools for effective two-dimensional maps and highly-realistic three-dimensional scenes.

Since the implementation in 2016, the visitor frequency and number of data services published has increased beyond expectations. The growth has been seamlessly addressed by the automatic scaling of Alibaba Cloud, Esri and GISUNI technology.

The system is now employed by all bureaus and agencies in the Ningxia region, and provides standardized data to the National Government. Residents and government agency users are rapidly locating and employing the appropriate authoritative geographic information, whilst each agency is able to confidently protect their confidential and sensitive data.