Solution Provides Fully Interactive Geographic Information To Government Departments and External Users
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Sun Microsystems Middle East & Africa and Orion Technology Inc. announced today the successful completion of their geographic information system (GIS) project for the Dubai Municipality, which will make accurate, detailed and up-to-date geographic and address-based information accessible via computers and mobile devices. The Municipality has created a Sun technology-based GIS Center, using Web-GIS software from Orion, for the benefit of both government departments and private end-users.
The GIS project enables Dubai Municipality to make its geographic information about Dubai available through a central information hub. Initially open to residents and tourists alike via the Internet, the GIS Center will eventually provide all government agencies in Dubai with an invaluable tool for integrating geographic information of various government agencies, locating places of interest and makings maps on demand.
Features offered include a road, address, and parcel search, as well as a means to locate schools, hospitals, hotels, and other places of interest. Users have access to high-resolution aerial photography with tools that contractors and consultants can use to measure areas and distances without setting foot on-site. With the new system, users can print and/or e-mail maps in a matter of seconds.
As the most detailed system of its kind in the UAE, the GIS initiative required a considerable amount of technological ingenuity on the part of Sun and its partners Orion and Mideast Data Systems (MDS). For example, the GIS system needs to be flexible enough to manage new data and changes that occur as Dubai’s landscape grows and develops. Such flexibility and scalability was achieved through the creation of a scalable network and storage infrastructure, and the integration of NT and UNIX systems through Java technology.
“A large proportion of the information exchanged between government departments is geographic in nature, so unifying access to this data through a central hub is immensely useful,” says Mohammed Abdulla Alzaffin, director of the GIS center, Dubai Municipality. “There are considerable cost and time savings to be realized from having all this essential information at our fingertips through a single window. The new system from Sun with GIS software from Orion is faster, more comprehensive and more reliable than anything we had before.”
“We are not centralizing all geographic data,” comments Alzaffin. “The beauty of our system is that most of the data continues to remain in computers of individual government agencies. Through our single GIS window, data is retrieved from multiple agencies; integrated in real-time and presented to the user. When a user requests information about a parcel of land he/she gets a list of data which has been retrieved from Dubai Municipality’s database as well as the Land Department’s database and integrated in real-time. Another unique feature of our system is the ability for any organization to embed interactive mapping within its own website or web application using URLs generated by the system.”
“It was essential that we found a solution that was reliable, scalable and able to deal with large volumes of changing geographic data,” says Alzaffin. “However, you can have the best IT system available, but without the necessary support, you’re finished. Professional, reliable support was a top priority for Dubai Municipality when selecting our technology partners for the GIS Center, and we couldn’t ask for a better team than Sun and Orion.”
From a technology perspective, Sun solutions have enabled the Dubai Municipality to increase the availability of its GIS data by spreading the processing load across a group of Sun FireTM V480 servers. The organization’s Sun StorEdgeTM storage infrastructure integrates with the server technology to enable rapid expansion as the Dubai Municipality’s GIS information grows, providing the ability to upgrade the GIS site without interrupting user access.
Dubai Municipality’s geographic data can be accessed via http://www.exploredubai.ae
Photo caption: Executives from Sun Microsystems, MDS, Orion, and Dubai Municipality, including Mohammed Abdulla Alzaffin, director of the GIS center, celebrate the new online GIS initiative.
-Ends-
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer[tm]" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com
About Orion Technology Inc.
Orion is a technology consulting and technology services integration company, focused on helping organizations integrate spatial (GIS) technology into all facets of their business. Orion solutions have been implemented in several organizations around the world details of which can be found at http://www.orion-gis.com
About Dubai Municipality
Dubai Municipality sits at the center of Dubai’s government, providing civic services to the public and private sectors, as well as visitors to the Emirate. With more than 11,000 employees, the Dubai Municipality includes the following departments: planning and building sector, roads and general projects sector, and environment and public health sector. The Dubai Municipality oversees projects relating to public health, drainage and irrigation, and construction and roads. http://www.dm.gov.ae
© Press Release 2003
