Land Information Management and its (3D) Database Foundation

Abstract

From the inception of the Oracle Spatial Engine over ten years ago, Oracle has been striving to make spatial information an integral part of its information management architecture. The Oracle information management architecture includes such areas as GIS, Document Management and Archiving and Business Intelligence. Built initially as disparate solutions on top of the Oracle object-relational / native XML database. It became soon quit clear that taking a more holistic and standardized approach to information management, would create much more value to our customers. By managing spatial databases, document stores and data-warehouses in one database environment taking an unified approach based on open standards, would relief the integration, management and security burden of dealing with such a diversity of structured and unstructured data tremendously. Today these capabilities are an integral part of Oracle’s vision on enterprise information management. They also fit naturally in current strategies on SOA, Engineered Systems, Cloud Computing and Big Data, which require not only a unified approach to information management, but also require an unified, on open standards based, approach to process management. The current trends in the GIS domain boil down to exactly these strategies. Especially in the Land Information Management domain, many organizations are re-considering their current systems or implementing new systems if they didn’t exist before, like in developing countries, to accommodate new requirements such as open standards based, an integrated approach to managing information, interoperability between systems and support for 3D data-types in the GIS domain. e-Government initiatives and initiatives like e.g. INSPIRE require this open approach towards Land Information Management as land is probably the most important asset, humanity has, to manage our future. In this paper it will be shown how Oracle has been adopting modern technologies as part of its strategy, especially in the 3D area. It will also be shown how e.g. the LADM/STDM application scheme helps in defining Oracle’s strategy towards Land Information Management to create a more agile solution based on IT strategies in dealing with current and future requirements.