Spatial Cloud Computing : A Practical Approach

A computing cloud is a set of network enabled services, providing scalable, inexpensive computing platforms on demand, which can be accessed in a simple way. This book helps its readers understand the process of how to deploy and customize geospatial applications onto clouds, as well as how to optimize clouds to make them better support geospatial applications. It also discusses and presents the strategies for customizing different types of applications to better utilize the cloud capabilities, such as on-demand services.

An exploration of the benefits of cloud computing in geoscience research and applications as well as future research directions, Spatial Cloud Computing: A Practical Approach discusses the essential elements of cloud computing and their advantages for geoscience. Using practical examples, it details the geoscience requirements of cloud computing, covers general procedures and considerations when migrating geoscience applications onto cloud services, and demonstrates how to deploy different applications.

The book discusses how to choose cloud services based on the general cloud computing measurement criteria and cloud computing cost models. The authors examine the readiness of cloud computing to support geoscience applications using open source cloud software solutions and commercial cloud services. They then review future research and developments in data, computation, concurrency, and spatiotemporal intensities of geosciences and how cloud service can be leveraged to meet the challenges. They also introduce research directions from the aspects of technology, vision, and social dimensions.

a common workflow for deploying geoscience applications and provides references to the concepts, technical details, and operational guidelines of cloud computing. These features and more give developers, geoscientists, and IT professionals the information required to make decisions about how to select and deploy cloud services.