Oregon, Montana, Utah and Colorado Partner to Share GIS Data in the Cloud

Oregon stores a vast amount of geospatial data, which will grow exponentially as the state finds new ways to use location-based information. Oregon CIO Dugan Petty hopes to cut the cost of housing GIS data by joining with three other states in a joint cloud-based storage initiative. The initiative is led by Montana, which released a request for information (RFI) in December 2010 asking vendors for input on how to best store GIS data from multiple states in the cloud. Along with Oregon, two other states — Utah and Colorado — have joined the effort, which has been dubbed the Multi-State GIS Cloud Services Assessment Team.

"We’re wondering if there isn’t an opportunity to aggregate the volume, drive some costs down and work more cooperatively," Petty said. Oregon’s Geospatial Enterprise Office is responsible for about 30 terabytes of GIS storage. If the other states store a similar amount, the four-state consortium would spend a combined $15 million annually on GIS storage, the RFI says.

Hilton Collins

Full Story: http://www.govtech.com/technology/Oregon-Montana-Utah-and-Colorado-Partner-to-Share-GIS-Data-in-the-Cloud.html