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Enhanced Performance with Blue Raster’s Cloud-Managed Services: Integrating Zabbix and ArcGIS Monitor for Proactive Management

Posted on by Chigo Ibeh

At Blue Raster, we understand that organizations rely on uninterrupted access to their geospatial data and services. With the rapid shift towards cloud-based infrastructure, it’s essential to have a solution that not only supports deployment and scalability but also proactively manages and monitors these environments. That’s where our cloud-managed services come in, offering an all-encompassing solution designed to ensure your ArcGIS Enterprise environment runs smoothly and efficiently.

 

 

Why Cloud-Managed Services Matter

 

The complexity of modern GIS environments means that organizations need to stay ahead of potential issues before they impact performance or cause downtime.

Managing an ArcGIS Enterprise environment involves more than just deploying servers—it requires constant oversight of infrastructure, software updates, system performance, and security compliance.

Blue Raster’s Cloud-Managed Services provides a comprehensive solution, taking the burden off your internal teams and ensuring your systems are optimized and up-to-date.

 

Zabbix and ArcGIS Monitor: A Perfect Partnership

One of the key features of our managed services is proactive monitoring. We leverage industry-leading tools such as Zabbix and ArcGIS Monitor to give clients visibility into system performance, helping to anticipate issues before they become problems.

  • Zabbix, a powerful and highly customizable monitoring tool, offers real-time monitoring of cloud infrastructure, allowing us to track server health, certificate expirations, license renewals, and more.
  • ArcGIS Monitor provides deep insights into the health and performance of your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, tracking usage patterns, service response times, and system resources.

While both capable of working as standalone monitoring solutions, the ability of Zabbix and ArcGIS Monitor to work in tandem creates a dynamic duo, offering comprehensive monitoring across both your infrastructure and GIS-specific components. This ensures that our team can monitor everything from hardware utilization to application-level performance. By utilizing both tools, Blue Raster can help you maximize uptime, optimize resources, and ensure that your GIS operations are always running at peak efficiency.

Cloud-Managed Services Tailored to Your Needs

Our managed services aren’t just about keeping the lights on—they’re about future-proofing your investment in GIS technology. With our cloud management services, you can be rest assured that you’ll have a partner dedicated to not only monitoring your systems but also optimizing them for long-term success. Whether it’s managing updates to ArcGIS Enterprise, renewing licenses, or ensuring security patches are applied, Blue Raster has you covered.

Let Us Handle the Heavy Lifting

With over two decades of experience as an Esri Partner, Blue Raster’s team of DevOps engineers and GIS experts are equipped to handle the most complex cloud environments. We offer a tailored approach to meet your organization’s unique needs, ensuring that your GIS infrastructure stays secure, efficient, and scalable. Our services go beyond deployment to provide continuous monitoring, management, and optimization.

By incorporating tools like Zabbix and ArcGIS Monitor, we not only track the performance of your entire GIS ecosystem but also give you peace of mind knowing that potential issues are caught early. This allows your organization to focus on what matters—delivering value through GIS, without worrying about downtime or performance bottlenecks.

 

Contact us today and learn how we can help you maximize your system performance.

 

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Blue Raster Pioneering Imagery Management Technology and Delivery Workflows with ArcGIS

Posted on by Chigo Ibeh

Many organizations prioritize the accessibility of imagery and image-derived products for visualization and analysis among both internal and external users. As such, efficient  management and delivery workflows are crucial for these organizations to fully harness the power of spatial data and maximize their product impact. Use cases for aerial images and raster data include land cover classification, urban planning, natural resource management, emergency response and disaster management, precision agriculture and conservation, environmental monitoring and change detection/climate change analysis.

Blue Raster specializes in utilizing the robust capabilities of GIS and cloud services to facilitate the seamless assembly, analysis, management and dissemination of multiresolution imagery, and raster data from different sources and timeframes. Our expertise helps organizations enhance their spatial data management and analysis capabilities.

Employing ArcGIS for Imagery Hosting, Analysis & Management

Empowered by cutting-edge technology, Blue Raster excels in tapping into the full potential of ArcGIS for image hosting, analysis, and delivery workflows across ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Pro, and ArcGIS Online. With ArcGIS Image Server and ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, we enable organizations to host and conduct dynamic imagery analysis on an unprecedented scale.

The scalability and performance of ArcGIS Image Server redefines the boundaries of what is achievable in geospatial analytics. Additionally, by integrating imagery into the ArcGIS Online platform, organizations can create compelling and informative maps that facilitate a deeper understanding of their spatial data.

Providing On-Demand Imagery Delivery Services

We specialize in providing swift, on-demand collection and smooth delivery of imagery through versatile means including API keys, custom widgets, online user interfaces, and application plugins. Our expertise ensures that you have the necessary tools and support to cater to diverse requirements and preferences.

Whether you need quick access to specific imagery, or a tailored solution embedded within your applications, Blue Raster stands ready to assist, offering a range of flexible and efficient options to meet your unique needs.

Furthermore, we recognize the importance of seamless delivery workflows in ensuring timely access to critical imagery resources. Our solutions are designed to optimize delivery pipelines, minimizing latency and maximizing efficiency. Whether it's delivering imagery to remote field teams or integrating seamlessly with existing systems, we prioritize speed, reliability, and scalability to meet the dynamic needs of our clients.

Our commitment to innovation extends beyond just technology; it's ingrained in our culture. We're constantly exploring new ways to push the boundaries of what's possible, whether it's through advancements in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, or data visualization. By staying at the forefront of technological innovation, we empower our clients to stay ahead of the curve and achieve their objectives with confidence. Our teams of professionals are here to assist you in developing and deploying your delivery workflows.

Pioneering Collaborative Cloud-Based Imagery Management

For over a decade, Blue Raster has been working with clients and partners to deliver large volumes of imagery to support various geospatial workflows. Our cloud specialty has opened new frontiers for collaborative  management. Maximizing the cloud's scalability, organizations can now store, share, and analyze vast amounts of data in real-time. This not only streamlines internal processes but also facilitates effortless collaboration with external stakeholders.

Across the globe, our clients and partners are employing our services to manage and deliver their imagery to support their projects and organizational goals. Here are some examples:

Learn more about our work here

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Transform Your Website with AI Services to Enhance Capabilities

Posted on by Chigo Ibeh

In more recent times, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has marked a transformative shift in modern technology. As industries across the globe embrace the potential of artificial intelligence, it has become an integral force driving innovation and efficiency. From machine learning algorithms that optimize processes to natural language processing systems that enhance communication, artificial intelligence is revolutionizing how we interact with and harness the power of technology.

Employing the robust capabilities of Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenAI (ChatGPT), Flowise and PostgreSQL, Blue Raster engineered a cutting-edge solution capable of processing various data types such as PDFs, text files, websites, and GitHub repositories. This solution is a key feature of our latest offering: an embeddable chatbot that allows website visitors to interact with data in a conversational manner, turning any website into a dynamic data-driven experience.

 

Implementation of RAG Architecture to Create Chatbot

Blue Raster recently integrated the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture into its systems. RAG is a cutting-edge model architecture that combines the strengths of both retrieval-based and generation-based AI to amplify the capabilities of conversational systems.

Key components of RAG include:

Retrieval-Based Approach: Utilizes a knowledge base to fetch pertinent information, ensuring the model delivers contextually accurate answers.

Generation-Based Approach: Employs generative capabilities to craft novel responses, especially when answers aren't directly available in the knowledge base.

Augmentation: Enhances the generative process by incorporating retrieved data, resulting in accurate and contextually relevant responses.

By fusing these elements, RAG overcomes the constraints of purely generative or retrieval-based models. It ensures factual and coherent interactions, making it an excellent fit for tasks requiring nuanced language understanding and generation.

 

Architectural Blueprint for Chatbot Deployment

In this streamlined workflow, developers commit code to the GitHub repository, triggering GitHub Actions to automate the building and pushing of a Docker image to AWS ECR. The Docker image is then deployed onto an EC2 instance where the application interfaces with the database. User interaction is facilitated through routing, with a Load Balancer efficiently managing traffic. The entire communication is secured through TLS termination, ensuring a robust and protected HTTPS connection throughout the process. This architecture guarantees high availability and security and streamlines updates and maintenance through an automated continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline, ensuring clients can receive dynamic and adaptable services.

Surging Forward with AI

The chatbot service is a testament to the efficiency and reliability of modern deployment strategies, incorporating various AWS services and GitHub within a CI/CD pipeline for seamless development and deployment processes. It is more than just a tool; it's a conversation starter, a problem solver, and a data navigator, all rolled into one intuitive package. With the implementation of the RAG model and a robust CI/CD pipeline, we ensure that your website is not only equipped with the latest in AI but also future-proofed against the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Integrating an AI chatbot into your web platform can revolutionize user experience and bolster your online capabilities. These intelligent virtual assistants offer instantaneous responses to user queries, ensuring round-the-clock availability and personalized interactions. Using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms,  chatbots can understand user intent, provide relevant information, and even execute tasks seamlessly. Its versatility spans from customer support and lead generation to product recommendations and content delivery, enhancing engagement and driving conversions.

Furthermore, these chatbots continuously learn from interactions, refining their responses and adapting to user preferences over time. This not only streamlines communication but also empowers businesses to gather valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and pain points, facilitating informed decision-making and fostering long-term relationships with their audience.

 

Contact us today to explore how our AI solutions can transform your online presence and open a world of opportunities for your business.

 

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New Updates to The DHS Program Spatial Data Repository: A one stop shop for Spatial Analysis Datasets

Posted on by Phil Satlof

You may be familiar with the USAID funded DHS Program Spatial Data Repository (SDR) and use it to access spatial and non-spatial indicator data produced by The DHS Program surveys.  However, if you have not visited recently or are new to the tool check it out today!

The DHS Program Spatial Data Repository

 

There are brand new features, like a Model Dataset to use for familiarizing yourself with The DHS Program data, lesser known features like Geospatial Covariates and Modeled Surfaces and even some amazing new visualizations under construction that will debut in spring 2024.

Model Dataset

The new Model Dataset is useful for learning how to use DHS Program data to produce your own results.

The SDR is a custom application built with JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Python, Node and other tools. It relies on Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise for serving boundary files, Python tools for creating customized datasets and The DHS Program Indicator Data API for instant access to the vast universe of DHS Program survey data and Amazon Web Services (AWS) for hosting and serverless solutions. Blue Raster is a trusted technology partner to The DHS Program with over 15 years of dedicated service to the USAID funded project.

Keep your eye on this space and visit the Spatial Data Repository today!

Survey estimates

Download Modeled Surfaces produced from DHS Program survey estimates like this one from the Philippines.

 

Georgia Uses GIS to Match Voters with Polling Places

Posted on by Koren Melfi

Ahead of the November 2022 election, the Georgia Secretary of State (SOS) Elections Division approached Esri and Blue Raster to develop an efficient, well-defined process for mapping registered voters—helping election officials ensure voters were assigned to the proper polling places after redistricting. With nearly 8 million registered voters spread across 159 counties, Georgia officials needed an affordable and efficient solution to geocode each voter in the state with a verification process that could be overseen and managed at the state and county levels. This new tool would need to be active and ready for use by the end of February 2022—a turnaround time of less than two months—in addition to training election officials.

Meeting the Distinct Needs of Georgia SOS

The Georgia SOS Elections Division required one resource that would:

  • House every county’s unique voter data
  • Alert election officials of any inconsistencies within the system
  • Allow election officials to make necessary corrections
  • Account for a variety of users and levels of permission—as state election officials would need to access records for the entire state, while officials in each county would only be granted access to the data pertaining to their jurisdiction

To accomplish the massive task of geocoding nearly 8 million registered voters, Esri and Blue Raster applied the ArcGIS System including ArcGIS Pro on its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment to process Georgia’s entire voter data file in just a matter of hours. ArcGIS StreetMap Premium allowed for fast and accurate geocoding of addresses to the building and street level. Mapped voters were intersected with new district boundaries to confirm voter assignments. With the process finalized, the team worked quickly to automate it, allowing the voter file to be received each month and fully processed and geocoded within 48 hours to ensure its ongoing accuracy.

Process overview for the 2022 Redistricting Quality Assurance Tool.
Process overview for the 2022 Redistricting Quality Assurance Tool.

Customizing 159+ Dashboards for County and State Election Officials

Once a solution was presented for geocoding, Esri and Blue Raster used the Georgia SOS 2022 Redistricting Quality Assurance Tool—an interactive, online mapping resource developed using ArcGIS Hub—to make voter data at the state and county levels accessible to Georgia’s election officials. The innovative tool features:

  1. A central landing page that is viewable to all users with an account
  2. Unique ArcGIS Dashboards that are only viewable to their corresponding state or county officials
  3. 159 automated Hub pages for each county that include instructional information and can only be accessed within officials’ jurisdiction
  4. Maps of voting districts in officials’ counties and action items they need to address, including any voter records to review
  5. Voter details—such as where they’re mapped based on the geocoding to confirm the voter is assigned to the correct polling location
  6. CSV files for voting district assignments that need to be reviewed and for any addresses that could not be placed on the map
Every time voter registration data is updated, any voter records that expose a discrepancy are flagged, and local staff can quickly review each record.
Every time voter registration data is updated, any voter records that expose a discrepancy are flagged, and local staff can quickly review each record.

By the end of February 2022, Esri and Blue Raster successfully trained Georgia election officials on the 2022 Redistricting Quality Assurance Tool to verify the accuracy of their voter records. The statewide voter record was updated monthly, and geocoded, with updates published to the Hub pages, maps, and reviewable records available within 48 hours. Election officials were reviewing their county Hub pages regularly and reporting back to the Elections Division when updates were made in the voter registration database. This ensured consistent reporting of voter record review progress and official sign-off of completion from Georgia SOS.

Video walkthrough resource provided to all Georgia election officials.
Video walkthrough resource provided to all Georgia election officials.

Explore Blue Raster’s Elections Services

See how our team can help you make sense of your voter registration files and analyses leading up to the next election—and beyond! 

Contact Us to Get Started

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