Cloud

Virtualizing ArcGIS in the Cloud

Posted on by Megan Gottfried

Blue Raster helps clients achieve rapid, cost-effective cloud solutions for server and application hosting. Our team is now taking this concept a step further to completely Virtualize your ArcGIS Environment. As an Amazon Web Service and Microsoft Azure partner, our team strives to understand the latest ways to use GIS systems more efficiently.Amazon Web Service Partner

Coupled with ArcGIS Pro, an application which handles licensing completely in the cloud, our team has been able to provide full GIS work spaces for several organizations. Our team works with a variety of cloud hosting options including AWS WorkSpaces, AWS AppStream, and Azure Virtual Desktops, each of these options providing a variety of benefits:

  • Removes Operating System requirements
  • Eliminates the need for high performance hardware
  • Offers scalable solutions for organizations with many software users
  • Utilizes the ArcGIS Pro Parallel Processing capabilities, allowing multiple CPU, cores, or processes to work on a large job at the same time
  • Provides more cost efficient solutions for long running, highly intensive workflows

Blue Raster is working with the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Demographic and Healthy Surveys Program to build all encompassing cloud environments. The pilot cloud environment Esri ArcGIS Pro Cloud hooks into existing systems and caters to the needs of the organization. For example, the addition of Amazon FSx and Attached Storage to easily share files from a local, network, or virtual desktop drive. Our team can also integrate these work spaces with previously existing Active Directory and Single Sign On (SSO) technologies for large-scale, organizational access.

Ben Mayala, the Senior GIS Coordinator at the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, has been using his Amazon Web Service WorkSpace to run complex, statistic and spatial analysis which was not only taking days to complete, but completely using up machine resources while doing so.

"So far the WorkSpace is really good. It's loading the Geospatial Covariates super fast, data extractions are super fast, and I've already gotten through over half my work" 

Ready to find out more?

Contact us today to learn about ways we can make the cloud work for you.

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Understanding our Students with MapED

Posted on by Megan Gottfried

MapED is a primary source of geographic education and demographic data for students across the U.S.. The latest MapED launch brings exceptional updates to this platform both technically with the introduction of several new maps and visually in the redesign. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE), Sanametrix, and Blue Raster all brought unique expertise to ensure that any student, parent, or education professional has access to compelling and up-to-date maps and data.

ACS-ED Maps

The ACS-ED Maps application is the latest exploratory tool to identify conditions of school-age children in school districts across the United States. Users can explore indicators such as poverty, health insurance coverage, and race to better understand the connections between students, school districts and their surroundings.

“The Census Bureau creates the ACS-ED custom tabulation for the NCES EDGE program to help measure social and economic conditions of school-age kids in local school districts. Those conditions can vary considerably across different parts of the U.S. and even within the same metropolitan area, so the goal of the ACS-ED Maps tool is to help people visualize school district socioeconomic conditions in their geographic context so they can better understand how location affects education.” – Doug Geverdt, Administrative Data Division, NCES

ACS ED Maps

ACS-ED Map is updated annually with the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. Browse indicators by total population or get more refined data for school-age children by narrowing the search to all children, children enrolled in any type of schooling, or children enrolled in public school.

ACS-ED maps support side-by-side comparison of indicators by allowing users to create two views within the same browser. Additionally, users can share out their map on Facebook, Email or Twitter. The application utilizes ArcGIS Server and the ArcGIS API for JavaScript.

Locale Lookup

The Locale Lookup application identifies the types of communities where schools are located. Explore Public Schools and School Districts from the Common Core of Data (CCD), Private Schools from the Private School Survey (PSS), and Post-Secondary Schools from the Integrated Post-secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) in relation to their Locale classification, from rural to city landscapes. The application utilizes ArcGIS Server and the ArcGIS API for JavaScript.

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