Designing Integrated High Performance Web Portals for GIScience Research

Abstract

Web portals can be used as comprehensive platforms to deliver high-level Internet Geographic Information Services (GIService). Web portals can be enhanced by high performance Geocomputation and emerging Internet technologies to improve performance, interoperability, reliability, usability, and security. The integration of emerging technologies introduces new challenges for designing efficient and flexible high performance GIS web portals. This paper summarizes design principles for the development of high performance web portals to support GIScience research. Following the design principles, a technical implementation plan of a web portal to support GIScience research at a geography department is outlined using state-of-the-art computing technologies, including high performance computing, Web services, Internet GIServices, and web portals. A simple prototype demonstrates the feasibility of the technical plan as well as the effectiveness of the design principles.