Friday, September 18, 2009

Geospatial Performance Benchmarks "Apples to Apples"

I get a lot of requests for Performance Benchmarks of APOLLO vs. lots of other systems. We provide extremely analytical and detailed performance results of our server every release. A couple issues always crop up in any performance benchmarks:

1. Features - first of all, ANY competitive product cannot DO what APOLLO can do...so I find myself either A: Dummying down APOLLO and the test to even be able to do an "apples to apples" test or B: not making it "apples to apples".

2. Return on Investment - ROI on software is not just performance, but HOW LONG IT TOOK TO SETUP, ADMINISTER and GET the feature operational in a production scenario!! I find myself spending such a HUGE part of my time getting the competitive software to even "work" to do the test.

I've been following the FOSS4G's Web Mapping Shootout announced for their 2009 conference. I get a really HUGE chuckle because their "shootout" couldn't be perfomed on a more CARTOON set of data and NON-REALISTIC use case. I don't know ONE client that requires one image and a handfull of vector data sets (3 to be precise).

Our smallest benchmark has 459 7 band images...choke on that Open Source.

They should call it a "water gun fight" instead of a "Shootout".

Also what will NOT be collected in the "shootout" is how long it took them to setup the system and service enable the data...how many "WEEKS" are you willing to struggle with that?

PERFORMANCE is about ROI on the investement and of course the ability of the system to handle a user load. Weigh both when your looking at the numbers!!

ERDAS APOLLO 2010 BETA has BEGUN!!

The ERDAS APOLLO 2010 has been released at the beginning of this week!! For the ERDAS Enterprise Products, we will have a very detailed BETA Web Page providing procedures, documentation, video short tutorials (*new*), announcement and FAQ's. It's not too late, contact your ERDAS Sales Rep to participate!!

The first week has been a GREAT week! The Geoprocessing workflow feedback has been excellent!! What I'm particularly VERY PROUD of this release is not just that we have an interoperable WPS and can perform such AMAZINGLY COMPLEX spatial workflows within a single process, but the WORKFLOW of WPS is so smooth and easy to use. From the publishing experience for Analyst users (THANKS IMAGINE TEAM) to the management of processes on the server, to the execution through a thin client (web browser) of models by end users who don't know imagery or remote sensing AT ALL...the end to end use case is AWESOME!!

If your end users need ADVANCED Spatial Modeling and INTEROPERABLE delivery of data and spatial modeling products...AND your looking at MAN YEARS of customization of your existing proprietary system or NEVER ENDING full blown core development of your extremely limited, disconnected OPEN SOURCE project (because these are the only options that exist today), ERDAS IS YOUR SOLUTION!!