Using physical hardware to deploy geographic information system (GIS) architecture is expensive, inevitably requires maintenance, and ultimately has an end of life. That’s why combining cloud computing with an organization’s GIS program is a win-win. Our experience working with Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, is an excellent example of leveraging cloud-based technologies, like Microsoft Azure, to offer more efficient, scalable, cost-effective GIS services.

Montgomery County, located in the Delaware Valley outside of Philadelphia, is home to Valley Forge National Park, King of Prussia Mall, Elmwood Zoo, and a host of other attractions.

With more than 2,000 employees, Montgomery County government provides a variety of services to its constituents, including GIS services. The GIS services also support internal county users, such as the Board of Assessment Appeals, Planning Commission, and Department of Public Safety.

Montgomery County has used GIS for a variety of business needs for many years, but in 2018, the County created a new Enterprise GIS program and hired a GIS manager to oversee it. As part of the overall strategic effort to build this Enterprise GIS system, Montgomery County decided to deploy the GIS architecture on cloud-based infrastructure.

Montgomery County contracted EBA Engineering, Inc. (EBA) to architect the deployment of the ArcGIS Enterprise GIS platform in Microsoft Azure, deploy the system, and help supply and migrate services to the environment.

EBA was uniquely positioned to support Montgomery County, given our expertise designing, implementing, and supporting the ArcGIS Platform on cloud providers for other local government organizations, including the Southeastern Pennsylvania Taskforce, Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management, Philadelphia Police Department, and Schuylkill County.

Microsoft Azure was their choice for the cloud provider and tenant; virtual network and county network connections were already being used in other county departments. EBA worked with the County’s GIS manager and IT group to design the new environment, starting by gathering a complete picture of how the enterprise GIS environment would be used and then designing a detailed system architecture.

Once the new environment’s architecture plan was created and approved, EBA delivered the ArcGIS Enterprise Platform deployed in the Azure cloud based on system diagram, specifications, and deployment plan. The ArcGIS Enterprise deployment included GeoEvent Server, an extension used to gather, visualize, and analyze streaming data in real time.

With the new environment in place, EBA helped the county’s GIS administrators migrate the existing GIS data and applications to the new platform, while also providing knowledge transfer to them.

Montgomery County quickly got to work providing updated maps and applications on their new Geospatial Data Hub, which offers a variety of featured applications and county initiatives, including a robust open data offering.

Using GeoEvent Server, the County also offers real-time 911 incident mapping, with active incidents updated at 4-minute intervals.

By taking advantage of cloud computing, Montgomery County now benefits from increased flexibility to scale the platform to accommodate increasing demand, while only paying for what is needed and used instead of purchasing large, upfront hardware. The County now enjoys the availability and uptime reliability that Azure is designed to provide.

Stacey Smith, GISP, is vice president of EBA’s geospatial technologies and asset management department. She can be reached at 484.886.7757 or stacey.smith@ebaengineering.com.