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Web GIS and its architecture: a review

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Abstract

Phenomenal progress has been witnessed in the field of Geographic Information System (GIS) in recent times. The development of webGIS is the result of the growth of the Internet and consequently World Wide Web. The webGIS architecture is continuously changing according to contemporary technologies and requirements. In this paper, webGIS and its architectures are reviewed. Firstly, GIS and invention of the Internet are discussed. Evolution of webGIS is then covered along with major milestones of its development and open source initiatives. It is followed by discussion on client server architecture and its types. Thick and thin client architectures are then described and compared. As the paradigm in the computing world shifted towards web services, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is also discussed in context of webGIS. Spatial cloud computing and cloud-based architecture for webGIS are then described. The paper also provides a comparison of different webGIS architectures so that suitable architecture can be selected by the user based upon the requirements.

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Correspondence to Sonam Agrawal.

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Agrawal, S., Gupta, R.D. Web GIS and its architecture: a review. Arab J Geosci 10, 518 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3296-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3296-2

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