Geoprocessing in Google Cloud Computing: Case studies

Recent advances in Cloud Computing technologies bring a new computing information infrastructure to public users. Using these Cloud Computing platforms, typical information technology resources such as computing, storage utilities, and database are available as services. Geospatial applications often involve diverse sources of data and complex geoprocessing functions. In scientific problem solving, the ability to carry out geospatial analysis is essential to geoscientific discovery. This paper presents the design and implementation of a set of services that integrates geoprocessing functions and Google Cloud Computing technologies to provide geoprocessing functions over the Web. These services are implemented by moving conventional powerful geospatial analysis functions within the Google Cloud Computing Platform - Google App Engine (GAE). These services are now open and accessible to the public, and they support integrated geoprocessing on the Web. Challenges of developing applications and approaches on the integration are discussed.