EsriFedCon

After arriving a little late on Day 2 due to needing to push updates to an application we’re building for an NGO, I was able to catch most of the session about deploying ArcGIS Server in the cloud. James was sitting in the front and has already blogged that session so I won’t go into detail about it here. One thing that did jump out at me came during the Q&A, when someone asked about certification and accreditation (C&A) of AWS deployments.

If you work in the Federal space, you know that C&A is a huge issue for the deployment of any information system, regardless of platform, for the Federal Government. Since hosted deployments essentially mean outsourcing your physical infrastructure, information security types have understandably proceeded with caution here.

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I didn’t catch the first half of the Esri Federal GIS Conference plenary but James did a good recap of it on his blog. I did, however, catch the second half and the opening of the exhibit hall.

This year was a departure from previous years in that it wasn’t a litany of the new things coming in each component of the Esri stack. The “GIS letters from the road” theme drew attention to problems that can be solved by leveraging the entire stack as a unit. It was a good twist that made it impossible to just drop in, hear about your favorite Esri product, and drop out. I have to give kudos to Esri’s marketing team for taking it in this direction.

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