ABSTRACT
Recent years have witnessed major changes in the Geographic Information System (GIS) market, from technological offerings to user requests. For example, spatial databases used to be implemented in GISs or in Computer-Assisted Design (CAD) systems coupled with a Relational Data Base Management System (RDBMS). Today, spatial databases are also implemented in spatial extensions of universal servers, in spatial engine software components, in GIS web servers, in analytical packages using so-called ‘data cubes’ and in spatial data warehouses. Such databases are structured according to either a relational, object-oriented, multidimensional or hybrid paradigm. In addition, these offerings are integrated as a piece of the overall technological framework of the organization and they are implemented according to very diverse architectures responding to differing users’ contexts: centralized vs distributed, thin-clients vs thick-clients, Local Area Network (LAN) vs intranets, spatial data warehouses vs legacy systems, etc. As one may say, ‘Gone are the days of a spatial database implemented solely on a stand-alone GIS’ (Bédard 1999). In fact, this evolution of the GIS market follows the general trends of mainstream Information Technologies (IT).
