Google has announced that they are ending support for Google Maps Engine (GME). If you are using GME to store your vector and raster data in the cloud, be aware that your GME data will be removed in a year on January 29, 2016.
So where can you migrate your data now? Safe Software has written an article listing some options that you have. Of course if you use their FME product, it’s just a one-step process! However, besides the sales pitch, they do present some options that you have to migrate your data to.
I personally have used ArcGIS Online and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) to store spatial data. With ArcGIS Online you have to buy a plan first, then you will consume credits when you store your data there. With Amazon RDS you can use SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or the new Amazon Aurora with costs for the instance (server) size/database type, consumed storage, and traffic. Keep in mind that ArcGIS Online has tools built-in to analyze and display spatial data as well as being integrated with their ArcGIS software products. Amazon RDS is just a storage solution, so you will need to come up with other options for analyzing and map display of your spatial data in the cloud, like using ArcGIS software or something else.
Interesting – this was Google’s attempt at competing with ESRI and ArcGIS Online – but it never had the capabilities that were really needed.
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