Overview of TerraFly GIS hardware architecture

TerraFly is an Internet-based technology that allows users to virtually "fly" over remotely sensed imagery and maps. Unlike conventional Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which often require installation of additional software on the client's side, TerraFly runs via a standard Internet browser. TerraFly uses a very large dataset of satellite imagery and aerial photography. To complement the imagery, it also feeds information to users from a set of databases and directly from the Internet. These and other features are reflected in a distributed hardware architecture adopted for the TerraFly system. This paper provides an overview of the hardware architecture of the TerraFly GIS. The architecture takes into account the need to add new databases and imagery sources to TerraFly. It allows the use of different hardware modules and software platforms in the system. The architecture permits an efficient security protection scheme for TerraFly. Integration of new servers and services to TerraFly is straightforward, and maintenance and technical support of the whole TerraFly computer farm is efficient.