Ok, not real data warehousing (no star schema here) but anyone who has dealt with performance issues in MapGuide due to on-the-fly joins across heterogeneous data sources knows the value of loading read-only data sets into static SDF (or SQLite!) files for rapid display.
With release 0.50 of FDO Toolbox, Jackie has done it again by allowing users to quickly take data from both spatial (FDO) data sources, and non-spatial (OLEDB) data sources, join them together, and write out performance-optimized files. This is a huge boon for folks that need to do this and can’t afford best-of-breed proprietary tools like Safe Software’s FME.
Jackie has really impressed me with the rapid development of this tool as well as his focus on providing value in three distinct areas. First, FDO Toolbox has a great GUI for FDO data transfer and administration. Second, the command line capabilities allow you to set up scheduled translations to keep your SDF files in sync with your corporate data stores. Finally, FDO Toolbox has a minimal profile and can easily be used by install scripts that need to load data, register FDO providers, and other tasks during an automated application installation.
What’s next on the horizon? Jackie’s recent post on an FDO plug-in for SharpMap provides a hint… spatial data inspection coming soon to FDO Toolbox! Now if there was only a way of plugging FDO Toolbox into MapGuide Maestro to transform data and either create packages or load data directly into MapGuide. ;)
-J
#1 by Jackie Ng on August 8, 2008 - 1:52 am
It’s funny you mention MapGuide feature joins, because it was the sometimes woeful performance of MG feature joins and the somewhat convoluted way to created joined spatial data in AutoCAD Map that motivated me to create such a feature for FDO Toolbox.
And MapGuide OS/E integration is on the project roadmap. Just need to iron out the details (I’m all ears for ideas)