| A Geographical Information System (GIS) is a system that captures, analyzes, and manages spatially referenced data. One common problem in the GIS community is how to generate and publish customized web maps. The existing solutions either deal with spatial data directly which does not allow applying the customized features, or requires and relies on advanced and specialized programming skills. In this research, we use Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) computing technology to improve performance on viewing dynamic web maps. We apply Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to GIS systems to improve their interoperability using web service composition technology to provide composite customized web maps. We implement a development environment that builds the both AJAX and SOA based solutions as deliverable web based software systems. We run an experiment that invokes 12 map layers from two different Web Map Service (WMS) providers for both solutions. The AJAX based solution produces the full map in 9.5 seconds. The SOA based solution produces the same map in 17 seconds. |
