Snowflake News

Special Offer: Get over 25% discount on our INSPIRE training course

2010-02-05T13:24:38Z

Special Offer: Get over 25% discount on our INSPIRE training course.

We’re giving you £100 off your next training course with Snowflake Software. And with the INSPIRE legislation being a key driver for most of us in the industry, why not use the offer to get over 25% discount on our INSPIRE Essentials course.

Learn the benefits of:

Publishing data to INSPIRE harmonised data specifications
Different types of solution for transforming and publishing data to conform to INSPIRE Implementing Rules
Making data available via different types of INSPIRE Download Services
Publishing data and services to National and European Spatial Data Infrastructures.

Can you afford not to?

Click here to register for your discount today

If you’re already in the know about INSPIRE, why not use the discount on one of our other popular training courses:

XML Primer
GML Fundamentals
Hands on GML
GO Loader Fundamentals
GO Loader Advanced
Hands on GML with GO Publisher

To find out more information visit: www.snowflakesoftware.com/training or contact our training manager Sheila on +44 (0) 2380 238 232.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

Confirmed as sponsors of AGI GeoCommunity '10

2010-02-03T13:48:52Z

We're really pleased to announce our sponsorship of the AGI GeoCommunity '10 event, that takes place in Stratford-upon-Avon: 28 - 30 September 2010.

http://www.agi.org.uk/pooled/articles/BF_NEWSART/view.asp?Q=BF_NEWSART_317594

With a conference theme of 'opportunities in a changing world', this year's event will focus on the use of location to deliver operational efficiency savings, identifying and delivering excellence through the use of geographic information and measuring the positive effect spatial technology, data and insight can bring.

Melissa Burns | Marketing manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

DGI 2010: Interoperability, interoperability and interoperability.

2010-02-01T10:02:42Z

The 2010 conference season started with a big one: the European Defence Geospatial Intelligence 2010 Conference in London. 600 attendees from all over the world from a myriad of organisations.

To get a better Common Operational Picture of this community we decided to infiltrate it by setting up a semi-permanent observation post (i.e. our stand) on the conference floor.

So, what were my expectations? As it was the Defence Geospatial Intelligence Conference I imagined flight simulators, four-star generals, secret spies in long raincoats and a communal "God Save the Queen" at the start of each day. But what was the case? I was totally wrong! (...apart from spotting the occasional high-ranked military commander...)

A global geospatial community

It turned out that the geospatial intelligence and defence community is very much like any other geospatial industry: many highly skilled professionals who face similar challenges with enabling interoperability of their data and systems. Solutions are found in building spatial data infrastructures based on open standards.

Using open standards to enabe SDIs has been Snowflake's expertise for almost 10 years. Our experience in the INSPIRE and Aviation industries prove that open standards really do work and lead to practical and successful solutions.

What did I take back from this conference?

There is an irreversible move towards the use of open standards to ensure effective goal achievement across the defence and intelligence communities.
Geospatial information is not just a nice-to-have, but plays an absolutely fundamental role in the decision-making process.
The geospatial intelligence and defence community is not much different from any other geospatial community. However, it has the slightly masochistic tendency to starting conference days very, very early in the morning.

For more information about the solutions we can offer for interoperability, visit our website: www.snowflakesoftware.com or see our solutions for Defence and National Security: http://www.snowflakesoftware.com/markets/defence/solution.htm.

Richard Rombouts | Technical Sales Manager | richard.rombouts@snowflakesoftware.com

DGI 2010: Demonstrating interoperability for a common operational picture

2010-01-22T09:08:01Z

The final preparation for this years DGI Europe 2010 conference (25 - 27 January) is underway. We've never exhibited at this event before, but this year we are. And we're really looking forward to it.

In the Defence and National Security domain, geospatial information is an intelligence tool imperative for securing timely operational and mission critical decisions. Yet for many departments, agencies and partners, the agile nature of geospatial information offers yet another battle, with challenges around data sharing, standards, interoperability and integration, especially within existing and invested infrastructures.

Meet the experts

Richard Rombouts (our Technical Sales Manager) and Ian Painter (our MD no less!) will be working the exhibition halls at this conference and manning the Snowflake stand. I know they're keen to meet everyone so if you're going, be sure to pop by stand 48 and say hello.

As well as taking in the atmosphere and getting to meet everyone, they'll be holding regular demonstrations that show how our solutions can provide interoperability for a common operational picture, a key theme for the Defence and National Security domain.

Pop by stand 48 to find out first hand how to:

Publish data in a standards based manner to facilitate data exchange in wider Spatial Data Infrastructure
Load and manage data in Spatial Data Infrastructure
Visualise data in Google Earth and Bing Maps
Utilise an OGC Web Feature Service for web services interoperability in a standards based environment

Visit the stand for a £100 training voucher

In addition, Richard and Ian will be handing out a £100 discount voucher to anyone that visits the stand, valid to use against any Snowflake training course. And with the INSPIRE legislation being a key driver for most in the industry, why not use the offer to get over 25% discount on the INSPIRE Essentials training course?

Real time updates on Twitter

We'll be hearing from Richard and Ian after the event, so check back next week or follow our Twitter updates live from the event at http://twitter.com/sflakesoftware.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

PRESS RELEASE: Serving OS MasterMap to the UK higher and further education communities.

2010-01-20T09:20:07Z

As EDiNA’s highly successful Digimap service celebrates its ten year anniversary, Snowflake Software celebrates the success of GO Publisher WFS, which provides the infrastructure behind the scenes.

The challenge for EDiNA was to provide a scalable, robust and reliable service delivering over 500 million OS MasterMap® features in GML to over 32,000 users from 148 educational institutions throughout the United Kingdom.

The solution was to implement a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based on OGC® standards delivered using Snowflake Software’s GO Loader and GO Publisher WFS off-the-shelf products.

The results have been clear, with a trouble-free launch of the fully-working service with users productive from day one. Average response times of 15 minutes and all requested datasets supplied online within 48 hours. Additionally, it’s highly scalable and proven to meet peak loads.

Andrew Seales, Senior Software Engineer at EDiNA comments,

“We needed to be in a position to incorporate other GML products in the future and the generic approach of GO Loader and GO Publisher gave us that.”

EDiNA is now able to achieve its goals and make OS MasterMap more accessible and widely distributed than ever before. And with the generic approach of the Snowflake Software, the Digimap service is future proofed for new GML products.

Read the EDiNA digimap article in full: www.snowflakesoftware.com/news/testimonials.htm

GO Publisher WFS and GO Loader are available for customers to download for free, with a thirty day licence.

If you’re interested in a risk free investment then you can download the free trials here:

www.snowflakesoftware.com/products/goloader/eval.htm

www.snowflakesoftware.com/products/gopublisher/eval.htm

For more information about Snowflake Software, please visit www.snowflakesoftware.com or contact Melissa Burns on +44 (0)23 8038 2390

Links:

www.edina.ac.uk

www.snowflakesoftware.com

Making the news across Europe

2010-01-14T09:09:12Z

We had a busy finale to 2009, with several of our business consultants and technical sales teams sharing knowledge with industry leaders at various conferences and special interest groups.

Whilst the team are getting acclimatised to 'life on the road' - dipping in and out of nice hotels and lapping up the culture where they can, it's great to hear your feedback and make the news in such a positive way. Here are a some highlights;

Oracle Spatial User Day - 20 November 2009

Richard Rombouts and Eddie Curtis presented at this seminar in the Netherlands. Eddie took the delegates through his view of 'Beyond Spatial Boundaries' using our EDiNA Digimap case study to highlight the powerful capabilities of WFS.

View the presentation

Read the review in the press article on page 21 of OGh visie (in Dutch)

2nd workshop on the use of GIS/OGC standards in meteorology - 23 - 25 November 2009

Debbie Wilson presented her paper at this collaborative event, bringing European agencies together to discuss the use of OGC standards in meteorology. Debbie's presentation sat within the interoperability and standards stream and discussed a 'Re-useable, compact discrete coverage for encoding forecast and observation data within WFS'.

View the presentation

Read the full press article

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

Festive greetings from Snowflake Software...

2009-12-23T14:53:02Z

And here's just a small selection of what you can expect from Snowflake in the New Year:

Our Brand New : INSPIRE training course - starting January 12, 2010
Celebrating the 10 year sucess of EDiNA's Digimap service using GO Publisher WFS
Visit us at DGI 2010: 25 - 27 January, QEII Centre, London - see us in the exhibition at stand 48
Look forward to new product releases for GO Publisher & GO Loader

Not forgetting the highlights from 2009:

Attending the successful GSDI conference in Rotterdam
Our very own Ian Painter, MD, getting 'ranty' at the AGI Annual Conference
Resigning our multi year agreement with our German partner, grit.
Launching our brand new, free, GO Publisher Community Edition.
Launching our Community Forum - Have you had your say yet?

We're looking forward to more of the same, and even better in 2010.

Happy Holidays.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesowftare.com

Snowflake Serving up Climate Data

2009-12-18T19:53:42Z

It is not often that data makes the news, but amidst the recent controversy about climate change data the UK Met Office released a set of historical climate records collected since the middle of the 19th century (www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/subsets.html). At Snowflake we quickly spotted that this data is not only related to time, but also location. Seeing that the raw data is in the form of rather dry tables we couldn't resist the temptation to present it in a more visual form using some of the technologies and standards we regularly work with.

Using GO Publisher we have put together a service to serve up the data in the form of KML. This allows the data to be visualised in Google Earth and uses the time slider to show how temperatures change over time. The Met Office data is a large dataset, so our solution is to stream the data from our demo server using a Web Feature Service to serve only the data for the locations you are looking at. Google Earth follows network links to pick up the data and dynamically refresh it as you pan around the globe.

If you have Google Earth installed you can see it for yourself by opening the ClimateKmlLink.kml file with Google Earth.

Community Edition webinar recording now available.

2009-12-15T16:47:45Z

We recently hosted a series of webinars introducing our new free software: GO Publisher Community Edition.

The great news if you missed any of the sessions is that the recording of the webinar has now been uploaded to our website. So you can watch the webinar in your own time. It's available now.

Watch the webinar recording today

Visit our website to download or stream the recording of the webinar: An Introduction To GO Publisher Community Edition.

Webinar length: 28.21 minutes ( Intro: 2.25 mins; Demo: 9.15mins; Support: 19.25 mins; Q&A: 23.50 mins)

File Size: 49.47 MB

Video: Yes

Audio: Yes

Requirements: Windows Media Player or similar compatible with .wmv files

Questions and Answers

We took alot of questions during the Q&A sessions across the series of webinars, and I've posted the script onto our Community Forum. Don't forget to use the Community Forum if you have any other questions or need any support.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

Getting creative with code and a slice of Pizza...

2009-12-11T17:12:19Z

I know what you're thinking. Code and creative in the same sentence? (Well that's what I thought!).

If you read my blog on 27 September: 'You can't buy innovation from the innovation shop', you'll remember how I ranted about needing to instill creativity throughout business to drive innovation. Well, the technical team here at Snowflake decided to hold me to it, and embraced a day of creativity led by our CTO, Eddie Curtis.

Fedex Day in a nutshell

A day where all our developers can pretty much code what they like, as long as it's relevant to the company and delivered in a day. The idea which, along with the name, comes from our favourite tools provider Atlassian, its aim is to stimulate creativity and innovation, and it certainly did that. We had an impressive crop of smart ideas for product enhancements.

For those of you (like me) that would like to understand how a 'techy type' coding person can get creative, here's how. Watch the video to understand what we did!

Set aside one whole day for creative coding. We called ours 'Fedex Day', taking the initial idea from Atlassian who we like alot!
Collect ideas for the day of coding, an opportunity to get those 'wish list' and creative ideas done!
Brief the devleopers on the rules of the day, and the all important prizes up for stake!
Get going.
Have a healthy, brain fuelling lunch (Pizza & Perkin! - Yum).
Build pressure. Make sure the developers feel the pressure of time. "Only 15 minutes to go".
Finish and present back working code, and how it helps our business.
Vote for the winners!

To find out how the day went, and who won from our team, take a look at our video.

Conclusion?

A worthwhile day for team bonding, getting creative, eating Pizza and developing and embedding a real creative flair amongst the team, to drive innovation for customers.

We've gt our next Fedex Day scheduled in the New Year. Well worth it.

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

Overwhelming demand for Community Edition webinars!

2009-12-04T11:27:18Z

Wow. Thanks for all of your support.

Since launching GO Publisher Community Edition just over a week ago, along with a series of launch webinars, we've been overwhelmed with the demand. It's great to see so many of you taking the opoprtunity to get your hands on the software and join us during our webinars.

GO Publisher Community Edition offers a free and easy solution for publishing data to open standards. Whether that be GML, KML, or even application schemas like INSPIRE.

Register for the last few spaces

Due to overwhelming demand for the Community Edition webinars, we've set up some more and there are still a few spaces left for next Friday (Friday 11 December).

If you would like to register for the last few spaces, please contact me at: Melissa.Burns@snowflakesoftware.com.

But hurry, the spaces are limited and they're going fast!

If you haven't found out what GO Publisher Community Edition is all about, take a look on our website and why not join in our community forum?

Melissa Burns | Marketing Manager | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

PRESS RELEASE: Snowflake Software launches free GO Publisher Community Edition

2009-11-24T14:46:51Z

To support the launch of its free GO Publisher Community Edition product, Snowflake Software will be running a 45 minute webinar to demonstrate key features and take any questions. Registration for the event is open now.

Snowflake Software today launched GO Publisher Community Edition. A new addition to the market leading GO Publisher suite of tools, this free product allows customers to benefit from the powerful publishing and translation capabilities of the GO Publisher range at no cost, without time restriction and for commercial use.

GO Publisher offers a range of benefits and the Community Edition will be no different:

Publish to open standards with one out of the box solution
- Quick, easy and almost instant productivity
Build a community for data exchange
- Create a schema and publish to that schema for others to share via open standards
Participate in a wider data eXchange community
- Translate and publish data to existing schemas for hassle free data sharing
Publish INSPIRE compliant data
- Translate and publish data to all of the INSPIRE Annex 1 themes
Visualise your data in Google, Bing or Yahoo! maps
- Extend the reach of your data by publishing to KML – the language of consumer mapping applications

Eddie Curtis, CTO and Product Manager remarked:

“GO Publisher Community Edition breaks down potential barriers for data exchange and offers users a low risk option that works with their existing infrastructure at no cost. It unlocks the potential for wider data exchange in the industry and makes the benefits more widely accessible, and with the community forum, more widely discussed”

He added:

“Anyone wishing to obtain a copy of GO Publisher Community Edition should register for our launch webinar where I’ll be demonstrating the new software, customers can familiarise themselves with the interface and features and I’ll announce how users can get their free licence.”

Join the webinar

The webinar will take place on Friday 4 December from 14:00 - 14:45 (GMT). Eddie Curtis, CTO and Product Manager at Snowflake Software will be presenting at the event and taking questions. Anyone wishing to understand more about GO Publisher Community Edition and get their free licence should attend. Attendees need to register for the webinar prior to the event and registration is open now: https://snowflakesoftware.webex.com/snowflakesoftware/j.php?ED=131057117&RG=1&UID=0

To pre register for the GO Publisher Community Edition, please visit: http://www.snowflakesoftware.com/products/gopublisher/desktop/community/index.htm

For more information about GO Publisher, please visit: http://www.snowflakesoftware.com/products/gopublisher/index.htm

To register for the launch event, please visit: https://snowflakesoftware.webex.com/snowflakesoftware/j.php?ED=131057117&RG=1&UID=0

For more information about Snowflake Software, please visit www.snowflakesoftware.com or contact Melissa Burns on +44 (0)23 8038 2390

2009 event round up - come and join us.

2009-11-05T08:37:05Z

We're attending a series of events, right up until the end of 2009. We'll be demonstrating some of our products and technology, sharing our knowledge and expertise and attending as delegates to keep up to speed with the fast pace of the industry.

If you're going too, why not take the opportunity to meet us and catch up with some of our industry experts? If there's an event we're not attending, that you'd like to see us at, why not let us know?

Dutch INSPIRE day - 5 November 2009, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
This event will be attended by Eddie Curtis and Richard Rombouts. We'll be presenting and demonstrating our INSPIRE ready solutions. For more information, visit the event website.
Kadaster TOP50NL workshop - 11 November 2009, The Netherlands.
Richard will be attending with our Managing Director, Ian Painter. We'll be demonstrating the versatility of our products with GML.
AGI Scotland - 12 November 2009, Edinburgh.
Our CTO, Eddie Curtis will be attending as a delegate at this event where the theme is One Geography, One Scotland. For more information, visit the event website.
AGI UK Location Programme - 18 November 2009, London.
Business Consultant, Debbie Wilson will be at this System Supplier Day hosted by the AGI. For more information, visit the event website.
Oracle Spatial Seminar - 20 November 2009, De Meern, The Netherlands.
Once again, Richard and Eddie will be at this Oracle Spatial seminar, where the theme will be 'Beyond Spatial Boundaries'. For more information, visit the event website.
OGC Standards in Meteorology - 23 - 25 November 2009, Toulouse, France.
Business Consultant Debbie Wilson will be speaking at this OGC hosted event. For more information, visit the event website.
GEO-info xchange - 2 - 3 December 2009, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Our Dutch speaking technician, Richard Rombouts will be attending this event as a delegate. Formerly the GIN Congress, you can find out more information on the event website.
AIXM Developers Day - 14 - 15 December 2009.
Ian Painter will be attending this event to gain insight into further AIXM developments.

Get in touch with our attendees

Richard.Rombouts@snowflakesoftware.com

Eddie.Curtis@snowflakesoftware.com

Ian.Painter@snowflakesoftware.com

Debbie.Wilson@snowflakesoftware.com

Or for information about events contact Melissa.Burns@snowflakesoftware.com.

A trick or treat from Snowflake Software

2009-10-30T08:40:31Z

GO Publisher 1.4 - the limited Halloween Edition.

Publish your WITCHML straight out of the box into the cauldron.

Be INSPIRE compliant - publish your spooky data to INSPIRE data specifications

Extend the reach of your data - Publish your WITCHML into consumer mapping applications such as Bing™, Google™ and Yahoo!™.

Take our trick or treat at the bottom.

Take a look at our Snowflake Software Flickr site for an example of our Halloween Edition getting to work and publishing the following feature types;STONEHENGE, PUMPKINPATCH, HAUNTEDFOREST, GINGERBREADHOUSE, BROOMLANDINGZONE, RUINEDCASTLE, WITCHESCOVEN, HOLLOWTREE, BROOMTAKEOFF and much much more...

OK so we're just having a litte bit of Halloween fun, but wouldn't it be great?

Thankfully, there is no spooky data to publish. Infact, if you find the thought scary, why not get in touch with us? We can help you bring your data to life, help you translate your data into open standards and make it easy to share.

With our latest version of GO Publisher (version 1.4 - and no, it's not the Halloween Edition) you can publish data using our off the shelf product. It works with your existing infrastructure so you don't have to invest in costly software development or bespoke software products. And, our latest version of GO Publisher can help you:

Be INSPIRE compliant - publish your data to INSPIRE data specifications
Extend the reach of your data - publish your data to consumer mapping applications such as Bing™, Google™ and Yahoo!™.

We're a data exchange company, which means we've also got tools to help you load data. Take a look at our GO Loader webpages for more information. Halloween (or any other time of year) means you don't have to be afraid, and if you just need a bit more help in understanding, well we can help you with that too. Our industry experts offer a range of training courses from XML primer or GML fundamentals to INSPIRE essentials. Why not take a look and see what we have to offer on our training webpages.

Happy Halloween.

Take the Halloween trick: TRICK

Take the Halloween treat: TREAT

AGI Conference 2009: launching our new products

2009-10-16T15:00:01Z

We wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for visiting us at the AGI conference. The exhibition was busy, and we were delighted we got to meet so many of you.

If you didn’t make it to the conference, or perhaps you didn’t get around to visiting our stand, you don’t have to miss out. Here’s a snapshot of our latest news and items we showcased at the event:

GO Loader 1.6 released – get a free trial

Work with SQL Server 2008 and PostGIS as well as Oracle
Load and manage the latest INSPIRE data
Adopt new OS products (support for OS VectorMap™ Local)

GO Publisher 1.4 released – get a free trial

Be INSPIRE compliant – publish data to INSPIRE data specs
Extend the reach of your data by publishing to Bing™, Google™, etc.

Our managing director picked up an industry award!

With his fabulous geo rant in the geo bar! - check it out here

With our expert business consultants and product agnostic training programs, don’t forget we can help you with more than just our innovative technology.

Thanks to the AGI for putting on a great event.