Recently in Press release Category

Following the recent launch of our new online training portal, we are is pleased to announce that our special introductory offer for the Online GML Fundamentals course sold out in less than 48 hours. As part of our 10 year anniversary celebrations, Snowflake offered a special 10 for 10 for 10 promotion enabling 10 people to take the new course for just £10. We donated all proceeds from the sell-out offer to Soft Power Education, an NGO that supports health and education projects in Busoga, Uganda.

The Snowflake GML course is the only self-paced, online GML Fundamentals training course available worldwide which takes registrants through a modular framework allowing them to work at their own speed and fit training around their requirements. Led by our in-house GML Trainer, Ballal Joglekar, the course is designed to be truly interactive with audible in-depth explanations and end of module quizzes enabling self assessment of learning objectives. Importantly, students benefit from CPD credits on completion of the AGI accredited course.

“The Online GML Fundamentals course makes GML training accessible to anyone, anywhere. It gives employees and organisations additional choice and flexibility for learning”, explains Ballal Joglekar. “Following our experience in providing interactive ‘classroom’ style training we have designed the online course to go beyond traditional ‘e-learning’ slides by incorporating voice over explanations, interactive diagrams and quizzes to engage students and enable them to assess their own progress.”

Sheila Drake, Training Manager at Snowflake comments “The training is available 24/7, to a worldwide audience, expanding our mission to support the industry in the use of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard, GML. When training and travel budgets are being reduced, online training such as ours is an efficient and affordable option for continued professional development.”

“The GML Fundamentals course is just the first of our popular training courses to be made available in this self learning, online format, with additional courses being made available as part of the online training portal during 2012,” continues Sheila Drake.

Following the 10 for 10 for 10 promotion, we received excellent feedback on the quality and accessibility of the course including that the format is “very easy and clear to use” and that “being able to do self-paced stuff is great.”

The Online GML Fundamentals course is available to purchase online, with a credit/debit card, for the regular retail price of £250 (ex VAT) and can be started immediately.

 Press Release: 16.08.2011

INTEGRAPH CONSORTIUM - NEW NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FULLY OPERATIONAL AT ORDNANCE SURVEY

New pioneering system coordinates and controls millions of updates to Great Britain’s national mapping agency and lays the foundation for new Ordnance Survey map products.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Aug 16, 2011 – A Consortium, led by Intergraph Corporation and including 1Spatial and Snowflake Software, successfully completed the delivery of its innovative Geospatial Data Management System (GDMS) to Great Britain’s national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey in January of this year. Following successful pre-production trials, the new system achieved a successful ‘Go  Live’ in July and is now in full production mode. To satisfy Ordnance Survey’s operational needs, the system had to meet challenging and exacting requirements for both performance and process control.  Most significantly, the system will ensure consistency between Ordnance Survey products and will enable it to develop new, innovative products to address both the current and future business needs of the organisation.

Ordnance Survey manages the definitive mapping database of the entire natural and built landscape of Great Britain at survey level accuracy. The agency’s national geographic database describes more than 440 million individual features – including every road, building, pillar box and field. Each year, more than one million changes to the landscape of Great Britain need to be measured and assimilated into this database using data sources that include field surveyors, remote sensing commercial data capture companies and other national agencies. This creates a data management task of extraordinary complexity and volume that requires efficient planning, control and processing. The GDMS has been developed to address some 5,000 detailed Ordnance Survey requirements in order to support up to 600 staff and 5,000 update jobs daily, which can involve the retrieval of up to 36 million map feature records and the posting of 300,000 updates. 

The solution is the result of close collaboration between the design and test teams of both the consortium and Ordnance Survey. It provides an integrated, enterprise-wide solution for the management, planning, coordination and control of Ordnance Survey’s data capture and production activities, using state-of-the-art software technologies from the three partner companies. As prime contractor, Intergraph delivered job planning and scheduling capabilities using its highly-customisable GeoMedia product suite and integration of third-party technologies from vendors such as Safe Software and PlexityHide.  1Spatial provided the central data model and enterprise rules for maintaining and validating data through Radius Studio.  Snowflake Software provided data extraction and loading via its GO Loader/Go Publisher products. The system uses Oracle for data storage and process orchestration.

Ordnance Survey selected the Intergraph-led team after a rigorous six-month competitive evaluation in 2007. After an exhaustive three-year implementation and test programme, the system passed Final Acceptance Testing at the end of December 2010, coinciding with Ordnance Survey’s relocation to its new head office at Adanac Park in Southampton, England. The GDMS has now been fully integration-tested within Ordnance Survey’s geospatial systems infrastructure, and has been in operational use since early July 2011. 

Bob Goodrich, Director of IS, said: “Ordnance Survey continually pushes the barriers of technology, and the GDMS has been another fantastic example of this. By taking best-of-breed technologies from a number of suppliers, and combining them with Ordnance Survey’s deep knowledge and experience of our data, this solution is providing us with a sturdy and effective platform for the future. This will give us the capability to support more flexible and rapid development of new and enhanced products, enable us to increase efficiencies in our production processes, and reduce costs risks associated with an aging IT infrastructure.”

“We are delighted that the GDMS has been proven to meet Ordnance Survey’s needs” said John Graham, President of Intergraph’s Security, Government and Infrastructure division. “IDC commented in 2007: “..if successful the Ordnance Survey’s new geospatial database and data management system will define a best practice for the collection, distribution and use of geospatial data..” We genuinely believe that the Intergraph Consortium GDMS delivery defines best practice in national geospatial data management, and will be a model that other national mapping agencies will now look to as a benchmark in 2011.“

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About Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey is Great Britain's national mapping agency, providing the most accurate and up-to-date geographic data, relied on by government, business and the public. Ordnance Survey and the OS Symbol are registered trademarks of Ordnance Survey. For more information, visit www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk

About Intergraph

Intergraph Corporation is the leading global provider of spatial information management (SIM) software. Security organizations, businesses and governments in more than 60 countries rely on the company’s spatial technology and services to make better and faster operational decisions. Intergraph’s customers organize vast amounts of complex data into understandable visual representations, creating intelligent maps, managing assets, building and operating better plants and ships and protecting critical infrastructure and millions of people around the world. 

Intergraph is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hexagon AB, (Nordic exchange: HEXA B) and (Swiss exchange: HEXN). For more information, visit www.intergraph.com and www.hexagon.se.

About 1Spatial

1Spatial has almost 40 years of experience in providing operational solutions to organisations with large spatial databases. With leading expertise in transforming data from CAD and GIS, quantitative data quality control, and spatial database technologies we also enable reuse and repurposing of such data and access through both internal and external portals. The modern era demands the unconstrained sharing of spatial data between systems, business areas, organisations, and the public. We are the specialists in enabling such cooperative infrastructures. For more information, visit www.1spatial.com

About Snowflake Software

Snowflake Software, market innovators in geospatial data solutions, provide commercial off the shelf software products that facilitate data exchange and interoperability within the Data Provider, INSPIRE, Defence and Aviation markets. Based on open standards, the unique off the shelf GO Loader and GO Publisher products allows the build of next generation Open Data infrastructures by wrapping existing legacy infrastructure.  Combine the off the shelf software with the knowledge of our industry experts, business consultants and training courses and we can work with you to tailor our products and services to your specific needs.  

For more information, visit www.snowflakesoftware.com

 ....or in English: "Snowflake goes to Spain!"

As we see the growing popularity of open standards, here at Snowflake we get many requests for our XML and GML training courses from all over the world. One of these requests came from Centro de Calculo de Alava S.A. (or CCASA for short) in the Basque region in northern Spain. CCASA is a public sector organisation and provides IT and geospatial services for the Provincial Council of Alava.

Fortunately I was the lucky one to travel down to the beautiful city of Vitoria-Gasteiz to train a group of delegates from a variety of public and private organisations in and around the Basque region. The 4 days training covered our XML Primer, GML Fundamentals and GML Hands On courses. 

At the same time I was training in Spain, my colleague Debbie was running the same training courses in parallel for one of our customers in The Netherlands. A first for Snowflake.

El Profesor

The training location must have been one of the most secure places I have ever trained at. As the training took place at the offices of the Basque police you can imagine that security was pretty tight. Detailed passport control on entering and leaving the place, and of course many barriers and gates everywhere. Thankfully body searches were not necessary. After a couple days the guards started to recognise my face...and my inability to speak more than two words of coherent Spanish....and I was just known as "El Profesor" and all gates and barriers opened before me.

Different cultures

One of the great things about training oversees is the change in culture, especially when it comes to food. Instead of having a brief lunch break around noon, in Spain lunch is a much more serious business. Lunch is the main meal of the day and usually starts around 3pm and lasts for at least two hours. Therefore we decided to adopt the national traditions and change the standard start and end times of the training. This meant starting early (which is very early for me) and ending around lunchtime. 

A welcome break formed the mid-morning coffee breaks at the neighbouring cafe for a quick strong coffee and a pinxto (little snacks).

Putting training in action

During the four days we covered all aspects of the XML and GML standards. Because CCASA recently developed a new application schema for underground infrastructure themselves, they managed to put their newly gained knowledge to practise immediately and improve the application schema during the training course. For me personally that is the real aim of any training course: Putting new knowledge to practise as soon as possible.

As we use the Treasure Island narritive quite extensively in our GML Hands On training all delegates were handed a copy of the famous Treasure Island novel by Robert Louis Stevenson as a memento.  Quite ironic though, to search for a Spanish treasure with a class full of Spanish students....

Are you interested in learning more about the XML and GML standards....or how you can use them for some good ol' treasure hunting....? Contact us or have a look on our training pages on the Snowflake website.

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

www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware | www.twitter.com/richrombouts |

PRESS RELEASE: 06.04.2011

Snowflake Software (UK) and CGH Technologies Inc. (USA) announce a strategic alliance to support modernization of Air Traffic Management in its move toward global Aeronautical Information Management (AIM). The partnership was secured at the ATC Global 2011 event in Amsterdam where the two companies were jointly exhibiting solutions to support a digital AIM.

CGH, founded in 1989, is a CMMI Level 2 appraised and ISO 9001 certified products and services company with a comprehensive list of successful projects across Federal, State, and Commercial sectors in the United States. This includes particularly strong domain knowledge and practical subject matter expertise with digital AIM; they actively develop and support a number of key strategic and mission-critical projects for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Snowflake Software is a UK-based company, with a strong background in ‘Commercial off the Shelf (COTS)’ software to facilitate data exchange using open standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Snowflake has extensive experience in deploying enterprise solutions to manage the data exchange challenges of complex data models and large data volumes in some of the largest spatial databases within Europe. Through its dedicated Aviation market vertical, Snowflake is applying this unique expertise to facilitate the move toward global AIM.

Ian Painter, Managing Director, Snowflake Software comments:
“In the recent FAA and EUROCONTROL sponsored OGC AIM testbeds we’ve proved a lot of ground in the use of the standards-based web services and their ability to achieve the data centric approach of AIM. As those areas of research become reality we’ve partnered with CGH to realise those goals within operational systems.”

Glyn Owen, Chief Operating Officer, CGH Technologies Inc. added:
“Having been closely associated with the Snowflake team for many years, and now with CGH expanding into the international marketplace, we have decided to combine our complementary technologies and experience to serve our customers more effectively. Our recent success as a team on both the FAA AIM-D and AIM-OES programs demonstrates that together our team offers a proven standards-based approach toward modernizing AIM and meeting the FAA’s System-wide Information Management (SWIM) requirements, while working in parallel with ICAO, EUROCONTROL, European Commission’s SESAR and other initiatives.”

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Please contact Melissa Burns for more information (melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com)

About Snowflake Software
Snowflake Software is a UK-based company, with a strong background in ‘Commercial off the Shelf (COTS)’ software to facilitate data exchange. We’re proud of our reputation in enterprise data exchange using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and ISO standards. We’ve developed solutions, expertise and knowledge to manage data exchange challenges with complex data models and large data volumes across several different industries.

Committed to the AIM market, we’ve demonstrated our unique ability to deploy existing industrial strength software and expertise to facilitate the move towards digital AIM.

For more information visit: www.snowflakesoftware.com/aviation/

About CGH Technologies Inc.
CGH is a USA-based woman-owned company, with a strong 20+ year background covering the entire realm of AIM system engineering including software development, international standards compliance, quality control/assurance, enterprise architecture, information security, system acceptance testing, transition planning, configuration and project/program management, etc. Our reputation within FAA AIM is second to none, having designed, tested, deployed and/or maintained AIM applications such as the Federal NOTAMS System (FNS), Obstruction Evaluation/Airport Airspace Analysis (OE/AAA), Airports GIS (AGIS), Special Activity Airspace (SAA), Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR and TFR Builder), and others. Our expertise includes being the contractor of choice to design and successfully prototype Common Status and Structure Data (CSSD, now called Aeronautical Common Service, or ACS) for the FAA.

Committed to the global AIM market, we’ve demonstrated our unique ability to design, test, deploy and maintain AIM applications in an approved Agile Unified Process.

For more information visit: www.cghtech.com

Melissa Burns | Head of Marketing | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com | www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware
 

Dutch (Click for English)

Snowflake Software, dé specialist in gegevensuitwisseling volgens open standaarden, biedt haar Nederlandse gebruikers nu de mogelijkheid om de recent vrijgegeven TOP50NL dataset te gebruiken in haar toongegevende product GO Loader.

GO Loader is de marktleider voor het laden en beheren van GML datasets en wordt momenteel door verschillende organisaties gebruikt voor het beheer van GML datasets zoals IMRO2008, TOP10NL en IMWE. Dankzij de unieke 'schema aware' technologie is GO Loader in staat om probleemloos alle verschillende GML datasets te verwerken via één enkele applicatie. Doordat GO Loader standaard alle GML datasets ondersteunt, is het niet nodig om voor elke GML dataset een nieuw product aan te schaffen of nieuwe softwarecode te schrijven. Als gevolg van de unieke technologie is het voor GO Loader geen enkel probleem om toekomstige GML datasets, zoals TOP50NL en INSPIRE, 'straight out of the box' te gebruiken.

TOP50NL in ArcMap (Click thumbnail to enlarge)

Om te demonstreren hoe eenvoudig het is om TOP50NL data te gebruiken met GO Loader, organiseert Snowflake de live webinar "Laden en Beheren van TOP50NL". In de webinar wordt getoond op welke wijze GO Loader gebruikt wordt om TOP50NL in een database te laden. Daarnaast wordt gepresenteerd hoe vervolgens deze data snel en eenvoudig in een GIS applicatie getoond kan worden door gebruik te maken van enkele handige functies. Daarnaast is Snowflake Software het enige bedrijf in Europa, dat specifieke GML trainingen aanbiedt.

"We zien dat in Nederland de adoptie van GML als dé uitwisselstandaard sterk groeiende is", zegt Richard Rombouts, technical sales manager bij Snowflake; "Dankzij het vooruitstrevende werk op het gebied van het standaardiseren van gegevensuitwisseling bevindt Nederland zich in momenteel in de Europese top voor beschikbaar maken van datasets conform open standaarden.", hij vervolgt "Ik raad zeker aan om iedereen die te maken heeft met het werken met TOP50NL, of andere GML datasets, zich inschrijft voor onze educatieve webinar."

De webinar, Laden en Beheren van TOP50NL, vindt plaats op donderdag 31 maart om 15:00u Nederlandse tijd. Aanmelden voor deze gratis webinar kan via deze link.

Voor iedereen die meer wil leren over de GML standaard, zijn de GML trainingen ook zeker aan te raden.

www.snowflakesoftware.com/top50nl/

Richard Rombouts | Technical Sales Manager | richard.rombouts@snowflakesoftware.com | www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware

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ENGLISH (Click for Dutch)

Snowflake Software facilitates use of TOP50NL in The Netherlands

Snowflake Software, specialists in standards based data exchange, has been supporting its Dutch customers with the newly released TOP50NL via its market leading loading tool, GO Loader.

The Base Registration Topography (BRT) data set was launched less than two weeks ago by Dutch Kadaster and is the latest model to be released in the open standard, GML, by the national mapping agency.

GO Loader, the market leader for loading and managing GML, is being used throughout The Netherlands to handle several existing GML data models such as IMRO, TOP10NL and IMGeo. Its unique ‘schema aware’ technology enables GO Loader to load the new data set without the need for infrastructure change or coding. And it is this same technology that positions GO Loader at the front of the pack for handling future datasets, straight out of the box.

TOP50NL in ArcMap (Click thumbnail to enlarge)

To support the release of TOP50NL, Snowflake Software will be running an educational webinar ‘Loading and Managing TOP50NL in your Database’ which will cover Loading and Managing as well as visualising the data in your GIS. Snowflake also offers the only GML training courses in Europe.

Richard Rombouts, Technical sales Consultant comments:
“The use of GML as a standard for geographical data exchange is increasing and The Netherlands is continuing to develop new data models, positioning them at the forefront of standards based data exchange in Europe.” he continued; “Anyone who wants to find out more about getting the most from their TOP50NL data should register for our educational webinar.”

The webinar; Loading and Managing TOP50NL in your database, will be held at 3pm CET (2pm BST) on Thursday 31 March 2011. Anyone interested in attending should REGISTER HERE for their place.

Anyone interested in understanding more about the GML, the open standard for data exchange should consider attending a GML Training Course.

www.snowflakesoftware.com/top50nl/

Melissa Burns | Head of Marketing | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com | www.twitter.com/sflakesoftware