Esri delivers advanced location intelligence with Microsoft Azure

May 9, 2024

The agricultural industry depends on data to feed and clothe populations from roughly 38% of the global land surface. In fact, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, by the year 2050, there will be a need to feed 9 to 10 billion people as the population continues to experience steady growth. That, coupled with environmental factors like climate change, presents a challenge for growers. The data the world relies on should be organized and housed in a way that is easily accessible even by the smallest growers.

Esri, a global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software and location intelligence (LI), transforms decision-making with spatial insights and mapping through their ArcGIS technology. Esri supports its customers in the agricultural industry to ensure every farmer has the data they need.

Esri developed a solution powered by Microsoft Azure to meet this growing need for accessible data.

Scattered data

Esri partners with businesses, local and national governments, and societies to enable faster data sharing and more fluid collaboration. It determined that even United States government agencies needed the ability to access real-time location data and to scale on demand. Unfortunately, data sources were spread across agencies or departments with data points rapidly changing and impeding insights. Breaking down these silos ensures these agencies can work together to find solutions to agricultural problems.

Esri ArcGIS, with the power of Azure, delivers advanced LI with its cloud-forward geospatial platform helping organizations make more informed decisions. Using ArcGIS on Azure ensures the flexibility to use data anywhere, anytime, and to scale on demand. With ArcGIS, customers can activate the geospatial information platform and, partnered with Azure cloud infrastructure, can weave real-time LI into every business operation.

This mapping and LI software allows users to view, edit, manage, and analyze geospatial data. Applying the "Science of Where™," a data-driven approach that uses geography to unlock understanding, the department can leverage location-based data, combine it with other layers of information, and perform advanced analysis resulting in more informed decision-making.

ArcGIS provides secure, scalable access to the entire suite of Microsoft business applications to location-enable everything from Power BI, to SharePoint, Teams, Excel, and beyond.

Data in action

Now agencies can:

• Weave LI into business operations by integrating ArcGIS with all of its Microsoft cloud applications.
• Utilize advanced tools such as ArcGIS Velocity, a Kubernetes-based real-time visualization and big data analytics product that is cloud-ready.
• Enable users to instantly scale server capacity and support the use of ArcGIS to location-enable data and immediately respond to emergencies.

"This is all about bringing map layers together to facilitate analytic decision-making because we're often dealing with image data in a map layer form. We need an extensive infrastructure for both computing and storage in order to deal with processing of that original big data in the industry. It allows us to apply our many algorithms and apply them to the imagery to produce critical information products, being able to interface world-class geospatial algorithms developed from Esri over the decades with Microsoft systems," said Nick Short, Account Manager for Esri.

Governments can make more informed decisions about how farmers will feed populations in 2050 and beyond. Using ArcGIS on Azure ensures the flexibility to use data anywhere and scale on demand.