Bentley Systems, Incorporated and Oracle presented a vision for enterprise geospatial management in a series of keynote addresses at the Baltimore BE Conference 2005.

The advent of Oracle 10g advanced spatial capabilities provides the technology that can enable utilities, governments, communications providers, and other large spatial enterprises to move from disconnected GIS, engineering, and business IT systems to a true enterprise architecture, Styli Camateros, vice president Bentley Geospatial, said in his opening geospatial keynote.

Bentley and Oracle are working together to integrate workflows across disciplines by federating datastores on and around Oracle 10g, he continued. This results in a stream of benefits, including a much higher level of security, realtime information updates across applications, and enhanced use of business and operational information. Overall, this integration provides the basis for new and streamlined work processes never before possible.

Camateros described the enabling Bentley technologies in this enterprise vision, including the Bentley ProjectWise Connector for Oracle. The connector enables Bentley applications to interoperate with any native Oracle Spatial 9i or 10g datastore. Moreover, it preserves the definition of the geospatial data as specified by the user organisation, rather than placing vendor-dictated restrictions on the Oracle database definition.

Dr Xavier Lopez, director of Oracle Spatial group, spoke on Oracle 10g: The platform for the delivery of geospatial solutions. His presentation described the technology, global impacts, and implications of Oracle 10g for users of geospatial information technology. He applauded the approach Bentley has taken in fully embracing Oracle 10g native topological model in its geospatial creation and editing applications, and discussed the opportunities Bentley technology holds for geospatial users.

The morning culminated with a session titled Geospatial Technology in Action, which was orchestrated by Alain Lapierre, Bentley's chief geospatial architect, and presented by Bentley product managers. The team simulated a typical enterprise composed of IT management and planning, engineering, field, and executive end users 'all operating on a common set of information housed in Oracle 10g' performing their respective jobs. The session showcased the breadth of Bentley's geospatial product offerings, ranging from Web publishing to sophisticated end-user applications operating in a managed environment built around Bentley's ProjectWise Geospatial Management capabilities.

For more information contact Bentley Systems SA, 011 462 5811, www.bentley.com