Smallworld is the brand name of a portfolio of

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

software provided by

GE Digital GE Digital is a subsidiary of American energy conglomerate GE Vernova. Headquartered in San Ramon, California, the company provides software and industrial internet of things (IIoT) services to industrial companies. GE Digital's primary focus ...

, a division of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

. The software was originally created by the Smallworld company founded in Cambridge, England, in 1989 by Dick Newell and others. Smallworld grew to become the global market leader for GIS in 2010 focused on utilities and communications and remains strong in this sector today.according to a 2010 Daratech report Smallworld was acquired by GE Energy in September 2000. Smallworld technology supports focused application products for

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

and

utility In economics, utility is a measure of a certain person's satisfaction from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used with at least two meanings. * In a normative context, utility refers to a goal or objective that we wish ...

industries.

Smallworld GIS Solution Portfolio

Smallworld applications are based upon GE's Smallworld

Geographic Information System A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...

(GIS) and primarily provide industry-focused products for: * Electric Transmission and Distribution Utilities: Smallworld Electric Office, GIS Adapter * Telecommunications: Smallworld Physical Network Inventory * Gas Distribution and Transmission Utilities: Smallworld Gas Distribution Office, Smallworld Global Transmission Office, MAOP * Water and Wastewater Utilities: Smallworld Water Office Smallworld GIS is also used by a number of customers outside of these industries to provide the basis for other applications for rail and road transportation. In addition, GE provides a number of cross-industry and integration tools, including: * GeoSpatial Analysis for geospatial business intelligence with the ability to visualise data from a wide range of spatial and non-spatial data sources such as ESRI Shape files, AutoCAD DWG, Microsoft Excel, etc. * Smallworld GeoSpatial Server for service-based integration and web mapping * Mobile Enterprise for field enablement of workflows *

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

integration enables access to Google Maps and Street View directly within the Smallworld applications. * Integration of Safe’s FME product allowing import and export between other GIS such as Esri ArcGIS, Hexagon Intergraph, Pitney Bowes MapInfo, etc. * Smallworld Business Integrator enables integration with ERP systems such as SAP and IBM Maximo. * Smallworld GIS Adapter–provides a tightly integrated mechanism for sharing the as-built network with operational systems.

Technology

GE Digital’s Smallworld GIS platform utilises a number of technologies: * The 64bit

Java Virtual Machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally descr ...

which allows supports development in both Java and

Magik (programming language) Magik is an object-oriented programming language that supports multiple inheritance and polymorphism, and it is dynamically typed. It was designed and implemented in 1989 by Arthur Chance of Smallworld Systems Ltd. as part of Smallworld Geograp ...

(an object-oriented programming language that supports

multiple inheritance Multiple inheritance is a feature of some object-oriented computer programming languages in which an object or class can inherit features from more than one parent object or parent class. It is distinct from single inheritance, where an object ...

, polymorphism, multi-threading and is

dynamically typed In computer programming, a type system is a logical system comprising a set of rules that assigns a property called a ''type'' (for example, integer, floating point, string) to every '' term'' (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Usua ...

). * A database technology called Version Managed Data Store (VMDS) that has been designed and optimized for storing and analyzing complex spatial and topological data and supports alternative versions of the data during long-transactions to manage the progression of assets through their lifecycle (plan, design, build, operate, maintain). * A highly-secure and reliable server layer providing web-based access and integration based upon containers and orchestrated by

Kubernetes Kubernetes (), also known as K8s is an open-source software, open-source OS-level virtualization, container orchestration (computing), orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Originally designed by Googl ...

supports streamlining and automating enterprise deployments. * The solution can be operated on-premise or deployed into the major public cloud providers such as OCI,

Amazon AWS Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered, pay-as-you-go basis. Clients will often use this in combination w ...

Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure, or just Azure ( /ˈæʒər, ˈeɪʒər/ ''AZH-ər, AY-zhər'', UK also /ˈæzjʊər, ˈeɪzjʊər/ ''AZ-ure, AY-zure''), is the cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft. It has management, access and development of ...

and

Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google that provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, data storage, data analytics, and machine learning, alongside a set of management tools ...

References

{{General Electric Companies based in Cambridge General Electric GIS software companies GIS software History of computing in the United Kingdom Science and technology in Cambridgeshire