With your purchase of the Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server, you'll receive the following items:

• Standalone web map server (WMS) designed for easy installation on your own hardware.
• 20 GB of optimized map data files covering the entire globe, supplied in both DecimalDegree and SphericalMercator projections, on two DVDs.
• Built-in web-based server administration console.
• 1-year Software Assurance Plan that includes support and map updates for one year.

The World Map Kit WMS Server is a self-contained, easy-to-install web map server that anyone can have up and running in just minutes, with no programming experience required. You will need some limited development experience, however, to successfully connect a client application to your server in order to “consume” the map images. We have prepared two QuickStart Guides to help walk you through the process quickly and easily:

• The Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server Deployment Guide will show you how to set up and publish your world map server.
• Once your server is deployed, take a look at A Guide to Consuming a Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server from a Client Application. It will demonstrate how to consume (retrieve map images from) your world map server using a web application, a desktop application, a Silverlight application or a WPF application. These four example projects are also available for download and use with Visual Studio.

The Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server is licensed on a per-production server basis. That is, you need one license for each production server you intend to install and run the map server on. Your initial purchase of the World Map Kit WMS Server includes one production server license and a one-year Software Assurance Plan that entitles you to support and free updates for a year. Additional server licenses are available for purchase separately on an as-needed basis. Enterprise pricing is also available; please contact us for details.

The Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server was built to provide our customers with a robust and easy way of using and consuming the World Map Kit maps on servers they own and control. Common uses include consuming the maps within published software, external websites, internal web applications, custom desktop applications, and GIS viewers. The only restriction comes into play when you are using the World Map Kit WMS Server on a server that is public-facing. In this case, access controls must be in place so it can only be accessed by your application or website and not by the general public in any way.

Map Suite World Map Kit WMS Server runs as a standalone application on Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), the web server included with many editions of Windows. It's a standards-compliant Web Map Service (WMS) that can be consumed (that is, accessed) by any standards-compliant client application, including desktop programs and websites. Because you host the World Map Kit WMS Server on your own hardware, you have complete control over who gets to access the map server and what applications can connect to it. Configuring these options is as simple as managing the permissions of your web site in IIS.

No. You will need to supply your own physical server machine on which to install the product.

The World Map Kit differs from our standalone data products in both accuracy and design. Countless hours have been spent developing the rendering logic for each zoom level, optimizing the map dataset, and making sure the best cartography is used to produce the most attractive map possible. Additionally, the World Map Kit contains the most up-to-date data sourced from GIS bureaus around the world. Lastly, World Map Kit WMS Server includes a built-in web map server so you can start immediately serving your maps up to the world over the Internet or Intranet. These factors all combine to make the World Map Kit a huge value.

Map Suite World Map Kit uses a variety of publicly available map datasets from around the world and combines them into a comprehensive kit with global coverage. Using map datasets that are in the public domain allows you to offer access to your World Map Kit WMS Server on a royalty-free basis.

DecimalDegree and SphericalMercator are two different projections of your data. DecimalDegree is a common projection used in many applications, and SphericalMercator is a projection used by Google and many other online map providers. We include these two popular projections pre-rendered on two separate data DVDs so that you can choose the one that best suits your purposes, without the performance concerns of reprojecting on-the-fly.

No. In order to customize and extend the maps contained in the World Map Kit, you would need to purchase the World Map Kit SDK instead of the World Map Kit WMS Server. The World Map Kit SDK is designed to be used in concert with one of our Map Suite GIS software components, such as Map Suite Desktop Edition or Web Edition, and comes with fully customizable source code.

Once you purchase the World Map Kit WMS Server, you will receive a DVD by mail that contains all of the map data, the easy-to-setup WMS server and the installer.

Map data updates are free as long as you have a current Software Assurance Plan for your World Map Kit WMS Servers. The first year of coverage under the plan is included in the price of the product, and annual renewals going forward are available for a nominal fee. Please note that each production web server on which you've installed World Map Kit WMS Server requires its own Software Assurance Plan. See the Pricing & Specifications page for pricing and details.

It's as easy as extracting and overwriting the old data.

Each edition of the World Map Kit includes the same complete set of world map data and professional design logic that makes your maps look great. The difference lies in the intended use for each product. Let's break it down:

• The World Map Kit WMS Server combines the complete world dataset with a standalone Web Map Server (WMS) that you host on your own hardware. The included map server allows you to serve maps from the World Map Kit over the Internet or Intranet to any client application that can consume a standards-compliant WMS. This makes it unnecessary to distribute the large map dataset with your application, and the in-house hosting means that you have control over the server hardware, security permissions, SLAs and more. You don't need to be a developer to set up a World Map Kit WMS Server.
• The World Map Kit SDK is an extension for our line of Map Suite GIS software controls, such as Desktop Edition or Web Edition. When you combine the two, you can add world maps into the custom mapping applications that you create using Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. Additionally, because the World Map Kit SDK comes with full source code included, you can completely customize the look and feel of the maps or even add your own data to the mix. The World Map Kit SDK requires .NET development experience.
• The World Map Kit Online is the easiest way to gain access to the complete global dataset of the World Map Kit directly over the Internet, without needing to install anything or maintain your own servers. ThinkGeo hosts the World Map Kit Online on our own servers, and all you do is connect to them with your applications to receive great map imagery of anyplace on Earth. Simply pay an annual fee to access our servers and get clean, unwatermarked map images.