Considerable effort has gone into the design and layout of the high speed network which interconnects the many distributed GIS databases throughout Qatar.

This dedicated 100 Mbps FDDI fibre optic network, known as GISnet, allows every user, in every agency, immediate access to all publicly available GIS data in the country.

The Centre for GIS maintains GISnet ensuring it is secure from breakdown and operates effectively around the clock transferring data between the many different agencies on the network.

Traffic volume on the network is heavy with several hundreds of PCs, workstations and a large number of printers and plotters all connected to GISnet via local area networks (LANs) of individual agencies.

At the heart of GISnet is a high speed fibre optic switch, with a 3 Gbps backplane, capable of making 67,000 virtual connections each second. With this kind of speed every user on the network gets information from other agencies so fast it appears the data resides on their own computer.

Even digital orthoimage files, normally 10 to 50 megabytes in size, can be transferred over GISnet in seconds.