Location data management: A tale of two systems and the "next destination"!

In early 2000, we had the vision of ubiquitous location services, where each object is aware of its location, and continuously sends its location to a designated database server. This flood of location data opened the door for a myriad of location-based services that were considered visionary at that time, yet today they are a reality and have become ubiquitous. To realize our early vision, we identified two main challenges that needed to be addressed, namely, scalability and privacy. We have addressed these challenges through two main systems, PLACE and Casper. PLACE, developed at Purdue University from 2000 to 2005, set up the environment for built-in database support of scalable and continuous location-based services. The Casper system, developed at University of Minnesota from 2005 to 2010, was built inside the PLACE server allowing it to provide its high quality scalable service, while maintaining the privacy of its users' locations. This talk will take you through a time journey of location services from 2000 until today, and beyond, highlighting the development efforts of the PLACE and Casper systems, along with their impact on current and future research initiatives in both academia and industry.