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We need an address finder (premise level) based on postcode. We have a budget of 40k for this. But I have been assigned to find some cheaper alternatives for Royal mail PAF database. Is Google any good to find premise level address when you send full postcode. Any recommendation over Royal Mail PAF file. Any web services out there for this to accomplish? Please share your knowledge.
Cheers,
Naren
We use products from AFD for this, they work well for us.
Edit just saw Best way to geocode UK postcode with Google Maps API? on the front page.
In the UK the government has said that PAF data should be made free[1]. I'm painfully aware of the almost extortionate nature that Royal Mail operate.
Having worked with Royal Mail PAF API, I known a 'friend' (wink wink) that created a class wrapper around the APIs. This 'friend' of mine built a custom Importer that automatically ripped all the PAF data into a MS SQL database. Post the data import, he no longer needs to renew he's licences because he is no longer using PAF data.
This may be something you could do also, buy the data one time an import it.
As for data changes, you can buy perhaps every few years e.g. 2-3 years and do a update of your existing data.
[1] Damn It! guess I was wrong, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/22/postcode-petition-fails-blocked-number-ten
I work as the integrations specialist for Postcode Anywhere (we are one of the leading Royal Mail PAF resellers). Address capture doesn’t have to be expensive – and you don’t have to sacrifice reliability for an affordable service. Postcode Anywhere can be licensed either on a simple credit pack based system or on an annual basis, and you can be up and running in 10 minutes using our JavaScript client. If you are looking to create a more bespoke integration we also have an array of web services and code samples to help you.
If you want to have a play around with the service to see what you think we will be more than happy to provide you with a free trial. A full run-down of all of our products and services can be found here: http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/products.
I work for CraftyClicks.
There are a few PAF resellers around. The data is all the same, prices can vary significantly. Best to spend a few minutes browsing the various sites.
At CraftyClicks our focus is on uptime/availability and keeping the price of PAF data reasonable - at high volumes the price falls to well below 1 penny a click.
Our address lookup web service can be integrated client side via JavaScript or server side via XML.
Let us know your requirements (adam at craftyclicks.co.uk) - you shouldn't be spending anywhere near 40k for this!
Adam.
The base PAF data is the same but a lot of value is put into adding information that is not included into PAF to help with realtime and batch addressing matching with products based on PAF. We have a lot of locality information that is not included within PAF but people tend to use within their address.
As to updates, there are thousands of changes every month so its vital that you use a source that has regular updates to the PAF data and also associated files such as business and consumer names data that also help in the matching process.
Have a look at our site www.capscan.com for both UK and International data quality with services delivered either installed or as a web service.
You can also contact us on 0207 428 1255
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i have been looking in to different IOT esb and platforms but its hard to check them all and test them all, and for a company in the startup process its even harder.
I have a hardware device which will send very little data but important data once in a while, there will however be some devices out there.
What i want to accomplish is this
My device react to a condition and send a message to my choice of iot platform
the iot platform will have a user management so the event can be stored for this user, the user will get a email and/or sms about the event.
I would like a dashboard for myself to view whats going on and be able to see what device belong to what user and status of it.
I want to be able to have an app that will show data / eventview for the specific user that owns the device.
Everything will be read only, i dont have need to send data to the device, only collect.
My need is rather simple, but i will charge a one time fee for the hardware and have no subscription, all the "cloud" platforms are rather expensive as i can see and they scale bad with their pricing. if i could get one that charge a few cent per device a year i could live with that and include it to the hardware price but the one i find is really above this or charge a high yearly fee from the start.
I have been looking around and trying to understand the program, platform and services out there.
Cloud:
Xively - Expensive and dont have a model that scales per device
Azure - Expensive, their price model is hard to understand
AWS - Cheap to begin with but then Expensive, their price model is
hard to understand
Mulesoft - Expensive for my needs.
Local installation: Free software, dont have everything included and/or pay for training.
WSO2 - This one is hard, it might be able to solve my issues, but they have an IOT server that will open for BETA soon so i dont know
much about it.
Mule community edition - Might solve my issues but seems to lack the usermanagement and dashboard i need?
FuseESB Might solve my issues but seems to lack the usermanagement and dashboard i need?
Kaa - i have a hard time to see where kaa fits in, im not a programmer by trade so i think this platform is to hard for me and i dont know
if it supports my needs, so far little information about it.
Can anyone sheed a light where i should look and put my effort in, i just dont have the time to give them all a shoot, and i might have misunderstood some of the platforms.
i would also appreciate an explanation what module,carbon, connects i would need to check in to, to solve my needs for the different platforms.
Might also be so that i have missed some superb platforms?
BR
Dimi
For WSO2, sign up for the beta here: http://wso2.com/landing/wso2-iot-server-beta-program/
This page has lots of info on how you can use already released components of WSO2 stack for your scenario: http://wso2.com/landing/wso2-iot-server-beta-program/ - see the reference architecture and webinars on the Resources tab.
Use reekoh.com(data collection capabiliteis) and mule(if you don't want to pay then use MULE CE)
You may have a customisation work.
The Watson IoT Plaform is available in IBM's Bluemix cloud and allows up to 20 registered devices, and 100 MB of data exchanged free.
More detailed pricing info is available.
Real-time insights alerting can be configured to help provide the device specific data for users.
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I know that the google geocoding api has a 2,500 hits a day limit before it'll start returning REQUEST_DENIED. How many does the bing one take? I heard that it's unlimited but I had trouble confirming that.
Just came across this question. It's a bit old but still relevant. For Bing Maps there are two different ways to geocode address. The first is with batch geocoding which has the limits outlined by alfski.
The second option is the REST geocoding service which allows you to geocode one address at a time. The free transactions for the Bing Maps services varies depending on use case. For Windows/Windows Phone/WPF apps you can make up to 50,000 transactions a day under the free terms of use. For other platforms such as iOS, Android and Web apps there is 125,000 transactions allowed per year for free. You can find more details on this here: http://www.microsoft.com/maps/create-a-bing-maps-key.aspx
The Microsoft Bing Maps terms & conditions are at http://www.microsoft.com/maps/product/terms.html
The T&C's will change so please check the link.
As of January 2013 under the General Terms of Use, the Bing geocoding limits are:
"a total of 5 batch geocoding or file uploads with a maximum of 50 records each, using the Bing Spatial Data Services API, within any 24 hour period."
However if you have a Bings Map Agreement:
"...a total of 24 batch geocoding or file uploads with a maximum of 200,000 records each, using the Bing Spatial Data Services API, within any 24 hour period.
1) Google Maps API recently changed their prices:
Standard plan:
2,500 requests per day free.
After that is $0.50 per 1000 requests.
Premium plan:
Pay $10,000/year.
Get 100,000 requests per day "for free".
Above that - 500,000 requests per year are "free".
Above that - buy next package.
However "Web service APIs and the JavaScript API require the Premium Plan."
My understanding is that formally you must use Premium Plan ($10000/year) if you are calling geocoding from your server (not mobile phone).
More details here: http://dennisgorelik.livejournal.com/112993.html
2) Bing Maps API does not publish their prices.
Here's the Licensing tool to find out how much they'll charge you
http://www.microsoft.com/maps/Licensing/licensing.aspx
By the way you can also try Yandex Geocoding API which is for free for up to 25.000 Requests per day per Website/Mobile App:
http://api.yandex.com/maps/doc/geocoder/desc/concepts/input_params.xml
Updated answer as of Feb 2022
Google Maps offers a $200 monthly credit, which is equivalent to 40,000 free geocodes per month.
Bing Maps allows you to sign up for a "basic key" for development purposes which gives you 125,000 free geocodes per calendar year. Their licensing page is here.
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Would it be more cost effective for a small business (around 25 concurrent users) to buy a PAF database and code it up ourselves or use a Postcode service such as Postcode Anywhere?
The Royal Mail site is really confusing! http://www.royalmail.com/marketing-services/address-management-unit/address-data-products/postcode-address-file-paf/prices
We operate 24 hours a day and at any one time, we have between 1 and 25 users doing postcode searches. We are currently using a PAYG service and it is really pricey so we want to buy a PAF database and create our own. I don't understand the pricing on the link above (basically we're looking at something in the region of £2 to £49,500?!)
Also, what do you actually get with a PAF database? As in what kind of files do they send you, is there an API and do you pay a one off fee or an ongoing fee? Do you have to agree to the delete the data once you stop paying royal mail?
Thanks
For the time it would take to code it up yourselves, it would be more time and cost efficient to go with someone like Postcode Anywhere. They'll also provide guaranteed first class service along with service updates to improve service.
We use them on a lesser-scale (after moving from QAS which were crap in comparison).
Have you investigated pricing with any providers yet - if so, what's it coming out at?
I can't add anymore to the answer by Alan, which describes how the files are provided and how it needs to be done.
You get a bunch of flat files and need to use the PAF programmers guide to help build yourself a system
http://www.royalmail.com/marketing-services/address-management-unit/address-data-products/programmers-guide
See also
www royalmail.com/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/01_tell_me_the_basics.pdf
www royalmail.com/pafnews
You're probably better off buying some package www poweredbypaf.com/
You don't need to purchase the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF). There are lots of API's available.
getAddress.io is the only one I've found that's free:
https://getAddress.io
I know the question borders between something that can be answered or discussed, but with just examples should be enough.
I'm working on BI and part of the data contained is the ISP from visitors. I'm trying to extract as much information from the data in the dataware, so I just wanted to know how I can help transform this specific piece of data into something valuable to the client.
Any samples of the value of knowing the ISP? The site I'm working for is massive (can't say which one), so that should block responses as "it would matter if you were <giant-company>". I need exactly THAT info.
One of the ways I have used that information in the past is to determine what peering agreements are appropriate. That is, if you determine that 40% of users are coming from ISP X, then getting a peering arrangement setup with ISP X will improve user experience due to decreased latency. I've also used this information for selecting a CDN (pick the CDN that provides the best footprint for the ISP's your users are on). It could also be useful for determining where to put edge caches (for instance, varnish instances). There are a whole host of uses for the data but at the top of my mind the class of uses are limited to performance and availability.
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I have the following requirement. I have with me a database containing the contact and address details of at least 2000 members of my school alumni organization. We want to store all that information in a relation model so that
This data can be created and edited on demand.
This data is always backed up and should be simple to restore in case the master copy becomes unusable.
All sensitive personal information residing in this database is guaranteed to be available only to authorized users.
This database won't be online in the first 6 months. It will become online only after a website is built on top of it.
I am not a DBA and I don't want to spend time doing things like backups. I thought Amazon's RDS with it's automatic backup facility was the perfect solution for our needs. The only problem is that being a voluntary organization we cannot spare the monthly $100 to $150 fees this service demands.
So my question is, are there any less costlier alternatives to Amazon's RDS?
In your case of just contact and address data I would choose Amazon SimpleDB. I know SimpleDB might not be suitable for a large number of tables with relationships and all, but for your kind of data I think SimpleDB is sufficient. And costs is much much cheaper than Amazon RDS.
I also wanted to use RDS, but the smallest db size costs $80 p/month.
With out a bit more info I may be way off base here. but 2000 names addresses etc. is not a large DB and I would have thought that the possible use of Amazons RDS was a bit "overkill" to say the least.
Depending on how (and who) you want view edit etc. there are a number of free or almost free alternatives.
One method may be to set up /use a hosting package that has something like phpMyAdmin linked to a mySQL DB. Doing this it is possible to access and edit etc. the DB without having a website front end. Not pretty (like a website front end) but practical. A good host should also back up for you.
Another is to look at Google Documents. OK not really a database more a spread sheet, but very much on the lines of Excel. You can share Google docs with invited people and even set up a small website via Google Docs. This is a free method, but may not be that practical depending on your needs.
Have you taken a look at Microsoft SQL Azure? You can use it free for something like 90 days and then if you only need a 1GB db it would only be about $10 a month.
You mention backup so I thought I would talk about that as well. They way SQL Azure works is that it automatically creates 2 additional copies of your database on different machines in the data center. If one of the machines or db's become unavailable it automatically fails over to one of the other db's.
If you need anything above that you can also use the copy command to backup the database.
You can check
http://www.enciva.com/postgresql9-hosting.htm
and
http://www.acugis.com/postgresql-hosting.htm
They work for Postgres and MySQL.
For a frankly tiny db of that size I'd seriously look at http://www.sqlite.org/
it's inprocess, easy to constantly .dump off to S3 and you can use update hooks to keep checkpoints after updates.
backups/restores are almost the equivalent of windows batchfiles and wgets
good encryption using http://sqlcipher.net/
standard OS Filesystem and user level ACLs control security.
running a file backed db makes sense given the fragility of a normal EC2 backed RDBMS to EBS gremlins.
there are exclusions from to SQL92 (no real showstoppers), but given the project cost sensitivity and the RPO and RTO's of an alumni database, I reckon it's a good bet.