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This doc is a draft memo but it lists the 10 sites that were finally selected. Each RCS talked to their SW Specialist and I submitted the names to Susan and Lorna. They meet with Mike Norris to finalize the sites.

1. North Carolina
2. Pennsylvania
3. New England
4. Miami, Florida
5. Texas
6. Washington
7. Louisiana (At the request of the Central region)
8. California
9. Arkansas
10. Hawaii

The Office of Surface Water and the NatWeb teams are starting a pilot project that will provide backup ADAPS processing and delivery of real-time hydrologic data to the national NWISWeb server (http://water.usgs.gov/nwis) as part of the NatWeb implementation for Water Resources. The following 10 NWIS installations have been selected to participate in this pilot:

1. North Carolina
2. Pennsylvania
3. New England
4. Miami, Florida
5. Texas
6. Washington
7. Louisiana (At the request of the Central region)
8. California
9. Arkansas
10. Hawaii

We need to discuss this with the selected Districts first, not surprise them with an e-mail!
Executive Summary To be written after the other sections complete.

Technical Description of Pilot

The NatWeb teams will establish backup NWIS/ADAPS processing capabilities on special servers located in Reston, VA and Menlo Park, CA. These special servers are called NWIS-RT servers; the NWIS-RT acronym stands for NWIS Real-time backup processing. NWIS-RT will provide:   an independent LRGS to receive real-time satellite telemetered data; NWIS/ADAPS primary processing, editing and storage of real-time data and support files, such as ratings and shifts; and the ability to control the display of data being sent to the web (NWISWeb nw_edit functionality). A copy of each pilot district.s NWIS database will be loaded onto the NWIS-RT servers. Ingres Replication Services will be established on the districts NWIS server so that any changes made to the districts ADAPS support tables (only those tables needed for primary computations, such as ratings and shifts) will be sent to NWIS-RT databases automatically. Changes made on the NWIS-RT systems will not be sent back to the district NWIS servers (one-way replication).

Once the NWIS-RT servers have been established, either the National NWISWeb server (water.usgs.gov/nwis/) or NatWeb test webservers will be able to receive and display real-time data sent from NWIS-RT. In addition, selected personnel from the pilot districts will be able to log into their designated NWIS-RT server to perform ADAPs tasks (such as unit value editing) or use nw_edit (to mask data or customize displays) should that be necessary.

Goals of the Pilot:

• to provide limited functionality, as a backup for real-time processing and delivery of data to the web should a district NWIS system be unavailable for an extended period of time (time period is controlled by the district)
• to provide the NatWeb teams with valuable experience that will be used to refine the "production release" of NatWeb for real-time hydrologic data

Expectations and commitment from pilot district Personnel

Two tasks will be required by the districts in order to establish NWIS-RT servers. First, pilot district NWIS database administrators (DBA) and SAs will be furnished instructions for making a copy of selected data from their district NWIS database, and directions on how to get this to the NatWeb contact. Second, the district DBA will then be provided with instructions and help contact for setting up Ingres Replication. These two steps should take approximately xx hours of district personnel time (depending on the size of NWIS sitefile and ADAPs support tables).

Once NWIS-RT has been established and Satin/Sentry is processing real-time data, the Districts would provide userids for two people who would log into NWIS-RT servers to run ADAPS and nw_edit in case of emergency. The NatWeb team would propose that all 10 districts document their experience and would agree to actively look at ADAPS data on their appropriate NWIS-RT server. During the pilot, we may wish to simulate an emergency situation. In that case, we would ask a district to log into the NWIS-RT machine, revise some records and push data to the web. We would set up a test NWISWeb webserver to receive and display the data so that the data in the National NWISWeb would not be effected (the National NWISWeb would still be dependent on the district NWIS servers, not the NWIS-RT servers). Also, it would be desirable if one or two pilot districts would agree to be 4_2 beta sites so that the NWIS/NatWeb teams can actually work through an NWIS release transition; this information would provide valuable lessons learned and would be incorporated into the procedures used for production. The pilot project will end once several of the pilot districts have migrated to NWIS4_2 and the production version of NWIS-RT (and NWISWeb) is ready for final testing.

Limitations of the Pilot and NatWeb.s "Pilot Service Level Agreement"

Five NWIS-RT servers will be set up for use in the pilot. A single NWIS-RT server will have two pilot districts configured to receive, compute and store real-time data. Five NWIS-RT servers allow for backup real-time data processing for a total of 10 districts during this pilot. Due to limitations with the current NWISWeb NWIS-side software, only one district per NWIS-RT server will be able to transmit data to the web. This means that given a major USGS outage, the NWIS-RT servers could only provide backup processing and delivery of real-time data to the web for 5 of the ten pilot districts. For example, if both North Carolina and Washington were on a single NWIS-RT server and should both the district NWIS systems be unavailable, either PA or WA could start transmitting real-time data to NWISWeb, but not both.

Once the pilot has been established for the 10 districts, should a pilot district experience a local outage with their NWIS system and want to use the pilot system, a district contact must notify the NatWeb team so that the team can manually configure the NWIS-RT server to send data for the district to the National NWISWeb. The manual procedure takes about an hour to perform. The NatWeb team will provide the districts with a contact list for technical assistance; the NatWeb team will attempt to provide this service to pilot districts 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

The NWIS-RT servers will not be able to transmit data to district or local NWISWeb systems; NWIS-RT will only transmit data to NatWeb test webservers or the National NWISWeb (water.usgs.gov/nwis/). The pilot will be shut-down once the production version of NWIS-RT/NWISWeb/NatWeb is ready for final testing. When this occurs, the 5 pilot NWIS-RT servers will be wiped-clean and reconfigured.

Pilot "kick-off" Strategy: Virtual Town Meeting with Pilot district Personnel

The NatWeb technical personnel, OSW management and Regional Computer Specialists will conduct an electronic Town Meeting via Cyber Seminar or audio bridge to address concerns and issues pilot districts might have. The town meetings are scheduled for the following dates and times:

districts xx,xx,xx: date and time
districts xx,xx,xx,xx: date and time
districts xx,xx,xx: date and time