- 9:00-10:00 am -- Slifer and Brooks, Welcome and Opening Remarks :
- Introductions by all the group.
- Slifer -- Membership ... Data Chief, DBMS, RCS and Section Chief need to be replaced. Mike Slifer will get the nominations from the Regional Hydrologists.
- Merk -- Expectations and Concerns for this meeting { insert here }
- Network Capactity with respect to Cyber Seminars
- Link to BRD and other Divisions / Outreach
- Central Control / Mainframe Mentality
- Activity Directory
- NWIS Futures
- Dependable Connection to the Internet
- Advice on Electronic Forms
- NWISWeb Dependability
- Current Road Information (NMD is begging off)
- Input on NWIS Furture Architecture
- Training
- Leaving Functional Applications Behind as WRD Upgrade
- Continuity of Existing Functional Applications
- Strategy on How to Influence 7th Floor
- WIN2K/WINXP Recommendations
- ARCINFO Licensing
- Slifer -- Review of agenda
- Blanchard -- IT/IM and Bureau organizational change status
- Steve Blanchard reported that Glenn Paterson was hired to fill Steve's previsous position.
- Enviromental Affairs Office is back with OI with Celso Puento as acting chief.
- Headquarters Review recommended that HASS be dissolved. This will be effective on October 1, 2001. Tom McKallip with HASS resigned.
- OI Cyber Semainars continue.
- Bob Pierce on detail to GIO re: Enterprise GIS
- Greg Allord on detail to GIO re: Publishing.
- Katherine Lins working on GIO tasks halftime.
- NWIS 4_1 released two weeks ago.
- Executive Steering Committee (ESC) for NWIS has been established and will meet at the end of October.
- John Briggs with NWIS retired this Summer.
- Isabelle Halley will work half time on NWIS.
- Two NWIS Web programmers have been hired.
- OWQ and NAWQA will be merged.
- FY02 Budget will be decided soon.
- Re: FAIR Act; 300 jobs will be outsourced by end of FY03.
- Steve suggests that we keep track of what works and what doesn't work - competition costs must be 10% less.
- 10:00-10:45 -- Myron Brooks gave District Introductions and Presentations
- Outline
- District Generalities:
- Staffing
- Programmatic Setting
- Water Issues
- Major Cooperators, 2001
- Coop Funding 1997-2001
- Federal Funding 1997-2001
- OFA Funding 1997-2001
- Operational Highlights
- Future Outlook
- Computer Resources { Judy Tegeler's presentation goes here }
- Existing Infrastructure
- Users
- Recent Additions
- Issues
- 10:45-11:45 -- District Town Meeting
- Isabelle - AIS { Isabelle's presentation goes here }
- AIS will be in operation next year
- Release end of October
- Staff in Kansas
- 50 cost centers use AIS
- AIS can be run and reports can be posted to a project or District web page
- Basis Project - Project or MIS system functions have been tested, but Basis has not been helpful or ready to help at the execution stage
- Tom Wood - DIS
- entitled "DIS Program Office Update" follows: { Tom's presentation goes here }
- Should all desktops migrate to W2K?
- Does any software product require W2K?
- Where does support for Framemaker fall? Discipline or Bureau?
- Where would NT-TAC and SUN-TAC fall? Discipline or Bureau?
- Alan Lumb - NNIS
- { Alan's presentation goes here }
- NWIS 4_1 released recently. Focuses on water-quality functions.
- NWIS 4_2 release is scheduled for March 2002
- By mid-October; NWIS will be installed in all sites.
- Train-the-trainer and cyber seminars assisted in the NWIS training area.
- Executive Steering Committee has been established to guide NWIS.
- What is the status of data cleanup in Districts?
- Are the Districts cleaning up the data base before or after the transfer?
- How does running NWISWeb locally effect the transfer process?
- When will NWIS refresh QWWeb data?
- What is the makeup of the NWIS Executive Steering Committee?
- Greg Allord - Publishing
- { Greg's presentation goes here }
- Publishing web page -- updating tip, policies and registering reports page
- Software suitability note
- How to choose page layout software -- white paper
- http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/publishing/addreport/
- Reports templates -- clarifying design of reports and building electronic templates
- hosting USGS meeting of all offices to have common design
- series definitions and usage
- MS Word author templates and XML workflows
- Annual water data reports continued support
- Printing
- Scripts (Ed Fischer)
- documenting new procedures
- GPO simplified purchase agreement - website and implementation
- determining final training steps with GPO
- http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/publishing/Printing/spa/
- Publishing policy review and clarification on Publishing web site
- Adobe Contractual License Program support
- cross application upgrades
- maintenance of existing and new licenses
- Preflight software support
- Bibliographic database and search capability for all USGS reports
- Section 508 issues and implementations
- answers
- more training for WRD
- more training for all USGS
- straightforward answers for FrameMaker
- FrameMaker 7.0 beta program
- Future Adobe directions
- Font follow-up and support
- Web publishing class
- Migrating CAPP to all Windows systems and retiring remaining Macintosh systems
- Work with GIO team for publishing issues
- Is the Reports Tracking System going to be Bureau wide?
- 11:45 - 12:30 -- District Staff - District Town Meeting
- Questions and Answers:
- NWISWeb Futures:
- What should we be expecting for NWISWeb functionality?
And when?
- Examples: Maps, Queries, etc.
- The NWISWeb Users Group has listed these functions and others in the list of new functions desired. Of course, resources are an issue. In addition to the new programmer and the new data base manager, an NWISWeb Onsite Contractor is to be added to the NWISWeb Team.
- Discussion on ODBC connection to NWIS and NWISWeb
- Refer to http://nttac.usgs.gov/nt_tac/database/connectivity/index.html
- Melanie Clark questioned the status of the Handheld software programs written by District personnel. Refer to the Field Computer Interest Group.
- Refer to Software Clearinghouse for field computer work within the USGS
- Bob Swanson questioned the status of the other-than-DCP real-time data and its entry onto the web pages.
- Myron Brooks question standardization on District Web Pages.
- Standardizing District Web Pages is controversial, personnel don't want to be stifled. There are standards for Web page topics, such as Visual Identity, Section 508, "look and feel".
- Melanie Clark questioned the need to open up TMDL and BIO data stores with no data base to store the data.
- Sandy Williamson will get an answer to the data base storage of BIO TDB data.
- 12:30 - 1:30 -- LUNCH
- 1:30 - 2:00 -- ITAC members discuss the "Town Meeting highpoints"
- 2:00 - 2:30 -- ITAC members review previous meeting action items
- 2:30 - 3:30 - Scott McEwen -- ITAC and Bureau Support / discussing several topics including telecommunications
- 3:30 - 4:00 -- Steve Blanchard discusses the end-of-year funds and budget status status and review.
- 4:00 - 4:30 -- Nelson Williams - provides a demo on USGS Standard Forms, showing some MS Word & Lotus Notes forms.
- Then discusses the level of effort it takes to build electronic forms in each application.
- Whether or not DIS should maintain (or maintain links to) all standard forms.
- Should we update forms for FrameMaker?
- Should forms be ported to MS Word or PDF?
- Should we wait for the Lotus development team and APS to put all of the forms into Lotus Notes?
- Nelson's 5/22/01 email, subject: Electronic forms for Frame Maker, MS Word, PDF, and Lotus Notes.
- Nelson's August email regarding Bureau-wide forms
-
(AI# Sep2001.WY.1) Tom Wood
will send out an email to administrative officers and site administrators to
identify what electronic forms have been completed. ----- Terry Reinitz,
with DIS, can maintain an online form clearinghouse, including field
testing of the electronic forms. - (AI# Sep2001.WY.2) ITAC recommends
that money from the field support be used for the development of MS Word form
templates.
- (AI# Sep2001.WY.3) Mike Slifer
will draft a memo from ITAC to Karen Siderelis expressing ITAC's views on the
electronic forms issues.
- Loren Kloft demonstrated his mobile computer
- ICOM Air Card
- ICA
- Wireless LANS
- DECODES
- Hydrographs (legible)
- TNA
- A Card for every ITAC meeting member
- A driver
{ insert Myron's overview here }
- Only consider upgrades to W2K for capable systems
- ESRI ARC products require W2K systems.
Crashes occur often under Windows NT.
- Answer: Bureau
- Answer: To be determined.
- Duplicate stations are issues.
- Not known. Statistics are not being tracked for duplicate stations.
- No effect.
- To be determined.
This is labor intensive for the Headquarters NWIS staff.
- See Web Page URL
/ESC/ESC_index.html
- Unknown. There is a need for this.
Reports numbering system is a Bureau system, under the
auspices of the Publications Interest Group.
The problems are that the Bureau IS/IT/IM reorganization has everything in such a state of flux that no manager is willing to make a bold decision and move forward on several IT issues.
It's also true that even the current Notes team's direct management doesn't understand the problem - the Notes team spent a week better defining the roles and responsibilities of a "Lotus Management and Operations Team" (for lack of a better name at this time) vs. a contract with an outside organization for day-to-day operational support. The Active Directory folks need to do the same. ITAC efforts should not be made until those definitions are clear.
Greg Hendrie -- joined ITAC by telephone for a discussion: McHendrie and others have put together proposals to operate mandated systems. Such as the Lotus Enterprise. Greg has a document that he will share with us { insert here }.
CIE Collaborative Information Enterprise (CIE) is a term being bantered around to manage Bureau collaborative systems, such as the Lotus project.
Active Directory Support Structure - ditto. There are 5 or 6 volunteers who work Lotus tasks half to full time.
For issues like telecommunications, Lotus, Active Directory, etc. - there will be a need for an Information Council as a forum for solving these problems.
Greg McHendrie has suggested that the Lotus Team's email suggesting options for support of Bureau Enterprise systems be distributed to ITAC members. Refer to Greg's email: Resolve of the Charter for the Lotus Implementation Team.
Steve Blanchard's Excel Spread Sheet shows the activities, amount requested and the funding.
Refer to the following emails:
90 forms (DOI, USGS, WRD) in Framemaker 4 need to be converted Framemaker 6 -- DIS Program Office, url: http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/forms/form_listing.html
IPAQ Pocket PC, including
Runs:
Loren would like to try out some of these on the Pen Notebook.
What would ITAC need for a wireless LAN that we could take for every meeting?
Wireless access point
The morning session was held at the Holiday Inn, Montana Room
- 8:00 - 9:45 am -- Alan Lumb presents the NWIS Architecture and is followed by a discussion. The powerpoint presentation follows: (pdf format or PowerPoint format)
- Slide 5, Isabelle asked if the first bullet "Should the input, edit,
data QA/QC applications and databases be separate from the data
dissemination applications and ddatabase?" and last bullet "Should
the future data warehouse be a single, separate database?"
- Data Unload, Entry and Storage:
- Does "Observations, measurements, and samples include "field notes"? 9-207? Etc.?
- "Amount" means "Quantity of Data"
- "Volume" means "Frequency" function is used
- Steve Blanchard asked if NWIS plans to have the NWIS User Gorups review the matrices.
- Greg Allord asked why "User Satisfaction" was not filled in.
-- Analyst did not feel qualified to provide that input. - Political means "level of importance and visibility".
- Did AMS recommend "Interface" Types be included?
-- Both NWIS and AMS needs to be aware that the interface types and technology are evolving quickly. The target NWIS Architecture influences requirements beginning with NWIS 5.0.
What is the timeline for NWIS 5.0? -- Spring/Summer 2003. - Loren Kloft and Steve Blanchard indicated that Biology and Sediment data and disciplines need to be addressed in the NWIS Architecture.
- Scott McFarland asks if "Authenication?" has been addressed in the NWIS Data Architecture? Alan indicated that the discussions occurred but details were not included in the NWIS Architecture.
- Steve Blanchard asks if number of District servers or regional servers and associated concepts have been addressed. Alan indicated that this topic is part of the Basic Questions slide i Alan's presentation and this issue will require more analysis.
- Greg Allord suggested that there be a Placeholder in the NWIS Architecture for National Atlas used for Real-Time sites.
- Notes on COMPONENT OPTIONS powerpoint slides.
- Thick Client User Interface -- put two asterisks (one and a half) next to JAVA.
Reporting Tools - put one asterisk next to Custom Built. - NWISWeb is not working well. Problems/issues include:
- Performance, dependability, ability to correct programs, three or four days of down time was experienced during the last month.
- "Lawsuits regarding NWISWeb" data could be forthcoming.
- There is concern about assessments to District for operating these central databases.
- NATWEB was supposed to be completed last March.
- 10:00 - 11:15 am -- Karen Siderelis (phone number 703-648-5747) gives status/ update on Bureau IT/IM Reorganization Status and Plans. { insert ITAC Phase 2 ppt here }
- 11:20 - 12:00 noon -- Laren Kloft -- discusses the issues surrounding "Active Directory" ... followed by a discussion by the ITAC members. Reference: Active directory cost benefit report from Donna Scholtz"
- (AI# Sep2001.WY.5) Mike
Slifer and Grady Moore will draft a recommendation for the WRD District
Chiefs meeting on Active Directory and present the recommendations to
the GIO Team Group. --- Loren and Nelson will provide some bullets to
Mike and Grady. Mike Slifer will make certain that Karen Siderelis
and Donna Scholz get a cc.
- Bureau-level implementation of Active Directory (AD) - Concern regarding potential problems that could be faced in smaller Districts.
Background: Most Districts already utilize a "domain" associated with
their NT servers and desktop/notebook PCs - it is a "collection" of
administrative, user, and computer-resources information that users have
access to when logging-in and accessing their computer resources. The
idea behind the Bureau implementation of Active Directory is that all four
disciplines will "share" a common set of administrative/user/computer-resources information. On paper it sounds ideal, but in application, could have dire implications in some of our Districts.
Current plans, as described by the Lighthouse Team (Bureauwide AD implementation team), are to distribute AD Domain controllers in offices similar to the manner in which the Lotus Notes servers are distributed, thus smaller offices (less then 50 employees) will not have a local AD domain controller. If WAN connections to the AD Domain Controllers are unavailable, i.e. a cable cut that would disconnect a WRD office from the Wide Area Network (WAN), problems may arise that could prevent District users from accessing computer resources on their Local Area Network (LAN) if they do not have a local AD domain controller. In certain, and notably key situations, such as a flood event, a WRD District may be unable to perform the work associated with carrying out its mission based on the inability to access computer resources needed to assess the event situation and provide needed information to cooperators, emergency/health/safety personnel, and the public. The obvious solution is to push for each District, regardless of size, be provided a local AD domain controller to be placed on that District's LAN. One final note, the Lighthouse team is preparing to move the implementation from the lab out into our real-world operations, starting as early as October. As of last week, there are plans to "form" a team who's purpose will be to support and maintain this AD implementation. Presently, the membership of this team has not been determined and to the best of my knowledge, funding has not been finalized and may fall short in what is actually needed for a Bureau implementation. My "take" from Linda Peng (team leader of the AD Implementation Team - Lighthouse) is that the team has been making requests and recommendations regarding this support team, but are not receiving information/answers from those who control the purse strings.
Loren Kloft -- discusses the issues surronding "Computer Securityh Incident Response " followed by a discussion by the ITAC members.
This discussion includes: pager numbers, 7 X 24 support, WAN support from 6 AM til 10 PM.
- (AI# Sep2001.WY.6)
Tom Wood will provide ITAC members the computer security incident response
document for review includes information that Mike McNally and Mike
Cunningham are drafting regarding some standard operating procedures.
-
- Computer Security Incident Response - Develop procedures to handle the next computer security crisis (i.e. Code Red) when it happens. Background: I recall we took a vote on prioritizing fiscal resource- distribution at the last meeting, and the topic of computer security incident response fell to (or near) the bottom of the priority list. In light of the recent problems associated with Code Red, and the fact that DREN shutdown the HTTP-related traffic on our network, which had ramifications that included denying cooperator and public access to our data, we should visit this topic in an attempt to develop a cookbook incident-response procedure to be implemented at both the District and Discipline levels.
- 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm -- LUNCH
- 1:00 - 2:00 pm -- Sandy Williamson demonstrates Web Mapping -- followed by a discussion of:
- 50% from consultants
- 40% from cooperators
- 10% from students
- Karen Siderelis hosted a question and answer session.
- How this initiative in the future gets full consideration of the issues at hand.
- Funding
- Short-term implementation of ADS.
- Karen Crosby presents an update on Oracle ...
- 2:15 - 4:30 pm -- Doug Posson, Chief, USGS Midcontinent Ecological Science Center, gives a welcome and introductions.
- Don Hunter, BRD -- giving a preview of related research.
- Don's NBII: Overview and History presentation follows: { insert presentation here }
- Tim Kern's presentation follows:
- NBII Web pages: http://nbii.cr.usgs.gov
-
- ESRI charges $25,000 for the level of service needed by MESC
- Lance Everette, BRD -- Gateway to the Earth presentation
- Plus Data Base and Web discussion
- The question arises: " What is the Gateway to the Earth"
- Not known yet.
- Interface will be a Gateway prototype having one theme -- Earthquakes.
- The seventh theme is: Products of the USGS with two search capabilities.
- All teams will make a deliverable in six months or so.
- Charles Gish, NBII discussed his work on the new office that will house the USGS MESC.
- Charles is looking for system backup devices. ITAC members note that
- Jim Flaherty and Nelson Williams are working on 3 tera byte backups.
- Charles showed his Category 5 - Level 7 -- Guaranteed Gigabit wiring. Seven cents a foot more expensive. Fiber will cost too much.
- A ny other welcomed discussions
- Who does ITAC contact about Active Directory?
- Tom Lahr is in Reston working on IRM coordination.
- Each BRD Center has an IRM coordinator.
- And BRD had a BRD IRM council.
- 5:00 Mike Slifter does a wrap-up of the afternoon session and adjourns for the day.
Alan presented the future architecture as a project in progress and solicited review comments and input from the ITAC members regarding functions and other information that NWIS might have missed.
Basic Questions and Discussion follow:
Colleen Babcock, John Briggs and Susan Trapanese were the analysts for the contractor on the matrix cells.
The NWIS ESC will need to address the resources issues for identifying requirements for biology and sediment.
Grady asked if the requirements for steam morphology will be included
in the requirements analysis?
-- No.
The underlying concern mentioned by Scott McEwen is in bringing in some experts to define the specifications. Steve Blanchard suggests that the NWIS ESC be briefed on sediment and biology data and function needs.
Component Criteria:
There is much ITAC discussion on the question "What is the Total Cost of ownership?" Note that the cost criteria should be higher than the third priority criteria accourding to Scott McEwen and Sandy Williamson.
Isabelle suggests that cost is not a component issue but it is a system (total system or intergrated system) issue. "Ease of Development" may be more important when you start from scratch.
Discussion ensued on Weighting Factors in the Analysis.
Greg Allord noted that Graphics Package Component Criteria is different than the rest with respect to the "cost" criteria.
Some Vendor Centric examples are "Oracle" or "CA (Ingres)" or "MicroSoft". Nelson suggests that mainframe options not be addressed.
AMS is not meeting expectations for NWIS Architecture.
Suggestion is made to cut losses and drop AMS. Especially if this "decision (ORACLE?) is already made". And if the "writing is on the wall (ORACLE)".
AMS is analyzing pros and cons of NWIS Components options.
Sandy Williamson's contracting experience (about $400K) was successful. (use CALPESH).
BASIS contractor is not acceptable, according to Isabelle.
The suggestion is made that the next step be ...
SOME EXTRA COMMENTS:
Sandy's demo of two web mapping front ends used to display where sites sampled for certain types of data linked to the NAWQA data warehouse, one developed by NMD-Denver, using ARC-IMS, and the other by a commercial service using their own software that proposes to charge $1500 per year to entirely operate the mapping web site for NAWQA --He also demoed the pilot back-end feature done with MapInfo to show the distribution of sample results like color coding arsenic results, etc.
Sandy followed by a brief update of other web mapping activities in USGS and discussion. Sandy Williamson's Data Requests:
Not all WRD Districts will receive an "Active Directory" server. If the network fails, then the WRD District will be out of business because users will not be able to login, print, etc. Three issues revolving around "Active Directory":
Karen came into the Survey in the middle of the Lighthouse project, and therefore, doesn.t fully know all these issues. Supposedly, all Divisions had input initially to the Lighthouse Team. At the NRCS meeting a few weeks ago, Karen indicated the ADS direction. If Tom Wood and Steve Blanchard wishes, Karen Siderelis pledges to impose herself in the discussions with Donna Scholz. In good faith, the Lighthouse Team and Karen wants to put forward a plan that doesn't have pitfalls. The GIS Leadership Team, including Steve Blanchard, will have input to the Bureau Enterprise policy and decision making process. The Investment Board and the User Advisory Group will be another part of the communications process.
BASIS PLUS, which would replace AIS, would be owned by APS. The GIO does not own that system and is not being developed by the GIO office. That system would have to subject to the same scrutiny as any other Buruea system. Isabelle indicated that the BASIS PLUS would not provide anywhere near the functionality required to close the books. BASIS PLUS is schedule to be implemented in October, 2002.
Charles Gish, BRD, indicated that there is an information void in the areas of information technology and the information infrastructure.
Doug Posson's presentation on MESC Mission, Prgram and Organization follows: { insert presentation here } followed by:
- 8:00 - 8:30 am -- Oracle
- Oracle Enterprise Edition Database
- Advanced Security
- Diagnostic Pack
- Tuning
- 9i Internet Application Server
- 200 copies of the Internet Development Tool Suite
- TNA application licenses for 100% of USGS employees
- $55K in training credits
- 8:30 - 9:30 -- Scott McEwen presents a FUTCOM update/status ...
- Scott has done nothing to lead the entire effort.
- Regarding the NWIS Architecture Team, Alan has made some progress, through NWIS's activities with the AMS Contract. However, it is not clear that AMS will deliver to our expectations of detail and options.
- Regarding the Large GIS Datasets Team, there was no one available to report.
- For the Remote Training Team, Sandy has lined up Terry Reinitz. Diane Jeffries has recommended Russ Smith in her stead.
- The LAN/WAN Bandwidth Team is dependant upon the other three teams.
- (AI# Sep2001.WY.4) Nelson Williams
and any other ITAC member -- are to provide Steve Blanchard with contractor
contact information by Monday, Sept 17, as
well as a district-based overseer. The ultimate goal is for Steve to secure a
contractor who will research our network performance problems and recommend
improvements, as well as adequate measurement tools and procedures. "Network"
includes components utilized during Cyber Seminars.
- NWIS architecture
Who: NWIS, AMS, Sun_TAC, NT_TAC, Harry House, Steve Brady, Greg Shank
What: Utilize the Babcock/Briggs/Trapanese list of questions/issues - Large GIS data sets
Who: Bob Pierce or designee, Al Rea, Curtis Price, Boyce Blanks, Bob Wakelee, Dave McCullock, Greg Allord
What: Technology requirements for storing and serving - Remote training
Who: Sandy Williamson, Dianne Jeffries, Terry Reinitz, FWS/USDA/FHA rep.
What: Desktop and network requirements - Requirements for LAN & WAN bandwidth
Who: Bob Wakelee, Steve Brady or Greg Shank, Boyce Blanks, Nelson Williams, Terry Reinitz
What: Implications of 1, 2, 3 above, and all other uses (incl. FFS+BASIS+) - 10:00 - 11:00 am -- Action Item Review
- Next meeting:
- Membership rotations and proposed election of ITAC vice-chair
- FutCom
- Spatial-enabled database
- NatWeb status
- IT Reorg
- 11:00 am -- MEETING ADJOURN
Karen Crosby - National Acct. Mgr., Sales (703) 364-2415
karen.crosby@oracle.com
Robin Parrish - Spatial Solution Specialist
Erika Leetmae - Technical Sales Consultant (for DOE)
The USGS contract (customer number 3240139) with Oracle is a 5-year blanket purchase agreement (BPA) for these products:
Additionally, the BPA provides:
The advantage of Oracle Spatial (this requires additional licensing) over Ingres or MySQL, is that Oracle provides geospatial data storage and enhanced SQL statements, enriching SQL for performing geospatial queries, independent of ESRI products or any other GIS. An example would be that NWIS could easily check or populate state, county, zipcode, HUC, etc, based on an entered lat-long. Another example would be that we can add a zipcode search to NWIS web easily. However, ARC coverages can be stored in the same database as, for example NWIS, by utilizing ArcIMS and ArcSDE in conjunction with 9i, thus providing all the benefits of relational database security features for both the NWIS data and GIS coverages. In order to associate our site data (e.g. lat/longs) to street addresses, we would require purchase of a third party geo-coding engine.
Oracle's 9i HTTP server is powered by Apache. It includes Java support (Apache Jserv, JSP, Oracle JVM, etc.), developers kits (XML, etc.), and a PERL interpreter.
One example of Sandy's vision is to perform ad hoc geospatial queries upon the NWIS site file. In fact, all districts are currently licensed to utilize the 5 products listed above, internally. Deployment of external/public access to NWIS, utilizing Oracle 9i, would additionally require purchasing "Power Units" licenses. For performance reasons, it seems necessary to configure multiple servers to perform specialized functions (data base server, Web server, etc.).
Oracle Portal provides a user-friendly tool enabling a non-Web person the power to create and maintain Web pages/sites. The tool is very configurable enabling the administrator to control who can update what pages.
There was much discussion about the audio and network (gateway or wherever) performance problems with the Cyber Seminars.
The FUTCOM plan, as established in a prior meeting is:
No new items for Thursday.
January 15-17 in Carson City, NV
Agenda topics:
Invite Karen Siderelis. If she's unable to attend, arrange conference call.
