• Reference ITAC Chair Letter to the USGS South Dakota District Chief of September 19, 2003

• Brian McCallum welcomed everyone and thanked everyone for a great meeting in the PA District. Brian is the ITAC Chair for this one last meeting. Introductions all around. Brian gave agenda review for this morning's session.

• Presentation on CTO organization and DIS restructure into CTO: Kevin and Katherine --

• The South Dakota District had a lot of presentations and participation at this meeting and they set up a field trip to a stream gage.

Presented by: Dan Fitzpatrick

• Dan Fitzpatrick (DC) welcomed everyone to SD District Office and presented a broad overview of their office and the Districts program.

• Rainfall 13 inches in Northwest corner of state. Nine Indian Reservations in State. Much larger area in Western part of state. Much Federal land in state: Black Hills National Forest; Custer National Forest; Four Nat'l Parks-Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Wind Caves, and Jewel Cave; USFWS areas, some BLM lands too. ¾ million population in SD; Rapid City, 88,000 and Sioux Falls, 164,000.

• Economy

• Tight state budget. Impact of Federal cuts.

• 50 different cooperators: State agencies (Dept. of Natural resources)
  Work with BOR (growing program)
  Badlands & Wind Cave Nat'l Parks programs.
  City Program with Rapid City; city rents the building. DO does work for the city in exchange for the space.

• They do quite a bit of work with the Tribes.

• Current State Water Issues (water use and water rights issues)
  Sediment and Reservoir Eutrophication-two big issues.

• Various water-quality issues.

• Major Programmatic Highlights: Concluded in FY02 the Black Hills Hydrology Study. Some excellent products produced from this study. HA 747 won an award from the National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC)in New Orleans). Continuing work in Karst Hydrology. They have comprehensive network. (Real-time data) Bridge Scour Study.

• Budget includes Coop Program (55%); Federal budget is 1/3, and 10% is with OFAs; 26% coop dollar surcharge... district was able to cope. Brian asked about the GW network? The State does most of the GW monitoring. 17 project wells.

Presented by: Ralph Teller

Rapid Deployment (RD) Gages for Fire Application

Some highlights: Flood crest from 50 cfs to 52,000 cfs in a matter of minutes.

Monsoons from Durango: Whole study revolves around rainfall and runoff. Severely burned areas, stream channels are chunked with debris (ash, sediment). Soil conditions burned; no water retention. Miller and Stevens Creeks were hit badly. Flood control was used in these places. Debris flows were tremendous (over 6 feet of boulders, mud, and tree trunks) from ¾-in rainstorm.

Grizzly Gulch fire: Scour was tremendous; erosion compels the debris flow; it happens instantaneously. Hospital Gulch: It was under 11 minutes from when rain fell to when debris entered hospital! Emergency service personnel have to react in minutes. Turnaround times range from 3-5 min.; this needs to be improved. Telephone transfers immediately but phone lines are not always available. Sandy suggested the look-into satellite phones, although they might be costly.

Battle Creek fire: Burn intensity maps used. EROS coverage. Modeling is involved. Sue Cannon; used data from Missionary Ridge. Installation of equipment is done immediately AFTER the burn but while the fire is still burning in nearby areas.. Twelve-station network built before the fire was completely extinguished. Ralph has been in fire business 16 years (as a firefighter) but the installation of gages to monitor rainfall is higher priority.

Some burned areas have helicopter access only so plastic box isn't necessary to protect equipment. They cost $15,000 each (precip gage telemetry).

It takes almost 3 min. for data to go to Wallops Island. Can turn random over about every 5 minutes. NWIS has timed this and it is currently not the kind of technology to use if you are serious about saving lives (based on the need for less than a 3 minute time to display data to the Web).

USGS does data collection. With MOU, they were able to transfer from Colorado; did station network in under 7 days. Intense!

New science: Deb Martin doing work on fire science Debris Model (#D-1) and water quality.

Is this science or a service: Both, it is science, but also a service because of warning system. Socially relevant? Yes! Lives at stake. Durango, CO, helped out SD DO a lot. Quotes from various state departments and cooperators state that this was "Government at its best!"

Kevin stated that this type of success story needed to not just go to ELT but to DOI. If they saw Bureaus working closely together, they would be inclined to support the effort.

Turnaround time needs to be improved. (This will be addressed later.)

Fact Sheet (FS-037-02) passed around, regarding 1972 Rapid City Flood.

Presented by: Althow/Williamson

• Joyce: the Rapid City IT unit supervisor and backup person for IT staff (25%) presented IT personnel.

• Internal Web page on Sun server. AIS server - still need for TNA; when TNA is replaced sometime in January, AIS will be eliminated.

• Migrating to XP now, from Windows 2000.

• The Graphics machine is strictly for touch-up stuff (Illustrator). Brian asked, "How fast are connections to field offices?" They're adequate...Huron, Sioux Falls, and Pierre.

• They evaluate the servers on a yearly basis, to see if they need to be replaced. NAWQA paid for anything "additional."

• Brenda discussed ergonomic hardware: risers for monitors; special mice; workspace area requests. Their computer documentation is available online. Dragonspeak is used by Ralph to help with his Parkinsons Disease; the software was "free!" Department of Defense (DOD) program funds this.

• Active Directory-They have a local DC but are tied to USGS central AD servers through Sioux Falls.

• Security: There is no way to automate MS Office patches. Many day-to-day activities are not getting done. Margaret Bunch suggested they talk to Lance Collin; they were able to push out Office patches with an application supported by NT-TAC. Are Software Update Services (SUS) reboots affecting users that run overnight jobs? No, they give people a heads up if a patch goes out.

• Brenda is full time; Joyce has worked 45% of her time (instead of the budgeted 20%) on IT issues. They have been overloaded. Doing all they can with SUS and Local Area Network (LAN) Desk to automate patches and software upgrades. Having to support three Web servers now instead of the one they had before: one for internal pages; National Web Server System (NatWeb) content support; and one for their hazards application, which cannot be moved to NatWeb. Their internal Web server is Apache, on their AIS server. Latency in NatWeb too long (15 minute- refresh rate). It's not just a SD issue. Internal Web pages are not allowed in the DMZ. De-Militarized Zones (DMZs) ARE going away. A temporary waiver was requested to get distributed DMZs built. A DMZ is associated with public access; the information being served in the Hazards page is not necessarily "public." This sort of information should be a service network.

• Kevin wanted to know what is meant by supporting NatWeb for public pages. It's supporting content and not the server, plus supporting server configuration-supporting the pages linked to SD site. Some pages are redirected to SD. USGS public pages and internal pages used to be on same machine; redirected to local machine now. Not allowed to have USGS public and internal pages on same server, so they moved them. Many districts are doing this now, with different name schemes too.

• Katherine expressed that these are two separate issues: the need to separate and serve hazards information to the public in a more timely way than NatWeb, and the need to separate internal USGS information from the NWIS data that is to be public. a position paper on serving the hazards data is needed if this is to be raised to a higher level.

• SD was concerned about upgrades to NWIS potentially resulting in a loss of data integrity. After upgrade, you end up with a lot of trash data. Hard to recheck too. Susan recommended that SD send question to the Gnats bug tracking system so that it can be "tracked" by NWIS and the user groups. NWIS teams need to be able to duplicate the error; do not fix data manually.

• TKG2: [G2 replacement = TKG2] Long wait for graphs to print. Print and quit/stop is pretty quick. TKG2 support went down a bit. There is an agenda item on this.

• Hazards/Web issues: Need to provide data faster than NATWEB does; flash flooding adds additional danger. SD is using the old rtwww program to meet this turnaround. It only works with older version of Perl. Fires are larger ones in the last 10 years; compounded by above-normal precip.

• ITAC Overview (5 min.) (McCallum)
  • Brian introduced ITAC members, mission, and special guest for WRD -- ITAC is communications means to get your IT needs met.
• IT Bureau Issues (15 min.) (Gallagher) -- Reference PowerPoint Presentation
• Office of Information (OI) update (10 min.) (Lins)

  • We work with Karen Siderelis-Geographic Information Office but still scratching the surface of issues. We're working collaboratively. Bureau team under Karen Siderelis and the Science Services Support review team of WRD indicated that Bureau-level activities should be at Bureau level if they can serve more than just Water. OI has worked with the GIO and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to identify those functions. As a result, much of DIS went to the GIO office and is a Bureau-level function now. They want to raise our best practices to a Bureau level. OI will focus on Water-specific activities. OI houses EAP, Puente; International Office, Schneider; and WICP, Johnson. Focused on external water information coordination. NWIS is OI's highest priority. Pubs in CAPP is another significant OI program that offers support to the Bureau. With DIS going to Computing Infrastructure Unit in the GIO, the Applications Systems Support Program Office in Water, headed by Charlie Merk will be paying attention to the Water applications infrastructure and will be concerned with those things that might appear to be falling through the cracks. Some of the Water-specific applications are Ingres and S-Plus.

• NWIS Update (10 min.) (Trapanese)

  • NWIS is recognized as a mission-critical program. For past 18 months, NWIS under highest level of scrutiny. Required to report quarterly; lots of paperwork! Thanks to the SD computer staff and SAs nationwide for doing their part to get NWIS Certification and Accreditation (C&A)- Security certification.

    Milestones: NWIS-Real Time (NWIS-RT). Susan explained NWIS-RT, the back-up system for SD, and other districts. End of 9/03, NWISWeb was tied to the NatWeb framework. Three redundant real-time servers now. With respect to NWIS (C&A), each district needed a contingency plan. Templates were made of these documents. List of 24 weaknesses in all of NWIS (i.e. public servers on same network as mission-critical info servers). These were mitigated by the deadline and all of NWIS was successfully certified.

    Bureau Security Officer has formed a team that will be performing audits of all NWIS systems. Four sites were evaluated (IA, AK, OR, & Miami) as part of the certification process; 44 more have to be done.by June 2004. Four districts who did it: FL. Future releases: Patch 3; at 6 sites 10/20.NWIS likes to avoid patch releases, but this one is needed to improve publication workflow issue, and some security fixes. NWIS Database Admin. class coming up. Course material linked off NWIS pages. New SWUDS release will be 2/04; released 4/04. Need careful guidelines because of potential security issues with the release of the Windows client application.

• Q&A from District Staff: (11:00 am - 11:30 am)
  1. Are there plans to consolidate databases or will we keep running parallel systems? (NWIS, EPA-STORET, Weather Service) Susan: First-to address the EPA STORET question. NWIS is a database and a workflow application - STORET does not have capability of capturing and storing real-time data and is missing other needed basic workflow functionality that is part of NWIS discussions via Office of Surface Water (OSW) improve partnering with Weather Service. We should focus on being able to combine/share data from other systems where it makes sense. You don't want to duplicate efforts; but it isn't always feasible to try to make someone else's system fit your business needs. Susan pointed out that Robert Mason, OSW, is leading the coordination with the Weather Service.
  2. What is the status of SLEDS (Sediment Laboratory Environmental Data System)? Sandy said he's had 12 conference calls with people. SLEDS program currently working. 600 parameter codes were added to NWIS. SLEDS group could use some users to test the new version in the next month or two. No mechanism for sending the data out yet. We should follow model for NWQL. Steve Blanchard has claimed ownership of this ($15,000 being put into it). It's on the radar scope now, at least; major players are all talking with each other now. "Re-entering data is ridiculous." KY's lab has the best paper format. The group will have a common format soon.
  3. What is being done with handheld equipment? Charlie will be giving a talk this week; please join us. This FY04 we will focus on standardization of operating system. SD is interested in buying some handhelds. We are at a point now where we can transfer data from a gage station (via phone line) and retrieve it via a laptop and T-Mobile wireless network while sitting at Starbucks! There are two different applications: the surface water applications runs on Palm, and the ground-water application on Pocket PC. FY04 we will port both applications to Pocket PC. Palm is about $150. Current meter digitizers can be used on Pocket PC now.
  4. Could you give us a preview of new report series? Greg Allord mentioned the Bureauwide series will be available by January 2004. Water-Resources Investigations Report (WRIR) will be transformed to a scientific investigations report. We are still retaining Open-File Reports (OFRs) and Fact Sheets. There will be a data series: tabular data vs. scientific investigations. This will not affect Annual Data Reports (ADRs). The ADR is not going away. Map report will replace HA. Our review process will stay. However, approving officials will be at the Bureau level, delegated to Regional Reports Specialists. BRD will hire full-time Regional Reports Specialists.
  5. Is there a new digital data series? Greg said there isn't one. Series are content driven, not media driven. DDS will fade into the background. Techniques series now for the Bureau (no longer Techniques of Water-Resources Investigations-TWRI). Water's series are used as models. The Bureau will drop the "W" and call it "TRI". We had over 40 series of reports; now we're down to 11. A fact sheet is a fact sheet; not an information sheet. No problem getting report numbers now (through the Report Numbering System-RNS). Pubs 2003 will be the Bureau conference in November in Denver.
  6. Security is causing huge overhead.Should districts be planning on more people working on these issues? Kevin: There's no straight answer for this. DOI/OMB have network security scorecard. These metrics are hanging around and will change the way we do business. Big emphasis on Capital Planning; identify all IT investments and make them visible. OMB took IT money away this FY and will not restore it. The FY '05 budget put forth for IT security was found favorable; it's at the OMB review stage. Budget is 3-year cycle. We are spending FY04 funds and planning for FY05 & FY06. We are still in a reactionary mode now. When our scorecard is "higher," IT cost will be steadier. NWIS is one of the few IT systems that did a good job on the Capitial Planning documentation and was NOT cut.
  8. Is Lotus going to be replaced by MS Exchange? Kevin said we're working to redirect DOI efforts to better meet your needs. Instead of jumping to a specific vendor, we recommended an RFP that states what we want: less servers, ubiquitous e-mail system; calendaring function; collaboration tools; etc..The RFP will go out for vendors to compete. There are three different ways vendors can bid-they know we are 95% Lotus shop and that the bid would have to include training for all employees. They can bid only a product, or only on services. Kevin can't imagine another vendor coming in with a bid other than for Lotus.
  9. Brian thanked the District staff for time and for participating in the town meeting.

Presented by: Ralph Teller
Ralph demonstrates voice recognition software, which helps with his disability

To obtain Disabilities hardware and software, like Dragonspeak, headsets, etc., at no cost to employee, contact:

DoD-CAP Computer/Electronics Accommodations Program Office
TRICARE Management Activity
5111 Leesburg Pike, Five Skyline Place, Suite 810
Falls Church, VA 22041-3206
1-703-681-8813
Jerome Lyons 1-703-998-0800 ext. 13
Jeffrey Dallos, USGS Human Resources Initiatives (HRI) Office - Reston

In many cases, you will need a doctor's note (for example, for carpal tunnel syndrome)

With Dragonspeak software, you initiate the system to your dictation style. You can train it to recognize/write acronyms. It works on Excel, Word, Lotus text, and can sense the difference between a number, amount, dollar amounts, etc.

Presented by: ITAC members
Expected outcome: Ensuring District needs are covered at meeting

• Five issues:

  1. Hazard Delivery and speed
  2. Security issues
  3. NWIS problems
  4. TkG2 issues
  5. Increasing IT support concerns
  6. Internal USGS pages

  Issue #1: Katherine had suggested creating a white paper on this. To Help sites judge whether a Web page is public or if it just needs to be available to specific cooperators.

  Susan mentioned that from DCP transmission to NWISWeb display, we may be able to cut 4 min. off this since the NWIS to NWISWeb transmission is currently every 5 minutes.but there are other processes that require time to complete, such as Automatic Data Processing System (ADAPS) processing, that may be difficult to speed up. Brian asked about Video High Frequency (VHF)? It's instantaneously received. Can't limit ourselves to Geostationary Observation Environmental Satellite (GOES). Susan said that Emergency Management Systems normally notify the public of an emergency via TV and radio. We need to focus on the system to alert the Emergency Management services-not the public.

  Kevin mentioned DOI has a Special Designation, Critical Infrastructure Protection. Earthquakes and stream gages should be part of this structure. We don't have a hazards mission for water right now. We want to supply data to people who are the responders. We should do an Interagency proposal for project to show we are working with other agencies (for example, FEMA and NWS). Counties and cities too. Brian mentioned on a national scale, it's got to be FEMA; let them worry about trickling down to states and cities. Do we make recommendations? Katherine said that the Office of Surface Water would be the one to do that and build a business case; Web people from districts too. Need to identify places that have hazard systems like this. LA, GA, and NJ has them. Susan is concerned that critical infrastructure designation will require much more security measures and system hardening than we currently perform (and a lot more paperwork). Kevin said fire science was identified as a cross cutting business of DOI. Most of our bureaus are involved with fire science. This is not what NWIS was designed for. Need to look at investment in infrastructure. Get visibility as part of fire science. (crosscutting). Katherine said you need to document business need if we expect to get a waiver to maintain these systems at Districts.

  (AI) - Scott: Develop a draft of the white paper that would support the findings for hazard info delivery issue that can't be met by centralized servers at this time. Document the requirements talked about earlier. Katherine said we're serving different Federal agencies differently. Scott suggested using SD's hazard project as a model. Delivery time is so short. If this problem is solved here, the solution might fit elsewhere.

  Jeff Stoner suggested a slight modification draft to include a cost-benefit discussion because actual real-time information may not be justified everywhere across the Nation.

  AI - Oct2003.SD.1: Brian-Draft an issue paper to define the limitations of the current real-time hydrologic data delivery system within the scope of hydrologic warning, raise awareness to the impact of these limitations, and explore cost-effective options to remove these limitations to allow for truly real-time data presentation. The South Dakota District will be used as a model to define the needs and requirements of a real-time data delivery system.

  Issue #6:

  Internal Web pages: Location must be determined according to sensitivity of data. The Dept. wants publicly accessible data separated out from internal data. Sandy stated that Lorna had written back to him and that 6 of the 60 sites on NatWeb are internal. She also explained why NatWeb is hosting internal sites.

  AI - Oct2003.SD.2: Kevin-Lorna to propose an enterprise solution for securely serving internal Web pages using NatWeb.

  Kevin said that NatWeb should host publicly accessible stuff. Nelson suggested a standard naming convention be drafted for internal pages.

  Issue #2:
  AI - Oct2003.SD.3: Jessie - Verify if NFS mounts are allowed between the Main District office and their tail circuits, which have no other outlet to the Internet.

  Jessie: Are we allowed to use NFS between a field office and its main District office? Send SAs clarification on when it is acceptable to use NFS and when it is not. Determine if converting hazards page from http to https will solve the issue of having to maintain a public Web server in the DMZ.

  Issue #3:
  Data Integrity Report--NWIS upgrade problems: Susan Trapanese said issues need to be entered into the NWIS problem tracking-for follow-up, assessment and correction.

  AI - Oct2003.SD.4: Joel-Data Transfer or integrity issues following previous NWIS upgrade. Joel will follow-up on the South Dakota data integrity problems; a Problem Report number (from NWIS Gnats) should have been issued. Joel will check on its status and report back to NWIS, Surface Water User Group, and ITAC.

  Issue #5:
  There was some discussion regarding the continued computing infrastructure support from the CTO rather than DIS. Katherine said ITAC would monitor the level of satisfaction and share our concerns. ITAC should always invite GIO. Need to continue to expect support. Kevin committed to that at PA ITAC meeting.

  AI - Oct2003.SD.5: Greg-Brenda Althow of SD recommended investigating Alexandria software to the USGS Libraries. Greg explore the use of Alexandria software with Chief Librarian.

  --Review of Pending Action Items

  Outstanding Action Items:

  AI - Jun2003.PA.2: Jessie sent the e-mail on SPLUS and G2 but Jim Slack has been busy working on the release of an SPLUS library. Jessie should talk with Joyce Williamson; she is here in SD. Jessie will get in touch with Dan and suggest he to write to Joyce. Jim does not have experience with G2 but Joyce does. Sandy: How about cyber seminar to teach people about SPLUS? The existing class takes 2 days and it's complicated.

  AI - Jun2003.PA.7: Katherine: Selection of new ITAC members Nelson came through with; a number of names. He suggested people with more than Webmaster skills. District Chief rep? Jim Nicolas, MI DC-from Cathy Hill. Jeff Stoner is now permanent member of ITAC (CR). Completed

  Jun2003.PA.10:
  Sandy: SLEDS user group. Sandy putting users on the test group list. Sandy is succeeding with this effort. Link to OSW Web page? [Is this one completed?]

  AI - Feb2003.PR.5:
  Greg: Got an opinion on it. Will go to GIPO. Still open. Curtis can speak to this. Oracle Spatial not complete.

  AI - Feb2003.PR.14:
  Sandy: Oracle role. WRD Oracle implementation update. Sandy will follow up on this action item with Alan. Harry House is asking to play a role here. He's asked Siderelis on this. Ask Harry to do this. (Kevin agreed to fund at least 30K for DBTAC folks.) Action: CTO-Have Bureau Oracle support person. Sandy and Kevin will talk together. Maybe work on PR.5 with Greg... two AI's merged into one AI to implement a Bureau oracle implementation plan along with DBTAC.

  Jan2002.Cyber2:
  Jessie: AI is about phone telemetry. If you're database is down, how do you process non- GOES data? Status: Illinois willing to be a test site (not Ohio). DONE. Charlie talked with Hydstra people; they have a program that may help us standardize the program that pulls non-GOES data. Scott said we don't own Hydstra program yet. Charlie said Hydstra suggested just demonstrating. Jessie will introduce IL to Hydstra. Susan said we still need NWIS. Hydstra is just a delivery system. This issue is now on SWUG's agenda; no longer ITAC's. NWIS-RT will set up the depot; won't provide the contingency system for the "acquisition" of non-GOES real-time data, only its processing in NWIS. Cost of long-distance calls, software licenses, timeframe for migration, and method of securely transferring data to an NWIS-RT depot still needs to be weighed/resolved once the Hydstra evaluation is done. Completed

  Sep2002.AL.20:
  Jessie: DOI just sent out a draft wireless policy last month. It's out of our control. At least we now know they are not banning wireless. The Dept. can write their guidelines. Jessie wants Districts to know they are allowed to use wireless technology. Kevin asked if ITAC's promoting use of wireless. Cheryl: Tim Lee is working on guidelines for Central Region (CR) which define an implementation strategy. These things have to be coordinated Bureauwide. ONE e-mail from CI to everyone stating: You are allowed; not promoted but permitted, w/guidelines to secure it. Cheryl will send what Tim Lee is working on to ITAC. Tim's document should be combined with DOI's guidelines and sent out by Kevin. Cheryl... Need ITAC person as lead (Jessie)-pending

  Jan.2002.NV.6: -- Scott McEwen, Loren Kloft, Jessie Alvarez and Brian McCallum

  Archiving-Out of our control now (Brian). Katherine - A Records Management Team will be looking at NWIS. It's complete. Being taken over. COMPLETE

  Expected Outcome: Progress update

Presented by: Brian McCalum

• Awards for outgoing members (Williams)
  • Letter of thanks for outgoing member (Nelson Williams and Brian)
  • Highest percentage of action items completed!
  • Grady was sent something already.
• Status on the selection of new members
  • New Webmaster ITAC member - Sonya Sebre
  • New District Chief ITAC member- Jim Nichols
• Selection of FY 2004 Vice Chair -- Sonya Jones will be Chair. The Vice Chair should be a District Chief. Vice Chair has to be with ITAC for 2 years. Hardest part of Chair and Vice Chair's job is putting the agenda together, and keeping the meeting running. Jeff Stoner and Jim Nichols, the two District Chiefs, will decide among themselves who will be Vice Chair.

• EGIS: History, why important, how it fits in

• Data is in these stovepipes not geocoded and duplicated among Biologic, Geographic, Hydrologic, and Geologic Disciplines. Can't serve data easily if it's not geocoded. EGIS is DOI effort now. Bob Pierce is coordinating GIS Day is Nov. 19-20.

• EGIS wants to establish centrally managed infrastructure. Data comes together in the geospatial one-stop, Geodata.gov Web site.

• We have an Enterprise ESRI licensing through 2005. Bob Pierce is the USGS representative for DOI group. EGIS has to be plugged into NatWeb.

• Demo of Seamless server: Curtis showed real features; export data; good for internal users, but not adequately secure, yet. Feature service. Dave accesses data from NWISWeb. They're experimenting with feature services. The National Map is a Seamless Data Distribution System Viewer. It serves elevation info (SRTM) to public-not just internal. After 9-11, important to get imagery of certain urban areas right away. This is data.not just imagery. It'll cover 80% of U.S. population when finished next year. Dave said you can go right into Photoshop or can bring it up on ArcExplorer. Once you pull it in, it's your data. GIS analysis can be done on the server.

• Streamstats demo: OSW is funding Stream Stats project; it uses Digital Raster Graphics (DRGs). Flow line from Digital Elevation Model (DEM) doesn't always line up with DRGs. They got a lot of help from the Earth Science Research Institute (ESRI). Lots of GIS layers can be displayed. Idea is to have this as a national application. Users do not have to know anything about GIS. We're giving people "the answer" getting Basin statistics. Would normally take 2 weeks to do. Jeff Stoner said simply because we're making it easier for people to use, does not make USGS any less liable for any misuse of information. Users will tend to overuse USGS credentials to support their (unintentional) misuse. Need more "user-beware" or user responsibility statements in these things.

Presented by: Dave Greenlee

"Every district should not do this from scratch." Greenlee-serving up ~2,000,000 maps/week. Scott asked how can ITAC get word out about what Dave is doing. The whole geospace data module should be exposed to this. NWIS data is a feature service.

AI - Oct2003.SD.6: Scott will coordinate Cyber seminar on seamless data server.

Dave mentioned that Lorna was talking about reverse proxies but that they would only be good for a year because the DMZs were going away. Jessie clarified that if a site uses reverse-proxies, then the Web server can be inside your private LAN-no need for a DMZ. Lorna is looking at establishing central reverse proxies for Arc Internet Map Server (ArcIMS). Dave questions if reverse proxies can handle cranking out 10M maps/month now.

Making a map from the data is easy. Susan concerned that there are local and proprietary site designations and attributes that deal with Homeland security. Dave Briar has communicated these restrictions to NMD folks who are accessing the NWIS/NWISWeb site file.

Dave wants to have continuous operation like NatWeb. Sandy said that unless people see the value of this, you're not going to get the resources you need.

Oct2003.SD.7: Sonya- Get dates for February ITAC meeting and June meeting.

CANCELLED

CANCELLED

ITAC Goals were reviewed and revised to the following 2004 Goals (Group referred to ITAC Web page - 2003 ITAC Goals)

Oct2003.SD.8: Katherine-Invite Karen Klima to next ITAC meeting, to give update on Enterprise Web.

WRD Office of Information (Lins) -- Tom Wood and Katherine served on a bureau team and identified those things that should be at Enterprise level, and which ones should stay at WRD. Geographic Information Program Office (GIPO) were the first WRD staff to go to GIO. Kevin inherited what was once ISD, some people from Director's office and APS.

GIO (Gallagher) -- In FY04, GIO plans to complete reorganization of "bureau-like" IT activities GIO also has to show progress in IT Help Desk Project. Local staff could still help local users, but would have to use Bureau tracking system for all IT problems. (DOI is expecting everyone to use same software.) Strategy on selection of software is still an outstanding issue. Cheryl said USFWS had customized Lotus Notes. Kevin mentioned that Office Automation (OA) Technical Support is done by the same people in Reston. Lotus group takes calls; Windows group takes calls; Network people don't have a specific service level agreement.You can get bounced around. He wants to "decouple" these things, and create a call center that is a small set of people to track problems it to their resolution. Kevin wants to see OA do a better job of serving those who are having problems at their desks.

GIO will not manage IT functions that are program-specific.

<Katherine-- Work with Kevin Gallagher to e-mail memo explaining the move of WRD personnel from DIS to GIO. Katherine will send e-mail to all of WRD.- COMPLETED - 10/9/03 -- Reference Katherine's email message

Kevin: IT funding for FY05 will come out of GIO's line-item budget. Is there a point where science centers will see effect on overhead charges? Kevin said the budget cycle hasn't caught up. If FY'05 initiative is successful, there will be a big reduction in assessments. Total budget for USGS won't change. Same amount of money will be distributed across all the disciplines. Katherine noted that even though there are savings in IT support going to the Bureau, there may not be overall savings across all overhead items because of other enterprise activities also going to the Bureau level.

Jeff Stoner stated that one of the suggestions from the Science Support Services Committee (commissioned by WRD senior staff) was to maintain the level of IT staffs. In other words, the headquarters IT staff size should not increase at the expense of field science staff.

Nelson: Less money going to science now, following the reorganization. Kevin said we're on a fixed budget, and costs are going up. Unfunded mandates, enterprise agreement, security... Science isn't science unless you publish. That costs money. Katherine said that BJ Bour will continue to provide Unix support to Water HQ users (and NWIS systems at HQ) while in WRD Applications Systems Support Program.

WRD employees still contact former DIS personnel. If Water-specific question, contact Katherine or Charlie; they will find you the right person.

Wireless issue is pending. No policy coming out.

Presented by: Kevin Gallagher
Expected outcome: ITAC update

The subject of an 8/26/03 e-mail from Scott McEwen to Kevin Gallagher was discussed, about the meeting in Denver to discuss the identification, prioritization, and management of the various IT projects impacting USGS.

Discussion:

Kevin is trying to build an enterprise approach to Patch management and an asset information/inventory. Scott feels we need to stop hitting SAs with time-cost stuff (i.e. desktop hardening. Should discuss due dates, costs that go back out to the field (hardening & AD stuff). Kevin stated that 14 DOI initiatives were identified that are major investments in IT that have a lot of visibility. Problems shouldn't have get worse before you fix them.

Jessie: We need to reduce the number of data calls, and use existing resources before asking the field vulnerability scanning, as administrators of central servers for information (Blackberry); get information from firewall configs. We need to prioritize IT initiatives. For example, desktop hardening cannot happen until we have a centralized SUS servers structure. One thing depends on another.

Scott recommended three stages: Identify the projects; define the dependencies; and link the communications (teams). Brian asked if a Web page can be created, listing SA activities that need to be done.

Kevin said in order to implement System Management Server (SMS), you have to open up a hole in the firewall across the entire USGS. It's a huge effort. Nelson feels that whenever there is a data call, people need to know what is involved-Is the data call really necessary? Kevin suggested they should limit authority as to who can make a data call, to come from Kevin or Karen. Data calls should have unique identifiers with a unique number-a template and clear due date.

Sandy said if you develop a Web-accessible database to enter the data call info, you have to provide value to the user, or they won't use it.

Charlie mentioned the Y2K project; they bought a package that discovered everything. Not easy to learn and run it. It was done remotely. Had every rev no.; knew which routers to replace. We probably still own the software.

Nelson said his District put 6% of budget into IT. What is a recommended percentage? Desktop computers come out of project costs. WRD cost recovery for NC is around $150K. About 30% of budget goes to cost recovery. Discretionary spending is hardware.

Kevin suggested having an IT summit meeting, with DOI people and ITAC. What does group think of this idea? Would it be a valuable exercise that he can bring to the CTO? Scott said prior to this, we need to identify all the projects involved and define dependencies among IT projects. Then at summit, prioritize importance of projects and areas where some groups need to be pulled together (make them more cohesive).

Cheryl suggested developing an IT plan for the year, so cost centers can relay to SAs, and they can plan their time for the year.

Katherine said there must be dialog across disciplines. Need to start out with a plan that everyone buys into. We may be able to speak up to Bureau as a team. Need to first define issues that need to be addressed and get Kevin's support groups "staffed."

Kevin said Cheryl's idea is good.Who's going to lead them? Need to first prioritize the projects, then assign, etc.

Ask DOI for their planning calendar, or we can present our calendar to them.

Jessie: Has more things for "the list":

• Elimination of Distributed DMZs - Has to happen within a year. Research of reverse proxies needs to be communicated to SAs.
• AD migration is an issue-high priority?
• Replacement of NWIS servers; (Cheryl suggested that Regional and discipline priorities should both weigh into prioritization.)
• XP upgrades

AI - Oct2003.SD.9: Jessie-Will find out deadline for elimination of distributed DMZs. Is it February 2004, a year from waiver request, or August 2004, a year from DMZ implementation?

AI - Oct2003.SD.10: Scott McEwen and Jessie-Will work with Charlie Merk or Katherine Lins to get memo out about DMZ futures by end of November 2003.

Kevin wrote down ITAC's issues and recommendations to be addressed by the GIO.
ITAC voted unanimously to hold an IT summit.

Katherine -- We'll be asking for coordinated and consolidated plan from the CTO, so that it reaches across the organization. If a summit is involved, we can fine-tune that later. Cheryl said the results of summit would go to GIOLT.

Presented by: Greg Allord
Expected outcome: ITAC briefing of WRD issues with:

• Reports Workshop
• Publications Warehouse
• Competitive Sourcing

Illustrator and InDesign, Acrobat Pro, Version Q (can include metadata) will be on every reports person's machine: You can still buy individual licenses if you want, but it's worth getting suite.

• Don't release new science in a fact sheet series. Fact Sheets are for outreach kind of thing.

InDesign and structured documents class: Still struggling with fonts.

289 FTE involved in study. As of 9/30/03, waiting for decision from Director before we can move on. Competitive sourcing is still there; quota portion is gone. We won every competition with Buildings & Grounds. No one replaced with contractors.

Greg feels we should drop Management modules in RTS.will have to come from Basis. Very few districts are using management component. Katherine says to identify someone to work on it. Can let Oracle thing happen by itself? Talk to someone who understands Oracle licensing issues. Sandy said you will need a small group of 1-3 people that will be key managers of this project.

Presented by: Susan Trapanese
Expected outcome: Action items to inform Districts

NWIS security team reviewed 4 of the 48 systems: AK, Miami, Oregon, and Iowa. BITSM then reviewed these systems for the C&A. BITSM has team to do the reviews. Susan showed Jessie the NWIS ST&E plan pointed out the official BITSM review team. Jessie and Scott suggested that Water's Regional Computer Specialists (RCSers) should do the district pre-reviews before the BITSM review team does the official review. The NWIS Security Review Team was able to conduct interviews in about an hour for each for the 4 sites they pre-reviewed.

NWIS has added security into test plans. ADAPS-always difficult to adequately test this since types of data and functionality are complex.

Scott asked what % of documentation-type activities are done. Susan said NWIS and user groups want to immediately start practices they defined.They're going to try to run through this process for the August maintenance release (2004). NWISWeb Team did not have a chance to participate in the process improvement activities due to release of NWIS-RT and NWISWeb into NatWeb-which was their TOP priority. Now the process improvements are their top priority, per NWIS Executive Steering Committee (ESC).

Presented by: McCallum/Hall
Reference PowerPoint Presentation here

Barry Hill, Asst. District Chief, was on the phone from Hawaii. Pulls data from NWIS to use in the software package. Finds descriptors defined as primary. Excludes shore ice and ice-cover conditions. Susan explained that the Australian system does not directly link to the database; NWIS developed the interface to the NWIS database.

Brian said that the Australians do not currently "shift" their data. Susan noted that this project is being lead and managed by NWIS. The Surface Water User Group (SWUG) has been involved since the beginning and helped develop the CTA. Specific obligations/functionality are set by the CTA. The CTA is for rating/shift analysis only. The software is being "piloted" in three districts under the auspices of the SWUG/NWIS: GA, CA, and ME.

Brian's folks in GA were impressed with the capabilities, to create and adjust ratings. They will be testing it 6 months. Ratings development a very good tool. Shift application is hard when you're reviewing the records. Getting/pushing data from NWIS can be slow.

Although he has only had an hour's exposure to the entire commercial suite, Barry is very positive about it, especially for ratings development and shift analysis. It's different from ADAPS. It doesn't store unit values the same way. But this can be changed. It really doesn't store any unit values. Data storage requirements would be a lot less.worth considering. Overall, positive impression. Scott asked if it is an alternative to NWIS. Barry answered it can replace what we're using now, but for now he sees it as a backup alternative.

Charlie said they talked with him about the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) project. Could not load up a velocity rating in GA. Maine also favorably impressed. California-Likes the idea of the graphic user interface.

CTA: Susan, NWIS, discussed strategy-No financial benefit to support multiple ways of doing the same thing. If the CTA is successful and SWUG accepts the Hydstra rating/shift application, NWIS would want to remove any duplicate functionality.

Brian mentioned that the software company is the standard in Australia. Colleen went to their Users Conference and talked to many of the product users from around the world.

Barry said that the Cooperator is not planning on purchasing this software now.

Curtis: Someone should write a DB program and bring up the NWIS points. Show a map! Spatial technology can be pulled right into it. Susan expressed the NWIS ESC 's Philosophy that we do not want to use the Hydstra database in place of NWIS. Susan also wanted to present the NWIS ESC philosophy on the use of COTS for NWIS-like functionality but no one expressed interest.

Presented by: Williams

Short Explanation of Topic- On September 16, 2003, a letter went from NWIS Management to the WRD SA community demanding the immediate installation of ESM software on all NWIS servers, as required by the Bureau Information Technology Security Manager (BITSM). The deadline was short, the ESM software was untested, the ESM software was rolled out into the production environment without a risk assessment being performed, and the BITSM shared no information about the rationale for the mandate.

Relevance to ITAC's goals- Consistent with ITAC FY03 Goal 1, to ensure that the interests of the customers of the Water Resources Discipline (WRD) are represented and served during the Bureau's evolution by improving communication between the Bureau and ITAC constituents. Also with ITAC FY03 Goal 2, to monitor and communicate information about a major software rollout.

Expected Outcome- Two letters: (1) To the WRD SA community from Katherine Lins urging patience, reminding them of the proper channels for resolving perceived technical issues, and communicating (again) the reasons for installation of this product; and (2) To the BITSM Chief from the ITAC Chief asking for an explanation of the rationale for the decision to mandate use of this software, why the deadlines were so short that the software couldn't be tested, and a statement encouraging the BITSM to feel comfortable communicating directly with the WRD SA community. More and more timely communications could have prevented some of the frustrations being felt by both WRD SA's and the technical contacts for the ESM software.

Proposed AI/Recommendation verbiage: Two letters to be drafted and to be reviewed by the technical contacts for ESM - B.J. Bour and Mike McNally- then distributed to ITAC prior to the Oct 7-9 meeting. Richard Hollway and Jim Morris should also be asked to take a look at the draft letters prior to distribution. Following are some "ESM thoughts" Nelson composed and distributed regarding these two letters: Points to make in an OI letter to WRD SAs:

1. There have been problems with ESM, and because testing is occurring during implementation, there will continue to be problems. Please report perceived problems to GS-GIO ESM, with a courtesy copy to GS-W NWIS Security. Problem reports to all other system administrators aren't necessary.
2. There were pressures to install ESM before it was thoroughly tested, and before service level agreements and risk assessments could be developed.
3. The BITSM was following directions from DOI in requiring installation of the ESM software in order to certify NWIS servers. DOI feels that the independent verification of security on mission-critical systems is necessary to meet Federal laws and NIST guidelines.
4. The OI is working with the BITSM and the GIO's Office as an advocate for NWIS and WRD system administrators in an effort to avoid or reduce problems generated by similar mandates.

Points to make in an ITAC letter to the BITSM:

1. Our NWIS servers are production, mission-critical systems. The information contained on them helps ensure public safety and protection of property. As such, continuity of operations is of paramount importance.
2. It isn't in the public's best interest to install untested software on mission-critical systems.
3. Installation of software on a mission-critical system without first developing a risk assessment for that software seems to be in conflict with the goal of making mission-critical systems more secure.
4. Creating dependence on the support of ESM software by our system administrators without first developing and adopting service level agreements isn't conducive to low stress or high morale for anyone involved.
5. NWIS security personnel (GS-W NWIS Security) don't feel that Symantec's consultants understand the needs and concerns of NWIS personnel. We ask that BITSM take an active role in making sure that Symantec's consultants are working to appreciate and accommodate the needs of NWIS during the implementation of ESM.
6. Be aware that there are problems yet to be resolved with ESM deployment. With this in mind, WRD system administrators should be told ahead of time before an ESM scan is run, and after the fact, so they can make sure there are no runaway processes on their NWIS servers.
7. We encourage the BITSM to communicate with our SAs directly, and to rely upon their opinions. WRD's SA community is one of this Bureau's greatest assets; their expertise gives our Bureau a comparative advantage over other entities in DOI. The BITSM could benefit from constructive, two-way communications with WRD SAs.

It was suggested that the ITAC letter might be taken more seriously if it came from district chiefs rather than from the ITAC Chief. The feeling was that the district chiefs are the stakeholders in issues related to NWIS; they are on the front lines in ensuring the public's interests are met.

Notes: Nelson thinks this issue may be a very good tool for our needs, but it was introduced as a textbook case on how not to implement software. Hurricane Isabel came after installation of the software.

There were unproductive e-mails from SAs and negative reactions to the way it was released and lack of documentation. Government and BITSM regulations required by DOI were not followed. Processes ran away on local NWIS servers. A process started scanning for passwords, and it was taking 25% of Nelson's CPU.

1. ESM support personnel did not know that a scan had been run. ITAC needed to talk about this. Software had not been properly tested, and no risk assessment was done. The BITSM office thought that NWIS had tested the software. The Bureau mandated the use of this software package for all mission-critical systems-Why should NWIS do the tests? Consultants from SYMANTEC were supposed to be available 2 days; it was more like 2 hours.

2. Letter to BITSM needs to come from District Chiefs and State. Don't install software on mission-critical systems, and make sure they don't interfere with their processing. Symantec needs to understand concerns of NWIS.

Susan stated the NWIS security team can test the installation, not the functionality. Testing needs to be done to insure that the functionality meets the requirements. NWIS has no idea what those are. This sort of testing belongs at the "enterprise level" since ESM will be required for all major IT systems, not just NWIS.

ESM is supposed to be testing security. It fell apart somewhere. Runaway processes really do need to be addressed. Making changes to the system "on the fly" caused this problem. The BITSM office is scheduling cyber seminars in November.

AI - Oct2003.SD.11: Nelson-ITAC to send letter to Karen Siderelis regarding EMS situation. Letter to Karen should focus on service level agreement (SLA).

Kevin will document ITAC's concern and send it to the GIO.

Kevin said the software should have been tested before implemented; testing should be function of BITSM.

ITAC in agreement about the second letter Nelson proposed.

Presented by: Williams

Short Explanation of Topic: Over the past six months, several security-related data calls have been issued by Regional Security Managers. What's going on?

Discussion: Receiving request from BITSM who receives from DOI

• No one is tabulating this info in USGS.

• One data call had a 3-hour deadline. It had terrible response, and a letter to chew SAs out was sent 2 hours later).

• Kevin has said that data calls are going to be limited...a finite group of people will field the calls. He agreed that it would be nice if someone in the Survey tabulated this and reported back in the field.

• Sandy suggested that sampling be done so that the same people are not burdened.

Presented by: Scott McEwen
Expected outcome: Decision/action to form and launch the DB_TAC.

Scott feels we need technical help from a group of database experts. We need someone who knows contractual details. This group would help the person who has to manipulate all this data.Group would provide guidelines on database, and advice how to jumpstart themselves.

Jessie commented that this group could assist with the design. Harry House had approached WRD at one time, and wanted to provide this sort of service. Jessie got ERI team to agree that we needed this help. (Disclaimer that this function should eventually be provided by the Bureau.)

Joel said we do not encourage creating your own databases. A lot of databases in CA are totally redundant to NWIS.

AI - Oct2003.SD.12: Scott-To write a charter for the DBTAC. (Kevin offered $30,000 to fund the DB user group.)

Presented by: Jessie Alvarez

Short Explanation of Topic: Moving NWISWeb servers to the DMZ created various problems. Some have been resolved. Others will require approval from the BITSM. Vague definition "public" servers have lead to inconsistency of how policies are being enforced/applied to the Lotus servers vs. the NWIS servers and other servers at District Offices.

Relevance to ITAC's goals: Goal 1: Bullet 8: Advise the Bureau and our constituents of ongoing issues with the implementation of increased IT security at the Bureau level.

Expected Outcome: Decide if any of the DMZ issues is of great concern and submit a formal memo to the BITSM.

Proposed AI/Recommendation verbiage: Memo to the BITSM requesting:

• permission to temporarily by-pass a security policy or
• a request the BITSM approve an amendment to the policy or
• a request to establish a USGS policy on a specific issue.

The approach depends on which DMZ issues ITAC decides to address.

ITAC is formally requesting that the BITSM grant WRD a waiver to continue to . We have researched other means to work around this problem but have not found an adequate solution. Since the distributed DMZ infrastructure is temporary in nature, we find that is not cost effective to invest in equipment to resolve this problem.

Jessie sent questions to BITSM in August but has not received answers to questions. How do we pursue this? Questioning BITSM hasn't worked.

Outstanding DMZ issues:

• The Lotus servers are allowed to have ssh (port 22) open to the world but WRD offices are not allowed to have that port open to "any" on NWIS servers. SAs can only make ssh available to cooperators that have static IPs.

• Citrix (ICA port 1494) connectivity and PCAnywhere offer 128-bit encryption. They are used by flexiplace employees to access data stored locally on their PCs or on servers. Users are having to connect to the VPN servers to then access these services. The Lotus servers are allowed to have this sort of service open to the world but other servers are not.

• DOI guidelines state that internal and public data cannot be on the server that is in the DMZ. Sites do not have servers available to create an additional Web server. If we ensure that internal pages do not contain sensitive data and are restricted to usgs.gov hosts, would you consider allowing internal and public data to be on the same server until sites are able to migrate to NatWeb and NWISRT? ITSOT and NatWeb are researching a possible solution to this issue, proxy servers.

Kevin said they are interviewing people now for the BITSM's position. This position will report to Karen.

DMZ issues resolved:

• DOI guidelines state that backups cannot be done through the router. Sites have moved the NWISWeb servers out to the DMZ and have no way to back them up. ITSOT and Sun TAC do not see eye to eye on this issue but Sun TAC has documented a way to tunnel backups through ssh. Network performance could be affect but Sun TAC's advise is to only backup the OS partitions not Data. They will run these back ups at night.
• Mark Farmer could not move an in-house web (https) application to the DMZ. McNally found in the DOI guidelines that SSL (https) was allowed into the private LAN.
• Autorpm, used to automatically install packages onto Unix systems broke on NWISWeb servers when they were moved into the DMZ because the IP had to be changed to the 137.227 namespace which is not considered a trusted USGS network. The NWISWeb server could contact the internal ftp site. Sun TAC set up another server.

Kevin said of using a virtual private network (VPN) account, there's no reason why that can't be left open.

Margaret: Can't use virtual private network (VPN) to authenticate with her Active Directory server.

SAs can work from home until AD issue is resolved.

Kevin recommended writing a policy and submitting it to the BITSM.

AI - Oct2003.SD.13: Jessie- Ask ITSOT to draft a policy on how to get capability for people to work from home and cooperator access using ssh. Jessie wrote the following:

Request that ITSOT write-up a policy, which the BITSM can stamp-off, for people that work from home and need to access:

• Data on their local PC
• Data on a Server
• to authenticate to a "local" AD Domain when working from home-and a policy for cooperators to be allowed to ssh w/o a static IP (leave ssh open to the public) to NWIS Servers.

Discussion: February: Indiana and Atlanta District Offices are agreeable to this. IN has a new District Chief, as well as a volunteer to write a Windows client to ADAPS and an application for PDA to collect data from buggy docks that Charlie should check out. Brian vouched for Atlanta-Two new SAs; big hydrology urban program; going to handhelds; and Atlanta is easier and cheaper to fly to. Three of last five meetings were in Southeast. A vote was taken: Atlanta: 4; Indianapolis: 5

The next ITAC meeting will be in Indianapolis in February (dates to be determined)

June meeting will be in Anchorage, AK. Issues in AK: ASCE Web pages will be updated; Server 2003; local ADP.

Presented by: Charlie Merk

• SD Hydrotechs attended this presentation.
• FY03 activities-OK, TX, and ND involved in testing.
• Haven't tested equipment in ice yet; will do this in 2/04.
• Palm guy is writing software for Surface Water Inspection and Measurement (SWIM).
• Equipment screens out double clicks. It can be ordered from Hydrologic Information Facility (HIF) from Jerry Ross.
• This data imports into NWIS, building a repository for the velocity curves.

Charlie suggested each region kick in $10,000. The equipment will be out of date in 18 months. Don't buy too many right now.

AI - Oct2003.SD.14: Kevin - Will ask Bureau for $30,000-40,000 for the handheld-field computing program. Completed

Presented by: Jones
Expected Outcome: Ensure bug is fixed and future communication is more streamlined.

Body of e-mail Sonya mentions from Dane J. Ohe:

On Thursday, 2 October, Colleen, William Asquith and I had a conference call concerning TkG2 and some of the problems. Below is a summary:

Lucky Sultz and William have been trying to track down the problems. Not all problems have been entered into GNats.

The current version of TkG2 is 0.75-1. The templates being used in NWIS were created using version 0.60-1. There have been some additions to the hash structure that comprises the templates. The templates were updated to the latest version and for the Shift Analyses and Ratplot Programs, new templates were provided to Lucky for testing. These templates solved a couple of the graphics problems, but not all. Since the templates were created with such an old version of TkG2, the decision was made to update the templates for NWIS and release them in the upcoming NWIS 4.3 Patch 3 release, tentatively scheduled for general release on October 27. The release note will indicate that the new templates solve some but not all of the problems.

William has spent a significant amount of time trying to debug the TkG2 code. He has addressed and fixed a couple of the remaining issues. He is suspicious of some of the Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl) interaction and, as he is not a Perl programmer by vocation, has reached the limit of his understanding of Perl. He has asked for help with some of the Perl issues and some of Andy Halper and David Yancey's time has been made available for consultation with William. We are hoping that they will be able to work through these issues in the very near future. Once these are addressed, most likely a new release of TkG2 will be required, probably TkG2 version 0.80-1 or greater. As soon as this is available and tested, it will be released to the districts.

At the moment, there is a way around the current TkG2 problems; if the TkG2 file is saved and then reopened, it functions normally.

Short Explanation of Topic: Current bug issue with Tkg2 and support from NWIS

Relevance to ITAC's goals: Possible problems during records season because of this bug. Goal 2 because it relates to NWIS.

Proposed AI/Recommendation verbiage: Plan of attack to fix bug, suggestions on how to improve communication.

Sonya's suggestion: Have William contact David Boldt to work out the Perl issue.

Discussion: Brenda said it takes 10 minutes to print using TkG2. Susan said some things will be fixed with an NWIS patch. When new version of Perl was used, problems started happening.

AI - Oct2003.SD.15: Susan (NWIS)-Will find a replacement programmer to maintain TkG2.

Not a burning list of enhancements.

Susan said all Problem Reports (PRs) need to be fixed; testers test PRs. Important to enter problem into Gnats.

Topic Sponsor: Sandy Williamson (Nate on phone)

Short Explanation of Topic: The NAWQA DWH team (mostly Nate Booth) has developed a pilot including all QW Data for 45 districts. It was built using informatica and oracle tools in 2 person months and can be refreshed in a weekend, or maybe even overnight. It is accessible using Discoverer software like the NAWQA data warehouse. With a little support, it could become a very useful tool for WRD internal users, for regional or national retrievals, but also even for retrieving your own district NWIS QW data because the software tool has so much power compared to its relative ease of use. This potentially frequently aggregated QW database could be used for other uses as well.

• Performance is about the same.
• Using informatica software. Whole pilot done in 2 person months.
• A site license for informatica is about 25K per year because we have multiple NWIS systems, so there is duplicate data. Between adjacent District Offices, Precedence scheme tells them what is likely to be the best data.
• Why did NAWQA do this? (See slide.)
• Those who use QW data need to have all data in one place.
• It can be used by the nationwide warehouse for water-quality data for NAWQA hydrologists and any other hydrologists.
• Integrated some of the reference list. Fixed value codes really should be stored at the sample level. Can use that as search criteria and use for other levels.
• 77 databases; totals are slightly smaller than the NWIS totals.
• Duplicate data has been stored.
• NAWQA data used to be in all Relational Database (RDB) tables; took ~8 hours...now takes seconds.

Relevance to ITAC's goals: This has direct application to bullet 1 of goal 2-- Continue to monitor, recommend policy direction, and provide field-level communication of the status of major WRD software packages.

Advise our constituents on the ongoing improvements to NWIS, NWISWeb, NatWeb, and NWIS-RT.

Expected Outcome: Information exchange and potential ITAC recommendation.

Proposed AI/Recommendation verbiage: too soon to specify.

Nate would like to have people check this out. Sandy offered to give interested parties an account to test the system.

A Cyber seminar on this will be held on 10/20/03.

Deb Matthews can't make it work with XP. (She should turn off Microsoft Java and turn on SUN Java).

Presented by: Williams/McEwen

Short Explanation of Topic: In August, approximately 75 computer professionals, representing all disciplines, met in Denver to discuss developments related to collaborative communications, Lotus Notes, Active Directory, Security, and other IT issues. This session will briefly hit upon the highlights of the week-long conference.

Only 6-7 people showed up for Active Directory information exchange

• Lotus Notes: Karen Siderelis wasn't able to be there; she participated via video.

• 500 Blackberries are in use in USGS. There are two blackberry servers in Reston.

• Blackberries: Can read and delete e-mail, and it will now delete on main system.

• Not supporting all the models of Blackberries (only 957 model; no voice...so far-Nelson).

• Lotus never does incremental backups; always full backups.

• Nelson is surprised that Lotus Notes will not do a restore for individual users. (They claim this is difficult.)

• This is the first Kevin has heard of this-SAs not doing restores for individuals. Jessie did say it's a bit difficult-a lot of steps involved. SA has to stop replication and delete replication, shut down Lotus before replacing the NSF file, then recreate the replicas. She prefers to please the user, otherwise they are forced to refile.)

• QuickPlace (QP): Is a way to bring up a set of Web pages for a particular purpose. Sandy noted that it takes real patience and maintenance to be kept by one person. It's a history available to anyone. Anyone can add stuff-good and bad. Different ways of filing by different people. QP quickly becomes disorganized and huge.

• Hardware contracts: Employees cannot purchase home computers but Dell does offer a Federal employee discount (at least 5%). The computers on contract are Optiplex, built for office environment. The Dimensions model from Dell is more suitable for home use.

Important Note:

• USGS will need to migrate off of Windows NT by end of CY.
• Local vs. Central AD: Nelson said New Technology Technical
• Advisory Committee (NTTAC) still says go to local; we will have to go central fairly soon (1 ½-2 years tops), but infrastructure is not in place yet.
• A new AD Support Team is being formalized.
• The Desktop hardening team is just rehashing what NTTAC already recommended.
• Virtual Machineware (VMWare)-Will be important tool for software that only runs on Windows NT.

Relevance to ITAC's goals: Goal 3 - Continue to monitor general computer usage for the WRD

Expected Outcome: Information Exchange

Proposed AI/Recommendation verbiage: Record discussion in meeting minutes for passive dissemination.

ITAC recommends that the CTO Office develop an FY04 Project Plan that provides an integrated schedule for major IT initiatives that are anticipated over the next year.

Background: Throughout FY03, a number of bureau-wide IT projects were initiated which had a significant impact on field IT resources (System and Network Administrators, IT Security Staff, Lotus Administrators, etc.) Examples include numerous data calls, server security patching, NWIS Certification and Accreditation, DMZ deployment, the separation of Public and Private Data, Required Security Training, FTP consolidation, and the implementation of Enterprise Security Manager.

All of these initiatives competed for the same local IT support resources. In the absence of prioritization, integration, communication, and planning, field support staffs were frequently confused, frustrated, and ultimately overworked to comply with short-term deadlines.

Specific Details of this Request:

By the end of the first quarter of the FY04, the CTO should partner with Bureau IT management to develop and publish a coordinated and consolidated plan. The scope of the planning should include IT activities anticipated by the CTO, the BITSM, the RGIOs and the Disciplines, and the Department of Interior. The Plan should identify and prioritize activities, describe dependencies between projects, identify the anticipated schedule. and provide estimates of the commitment of resources required at the local science center level. The plan should be vetted for concurrence through the GIO Leadership Team and Bureau IT Program Managers. The plan should be distributed to Science Center Chiefs and posted to a Web site for general employee access.

All ITAC members are in favor of recommendation.

Jeff suggested glossary on ITAC Web site. AI - Charlie will develop glossary of IT acronyms. Completed

Topic Sponsor: McCallum/Merk/Marilyn

Marilyn will e-mail action items to members, as well as the minutes - all in one e-mail. Completed