Las Vegas, Nevada December 18-20, 1996 Attendees present for December 16 - 18 meeting: Alan Lumb Isabelle Halley Linda Pratt Arlen Harbaugh Brian Mrazik Kathy Peter Jon Nowlin Greg Allord Jon Scott Verne Schneider Sharon Goss Kevin Oberg Jerad Bales Richard Hollway Steve Brady (minutes) Graig McHendrie M.E. (Betsy) Daniel (facilitator and recorder) Absent: Bill Carswell Charles Tibbals Cheryl Nelson Dave Shultz Attending Guests: W. Scott Gain, substituting for Charles Tibbals, Altamonte Springs, Florida Margaret Bunch, Carson City, NV December 16, 1996 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LAS VEGAS TOWN MEETING - (Jon Nowlin, Kathy Peter, Alan Lumb, DIS Acting Chief, Isabelle Halley, Gary Russell) DIS Program Office Report - Trapanese DIS Program Office is changing. Moving to heterogenous environment. Due to limited resources, mission critical application servers, such as Prime and DGs, will remain primary focus. Have experienced loss of personnel in the applications support unit. Seeking additional personnel to fill the loses. Working with Adobe for a new agreement/ contract for FrameMaker support and upgrades to non-DG platforms. Seeking volunteers for email help groups. A work group is investigating a possible replacement for G2 for WRD's computing future; the group is looking at in-house and off-the-shelf software. Spatial data group working on a procurement for ArcInfo and related Arc products on the NT servers. AIS - Halley Payroll module will be available with the AIS 4.0 release. The payroll module will be fully integrated with AIS. New features in AIS 4.0 include memorized reports for easy access to commonly run reports. NWIS - Lumb Currently converting the PRIME NWIS system to the Data General platform. Most of the conversion has taken place. Testing is currently being performed by NWIS staff and user groups. User testing has been started for ADAPS, QWDATA, and GWSI. SWUDS testing by users will begin end of January or beginning of February. After user testing is completed and the user test groups and NWIS staff agree its ready, the alpha test will begin and is scheduled to start in January. Beta testing will begin in March after a successful alpha test. Once beta testing is complete at four sites, the first of three cycles will begin for the installation of NWIS and is scheduled for May. Sixteen district offices will do the installation and data transfer in each cycle. The conversion process is being tracked very closely and status info is available via WWW (http://wwwnwis.er.usgs.gov/). Jon Nowlin, Nevada, District Chief Organization of the Nevada District is similar to most with the exception of the addition of a Spatial Applications Section. The state of Nevada is growing rapidly with Las Vegas leading the charge. Nevada is third largest gold producing area in the world. The mining process is causing large amounts of water to be redirected. Gary Russel, Las Vegas, Subdistrict Chief The population in the Las Vegas area is growing at about 4000 per month. The federal government owns about 90 percent of the lands in the state of Nevada. Program is largely done in cooperation with DOE (48 percent) concerning environmental restoration. A lot of ground water monitoring done with Yucca Mountain project. Cooperative studies are also done with local Water Management districts. Evaporation studies are also being done in various places. Cooperative program with BOR on Lake Meade concerning evaporation. THMs are also being studied in Nevada (tri-halomethans). Nevada test site work is also being done from their office in Mercury, NV. Network of early warning stations for storm events. Major Cooperators DOE LV Valley Water District/Southern Margaret Bunch, Carson City, Supv. Computer Specialist NV Computer Services Supports approx. 150 users 6 FT positions and 1 student 6 Network locations 32 multi-user systems + 3 planned 31 single-user systems 117 X terminals Many various peripherals ~180 GBytes of disk space NV Computer Personnel Margaret Bunch, Larry Kessler, Eva Bauer, Mary Erickson, John Watson, Sandy TeBeau, Season Thompson Carson City Office 2 DG file servers - Av9500 (6) and AV6220 4 AV 530 and 14 AV 300 WSs 72 X terminals 1 Prime 6350 Computer Printers and Plotters Digitizers and Scanners Various PC's and Macintosh's Carson FO 1 AV 532 WS 14 X terminals Printers and Plotters ADR Tape Readers Elko FO 1 AV 530 WS 3 X terminals Printers and Plotter ADR Tape Reader NV Dept. of Water Resources 1 DG 5000 file server 1 AV 300 WS 1 X terminal Digitizer Printer and Plotter LV Office 1 DG 9500 (4) file server 3 AV 530 and 1 AV 300 WS 31 X terminals Printers and Plotters ADR Tape Reader Various PC's Mercury Office 1 AV 300 WS 2 X terminals printer Data General Software DIS software Application Tape #9 SAS Schedule Publisher ArcView/ArcInfo HASS, Tape #3 Syncronize Prime Software ADAPS and related utilities PSTAT Minitab TCP/IP communications Career Development Program (CDP) Timekeeping and property management PC Application Server MS Office WinCenter Pro/Windows NT Samba - print and file system sharing software MPM - DOE financial reporting WordPerfect Office NOTGNU - windows version of EMACS Miscellaneous Software LRGS system running SCO Unix Flood alert system running Qunix OS MS/DOS systems Windows 3.1 systems Macintosh systems Communications 128 KB line from Carson city to Menlo Park 128 KB line from Carson city to Las Vegas 56 KB line from Carson city to Elko 56 KBline from Las Vegas to Mercury T1 line from Carson Office to Nevada Department of Water Resources Office T1 line from Carson Office to Carson Field Office Prime Phaseout By October, 1997 Carson PC Application Server Timeline Slightly behind schedule Full implementation by August, 1997 Problems/Concerns Lack of a common computer futures vision Data storage/management concerns How do we handle electronic records? Windows NT impact on environment Lack of monitoring tools and techniques Lack of support interfacing peripherals Network bandwidth capacity monitoring? No clearly defined method for sharing or distributing information No clear guidance for elimination of Primes Emphasis on product/technology not process Larry Kessler, Las Vegas, Computer Specialist Hardware - See slides above Software DataCommand - Flood Alert System running on Qunix OS MPM - DOE Financial reporting - DOS based WordPerfect office (pcserver) NOTGNU - Windows version of EMACS on PC Server SAMBA Communications - See slides above PC Applications Server Costs FY95 Pentium 100 MHZ Dual CPU $9,450.00 128MB Memory, 2GB SCSI Drive UPS 364.00 MS-OFFICE 469.00 4-yr on-site warranty 400.00 WincenterPro 15 user license 4,443.00 Total $15,126.00 FY96 Pentium 200MHZ dual CPU $1,715.00 92MB Memory 700.00 20 WCP additional licenses 5,700.00 WCP add-on-server Pack 1,136.00 Total $9,251.00 YTD Total $24,377.00 PC Applications Server Pro's Con's 1 PC to administer Microsoft Office needs too much administration Off-the-shelf software "Blue Screen of Death" Questions from office Robin Sweet - Most people don't need all the features from FrameMaker? Discussed support issues for multiple packages and the investment in FrameMaker templates, etc. There is a place in the future for both word processors and document publishing software such as FrameMaker. Brian Reece Demonstration of Web application to pull together climate information for use by all Nevada offices. The application is named HYPLOTS. The applications allows the plotting of discharge stations against a standard set of climate stations. A good tool for the Data Section for estimating missing record. Consolidates the process of providing the climate data from one source. Hydrograph comparisons and for final printing of hydrograph for storing with record. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Town Meeting Retrospective o CPAC should address the problems/concerns brought out in Margaret's talk. o Massive amounts of data are a bigger problem in Nevada than most other districts. Network bandwidth issues are not as present in other districts. o Network speeds are faster in AK because of cooperative agreements with other agencies. Cost are shared between agencies. Are costs associated with the upgrade worth the extra money. o Network speeds are going to be a concern by most districts in the future. o There has already been some network sharing being done by many other offices. o Carol Lawson and Bob Wakelee are very proactive in investigating ways to share costs between DOI members and other agencies. Several WRD sites are benefiting from sharing telecom with other DOI agencies. Most of the sharing opportunites have occurred in the Western Region (Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington to name a few). DOInet managers and WRD sites need to exploit these opportunities. As WRD Internet usage increases, a more aggressive strategy for network growth planning will need to be considered. o Surprised there were not as many users attending the town meeting. Could be that the staff has a lot of confidence in the computer staff to bring their issues forward. Margaret commented that the users have quit asking for help beyond the local computer staff. o A lot of creative work is done by the districts at their cost. After local needs are met most are not inclined to support others wanting to use what has been done. o Reports continue to be an issue concerning graphics, word processing versus desktop publication, etc. Problem is a result of someone not formally owning the process. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome Administrivia (coffee availability, closest restroom, etc.) Introduction of new member and guests Review agenda and action items Election of new chair from membership Phone messages posted on a board by receptionist desk. Office hours: 7:30 to 6:00 pm Welcomed Linda Pratt as a the replacement for NWQL. In charge of laboratory operations and the computer section. Scott Gain is visiting from the FL District. Regional Hydrologists have decided to limit the number of District Chief CPAC members to two positions. Janice Fulford will be replacing Arlen Harbaugh. Richard Hollway will remain as the System Administrator delegate. Reading list provided by Kathy was very helpful to prepare for the meeting and should be continued in the future. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NCTM Report Update (Trapanese) Researching several sites. The sites within perdiem are: St. Louis Minneapolis, MN Albuquerque, NM Austin, TX Group is considering perdiem and airfare costs to the cities. Hotels are having trouble meeting our perdiem rate. Drafting memo for directors approval. Some issues are remaining on how to handle training. Now that there is not an established systems contract there is some trouble in setting up equipment needed for training. Some consideration to using remote connections. Currently planning for 250 attendees. Meeting is being planned for the third week of May, 1998. Were surveys compiled and summarized? Response: A summary/sampling of the attendees' responses was sent to CPAC; Discussions concerning the attendees' feedback, the future need for NCTM and its importance were covered at the previous CPAC meeting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ New Chair Election A secret ballot was taken to elect a new chair from the rotating members of CPAC that will be continuing next fiscal year. A majority vote was achieved and Graig McHendrie will chair CPAC in 1997. The vote was 11 of 21 members for the new chair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 17, 1996 Update on WWW briefing of Senior Staff (Oberg) Follow up action should include input back to Senior Staff on the recommendations made. Kevin will monitor status and provide information to CPAC members as needed. Issues need to be brought out regularly to Senior Staff. We have trouble taking our creative ideas and making them part of the organization. Motion: Continue discussion of WWW issue at March meeting in order to give those involved time to consider the input from Senior Staff and develop plans. Motion passed. 8:30 - 11:00 Futcom-2 Report (McHendrie) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Discussion of futcom-2 report. Section 1 - no comments. K. Peter - Remote dial-up access is a small part of the way laptops are used in WRD - most are for accessing instruments and connections within the office. Section 2 K. Peter - number 11, assumption needs to looked at more closely. Is it operational support. How does it relate to the DIS program office. Software development vs. day-to-day operations. S. Gain - Amdahl will continue to be used for administrative processing. Pull-in comment from Section 1 on legacy systems. J.Scott - how where decisions being made concerning sections 3 and 4? Section 3 Add travel management software to Hydrologic Technician SDT. Most is very functional in description. Some level of statistics available to the SDT. Recommendations are to make changes to the SDT to reduce the list. Change manager to project manager. Change hydrologist to scientist. Section 4 A. Harbaugh - What is the point of the table in section 4? Is it focused on where we are going or is it where we are now? Section 4 was used by futcom as tool to prepare the document. Need a report that justifies section 4. What is behind the assumptions that are part of the table. R. Hollway - use the table as a tool to provide software and hardware. That is, if my site needs graphic software the table and report provide a path for decision making. K. Peter - How many Netscape users can the Windows NT server support? Early tests indicate that a number of users can be supported. Emphasis that there are many unknowns at this point. I. Halley - Payperless T&A is text based and could be available on other platforms. It could be available on Sun, NT, Mac, and SGI. Discussion on RDB concerning the use of python. It would be difficult to return to a generic version of RDB because of WRD extensions. Order list by application name. Use of framemaker for forms until a forms package is made available. A. Harbaugh - recommend a category for software suites. Components that are part of the office suites will be referenced separately in table. Timestamp needed for document and specific tables. J. Bales - Recommendation for 3 day training has cost implications. NCTMs are held too infrequently to meet the annual training need. Would like to see some of the training implications addressed in document. Change Hydrologist to Scientist/Engineer, change Hyd. Tech. to Tech. A. Harbaugh - Should remove table from report because it is subjective. Could move it to an appendix and it is useful as a reference for SAs. Use as a guide to state this is what we should have but we are not ready to state this as our supported environment. J. Scott - Concerned about how decisions are made. Section 5 J. Nowlin - No recommendation concerning which server to associate to applications. Futcom2 agreed that this was an oversight and will address this with other revisions. Discussion of how to handle high volumes of data needs to be addressed. To the degree possible, state the use of NT as a file server. Section 6 This section could be treated as an appendix. Table needs a timestamp. K. Peter - Reasons for replacing DG WS's. Is this list intended to be all inclusive? The intent was to be inclusive. J. Nowlin - Should we include a statement in the document that we should be migrating off the DG workstations. (Parking Lot) Desktops WS's should be gone by 1997? Section 7 A. Harbaugh - Confused about where the demand for the network is going to be. K. Oberg - Are we always going to hold network costs constant. Maybe districts are willing to spend more money on the network. Should we get more input from the districts on their needs? M. Bunch - Would like to see some tools available to local sites for network troubleshooting. J. Scott - Can summary information be provided that shows statistical distributions of network traffic of both LAN and WAN? Section 8 Provide some additional examples of the costs associated with the total operating cost of the desktop. Suggest moving the discussion of "tightly managed" vs. "loosely managed" to the beginning of the section. V. Schneider - Turn section into a management option section and what the implications are of the choices. Consider moving the section up in the document. Better for the managers to have the information up front. Section 9 No comments. Section 10 Could add expansions on the reasoning for the choices. K. Oberg - Volunteered to add case example. Section 11 Add to introduction defining the functional software needs that are met by the end of 1997. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CPAC had a discussion about the purpose of Futcom2 Report. B. Mrazik - Purpose of the document: o Workplan for CPAC o Send it out and get feedback S. Gain - Should it be this way or describing how it should be. Document needs a purpose statement. G. McHendrie - Establish a common framework that could be referenced and a starting point for sites. I. Halley - Fits within the framework of the strategic plan. Futcom2 will put together a draft for CPAC review stating the purpose of the document. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CPAC discussed the appropriate method and audience for distribution of the Futcom2 report. A partially revised report will be used as a briefing basis to the Senior Staff in the week of January 6. Kathy will prepare a cover memo for Bob Hirsch's signature announcing the availability of the Futcom2 report. The report will be ready for release to all employees by 1/16. Motion was made to vote on the above and carried. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Funding for DIS support of hardware, applications, and operating systems (Trapanese) DIS Program Office seeking recommendations from CPAC concerning what the appropriate level of support that should be provided to the field and how to allocate funding to provide those resources. What is the appropriate level of field support that should be provided? Option A: Change the current process of negotiating funding to a predetermined process that would be reviewed by a third party. Option B: Would CPAC support an option to charge districts directly for field support? Option C: Do nothing. Can't have a vision for the future computer environment without the necessary support. Motion: A CPAC subgroup be put together to work with the DIS Office to develop funding levels for support and alternative funding methods to provide field support such as: o WOTSC Funded o A method based on cost recovery (fee for service or distributed recovery) Report to be finished by next meeting (Mar 97) to be delivered two weeks prior to meeting (Feb. 25). Motion passed. Note: this activity was later subsumed by a motion on the next day for a broader review of DIS. Members to include: DIS Acting Chief, ICOM Representative or RCS, Sharon Goss, and Bob Davis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DIS Report on inventory of hardware and software in the Division (Trapanese) Possible Solutions: Option A: Using data from the current DIS-II database and possibly the property management system which lists hardware purchases over $5,000, develop a draft inventory listing of computer hardware/systems for each site. Using the DIS-II databases, develop a draft listing of software installed at each site and type of server it is installed on. From these inventories, develop a "database(s)" and systematic, unobtrusive method for obtaining hardware and software information updates by site. Allow WRD users to obtain reports for their site, Region and WRD. Option B: Do not develop a formal database or inventory system but suggest that each Region devise a means to report information to DIS support personnel on an as needed basis. Regions would be free to implement their inventory in any manner they wish. Utilizing one contact per Region for information requests would significantly reduce the amount of "surveys" sites could potentially deal with. Option C: Status Quo. DIS requests information from sites as needed. Security threats and operational issues are prioritized based upon current understanding of WRD environment: DGs first, Suns second, and SGIs third. Application issues are treated in a similar manner with ordering of importance determined by DIS, TAC and the RCSers. Motion: Appoint a small workgroup to determine the minimum set of data needed to provide an inventory of the WRD computing environment. The group would also devise strategies for implementing the system, and storing, retrieving and updating the information/data. Motion passed. Group members: R. Hollway, DIS delegate, S. Brady, J. Griffin. Report due to CPAC by Feb. 25. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Port of software from Prime (Lumb) DIS, HASS, and NWIS have compiled lists of PRIME software and the status of that software with regards to porting to the DG. Those lists can be found from the NWIS home page (http://wwwnwis.er.usgs.gov). CPAC recommends the availability of those lists be announced through an all employees email. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Training and Documentation Strategy (Wood) Motion: Develop computer-related training classes using a budget based on funds that can be recovered from equalization fees. Courses under consideration: o DG Site Administrator training - DIS o Windows NT/Wincenter Administration - DIS o Web Authoring - Water Information (WI) o Web Server and Administration - Water Information (WI) o NWIS Administrations - NWIS Motion passed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NWIS Report (See WWW) All status reports are available for perusal from the NWIS internal home page (http://wwwnwis.er.usgs.gov/). There were no major issue to discuss at this time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Charting Subgroup Status Charge Defined by Workgroup: To review WRD graphics capabilities and revise existing specifications into functional categories. Once the specifications have been revised, determine to what extent existing software capabilities meet those those needs. For these specific categories, perform a market survey to determine if any software can meet those needs. Make a recommendation to the Computer Policy Advisory Council (CPAC). S. Trapanese - Resulted from G2 business analysis from last CPAC meeting. Decision was to create a group to look at the overall WRD graphic computing requirements. G. Allord - Concerned about the focus of the group. Should be more orientated towards describing the types and functions of graphing capabilities rather than specific packages. Would like to see focus remain on charting. Direct the focus on graphing and charting rather than on "graphics" from our standard data sets. Discussions were held on how to proceed. The consensus was to review the first milestone on task 1 before any change in direction is made. Each CPAC member will review task 1 separately. Greg Allord is willing to work with group over any issues or concerns. Group has made a good start. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 18, 1996 Next CPAC meeting: Location Menlo Park, CA Menlo Park meeting start time is 1:00 pm on March 11, 1997 and end March 13, 1996 at 4:00 pm. Graig McHendrie will provide follow up information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOLLOW UP TO FUTCOM2 REPORT 1. DIS Centralized Support ----------------------- G. McHendrie - Erosion of central site support in WRD. Use summaries from the email document on the activities of the DIS Program Office to provide information to the districts. Email Subject: DIS Support Services Recommendation Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 14:27:59 -0400 From: "Thomas C Wood, Chief, ASU, Reston, VA" K. Peter - Most District Chiefs will not read a large document. Having real numbers that DCs can relate to would be a benefit. R. Hollway - Intangibles are harder to quantify. We customize the operating system before it is deployed. An attack was attempted by someone in Germany and resulted in no problems because of the value added customization to the operating system. Other divisions experienced problems from this incident. G. McHendrie - What is the objective? Who needs to be educated about the problem? The best target is the District Chief. The DCs will carry the message to Senior Staff. K. Peter - The SAs should be made aware also so that they can provide input to the DCs. Information needs to be repeated. J. Nowlin - CPAC is not coming out with strong recommendations. This has resulted in districts doing their own thing and supporting their own. We need to make concise recommendations. G. Allord - The allocation of funds come from Hirsch and Operations. Report will go to Hirsch and get District Chiefs to provide input back to Hirsch. Summary - RCS and DIS will embark on and continue the advertising campaign; 2) CPAC through policy recommendations from the Futcom2 report will show more leadership with respect to centralized support. S. Goss - Add section to report on DIS support. Motion: Form a subgroup of CPAC to analyze DIS organizational structure and funding. Motion passed: Group members are J. Bales, B. Mrazik, S. McEwen, M. Bunch, S. Goss 2. Network Analysis and Usage -------------------------- Motion: Form a subgroup to develop network utilization metrics for both routine an extraordinary conditions, develop a training, and provide recommendations for network configuration. Motion passed. G. McHendrie, J. Johnson, B. Wakelee, S. Noble/D. Winkless Status report at each CPAC meeting. Formal report due to CPAC for the August meeting. 3. Management Style (Loosely vs. Tightly Managed) -------------------------------------------- V. Schneider - We may be at a point where we need to validate what kind of organization we are. K. Oberg - Recommend a core of management for computer operations so that we can work together. I. Halley - We need to further define the concept with examples of loosely vs. tightly managed. J. Nowlin - Further information could be added to the Futcom2 report. Management Implications will be expanded. 4. Training -------- Actions already in place for this item. 5. Procurement ----------- G. McHendrie - We need better guidance on hardware and software procurement. S. Trapanese - What are we looking for as an outcome? Basically, we need URLs that are current with recommended procurement information. Information to included sizing recommendations, hardware, and software. Charge WINSIG to produce a list of URLs for sites who want to buy Wintel server hardware and software. Report due by Feb. 1, 1997. DIS will explore license manager software options with NCD. DIS will see that each issue of "Discussions" will contain an update on developments using Windows NT, Wincenter, and non-DG Unix around the division. 6. Case Studies ------------ Do we want to encourage case studies on a national basis? RCS'ers to request districts to do case studies and include as part of Program Review. After Program Review, RCS'ers to compile summaries for CPAC. 7. Appendix A and B ---------------- G. Allord - App. A - Not sure we should try to turn the appendix into policy. There is lack of detail in the appendix. The detail flow of how information flows could be added. Web publishing and how it influences publishing. Archiving documentation of publishing information on the Web. Many groups need to come together on how we do reports. Water Information needs to take the lead to start bringing the groups together. WI to provide a plan on expanding appendix A and include Web issues. Appendix B - Invite Steve Regan, HASS, to the next meeting to discuss the development of WRD software libraries. 8. FORMS ----- DIS will follow-up on Futcom2 report concerning electronic forms software by March CPAC meeting. 9. Migration Plans for DG ---------------------- Add migration plan to the parking lot for later discussion. 10. Case Study on costs of operations existing desktops (DGs/PC) ------------------------------------------------------------ Prepare a literature study of total ownership cost of desktops. Report due by May to CPAC with a status for the March meeting. Kevin Oberg and Greg Allord will explore doing this by a student. 11. Future of Report ---------------- Task a group at the August CPAC meeting to update the report for the November meeting. Report was well received by CPAC. Important for Senior Staff to have an understanding of where we are and where we are migrating to. Any major policy issues such as what is going to be paid for out of WOTSC. Discussions related to migration and the choices related to cost are important. Major changes to the report due by Jan. 1, 1997. Release to all employees by Jan. 16, 1997. 12. Strategy for Dissemination --------------------------- A partially revised report will be used as a briefing basis to the Senior Staff in the week of January 6. Kathy will prepare a cover memo for Bob Hirsch's signature announcing the availability of the Futcom2 report. The report will be ready for release to all employees by 1/16. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Status of Strategic Plans Subgroups-Reports on progress, what will be the next step? The process that we initiated has evolved into the use of workgroups in a more direct approach in meeting our Critical Success Factors. Future efforts will be coordinated with Bureau and Division strategic planning efforts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Discussion of plans for orientation of new members K. Peter to draft a memo for Hirsch's signature thanking the members rotating off CPAC. Outgoing members must brief their replacements. Memo to new members for Hirsch's signature outlining responsibilities, procedures, and the upcoming meeting date Provide a memo to inform all employees of major items in bullet format for the past year. The successes and bullet items should be made available on our home page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Close out Action Item Review Next Meeting Logistics (date, time, location, hotel) Agenda Minute Taker - G. Allord ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Evaluation Positive Touched on many topics and accomplished a lot. Visitors are good for the meeting. Keep focused on policy-level decisions. Stayed with agenda until it was completed instead of delaying. Facilitator is doing less facilitating. Don't be reluctant to grapple with tough issues. Negatives Longer meetings or fewer topics. Sometimes deal with issues where we have no information or authority. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ REFERENCE DOCUMENTS PRESENTED AT MEETING Futures Committee #2 http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/cpac/private/futcom2.html Strategies for Funding WRD "DIS" Support Email Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 17:05:55 -0500 From: "Susan M Trapanese, Chief, SSU (Hyd), Reston, VA" Email Subject: DIS Support Services Recommendation Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 14:27:59 -0400 From: "Thomas C Wood, Chief, ASU, Reston, VA" Discussion on Hardware and Software Inventory Email Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 19:03:31 -0500 From: "Susan M Trapanese, Chief, SSU (Hyd), Reston, VA" Proposed DIS Training Strategy Email Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 12:07:28 -0500 From: "Thomas C Wood, Chief, ASU, Reston, VA" NWIS http://wwwnwis.er.usgs.gov/nwis/nwis05.html Strategic Plans Subgroups http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/usgs_only.html http://wwwqvarsa.er.usgs.gov/cpac/private/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Parking Lot ----------- o Form a group to investigate software for forms generation o 3 day training recommendation needs further discussion o Migrating off the Data General o Case study on costs of operating DGs/PCs o Turn case studies into national process o Migration Plan for Data Generals. o Need to define a process for generalizing and documenting locally developed software for wider use. o Future of corporate software in WRD (past 1999). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Agenda Items for Next Meeting Appendix A & B of the Futcom-2 report. WWW Issues follow-up from Senior Staff. Appendix A expansion by WI. Discuss Bureau Strategic Plan related to Water Data Bases. --> Verne TS to prepare analysis of issues and dependencies of migrating off Amdahl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ACTION ITEMS FROM THIS MEETING AI - Dissemination of Futcom2 report. --> Futcom2 AI - Futcom2 will put together a draft for CPAC review stating the purpose of the document. --> G. McHendrie AI - Memo to be drafted for Futcom2 report for Bob's signature. --> K. Peter AI - DIS to prepare instructions on retiring Prime computer by the first positive NWIS alpha test. --> DIS AI - Announce availability of information on port of software from the Prime through and all employee distributed email. --> Lumb AI - Include feedback on this issue to Senior Staff as part of report on minutes on this meeting. --> K. Peter AI - Report on status of WWW issues at March 97 CPAC meeting. --> K. Oberg AI - Form a subgroup of CPAC to analyze DIS organizational structure and funding by May meeting. --> J. Bales, B. Mrazik, S. McEwen, M. Bunch, S. Goss AI - DIS will explore license manager software options with NCD. --> DIS AI - DIS will see that each issue of "Discussions" will contain an update on developments using Windows NT, Wincenter, and non-DG Unix around the division. --> DIS AI - RCS'ers to request districts to do case studies and include as part of Program Review. --> RCS AI - After Program Review, RCS'ers to compile summaries for CPAC. --> RCS AI - WI to provide a plan on expanding appendix A and include Web issues. --> G. Allord AI - Invite Steve Regan to the next meeting and brief him on what is to be done regarding appendix B. --> G. McHendrie AI - Provide reference citing policy concerning the creation of electronic forms. --> G. McHendrie (done) Start Frame; click on HELP in the 5-button initial popup; click on USGS-Specific; click on USGS Templates; on the right, click on Policy and Guidelines. AI: Provide a status to CPAC on electronic forms usage in USGS by the March Meeting by Feb. 1, 1997. --> S. Trapanese AI - Prepare a literature study of total ownership cost of desktops. Report due by May to CPAC with a status for the March meeting. --> K. Oberg AI - Discuss with group doing WRDs strategic plan CPACs future computer vision. --> G. McHendrie AI - Minutes due by Dec. 20, 1997 for review. --> S. Brady (done) AI - TS to prepare analysis of issues and dependencies of migrating off Amdahl. --> V. Schneider AI - K. Peter to draft a memo for Hirsch's signature thanking the members rotating off CPAC. --> K. Peter AI - Memo to new members for Hirsch's signature outlining responsibilities, procedures, and the upcoming meeting date. --> K. Peter AI - Provide a memo to inform all employees of major items in bullet format for the past year. --> K. Peter AI - The successes as bullet items should be made available on our home page. --> J. Solomon, DIS AI - DIS to update mail alias for CPAC. --> DIS AI - Charge WINSIG to produce a list of URLs for sites who want to buy Wintel server hardware and software. Report due by Feb. 1, 1997. --> DIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CPAC 97 Second Quarter Meeting ------------------------------ Urbana, IL, District Office Begin: Tuesday, May 13, 1997, 9:00 am End: Thursday, May 15, 1997, 4:00 pm Town Meeting U. of Illinois Demonstration Minute Taker: J. Bales