Brian Mrazik
Alan Lumb
David Schultz
Jon Scott
Janice Fulford
Ken Mullen
Colleen Babcock (8/19 only)
Bill Carswell
Verne Schneider
Tom Wood
Jerad Bales
Richard Hollway
Isabelle Halley
Graig McHendrie
Scott McEwen
Kevin Oberg (8/20 only)
Absent:
Sharon Goss
Greg Allord
Steve Brady
Linda Pratt
Bob Davis
Tuesday, August 19
Opening Remarks Brian gave an overview of district operations followed by a description of computing resources by David Parker.
Discussion of NexWIS Alan gave a briefing on what has been done to date. A contractor has been hired to develop a plan. The document is being developed as a partnership of the contractor and NWIS staff. Two review meeting have taken place, one with Verne Schneider and Bob Hirsch and one with Merritt Blalock and Bill Carswell. Funding expenditures for FY97 were requested. These expenditures would be highly dependent on the fractions of time allocated by 7 NWIS staff members and this information is not documented but estimates could be made.
Ken Mullins described the step-by-step analytical approach using some of the figures in the draft planning report.
A requirements analysis tool was purchased ($1200) to begin to gather requirements for documentation, analysis, assignment of attributes for priorities, test status, and time frames.
Several questions were raised which will be taken into account as the planning process continues. Jon pointed out the biological and ecological data and what is stored and the relationship of the elements is vastly different today than what is stated in the content of the `91 SRS document and therefore, these new requirements must be added to the target. Dave asked about the details behind the process to control requirements' priorities and how conflicts are resolved. Isabelle asked about who is scoping the requirements and who is assigning the weights. It was noted that the Configuration Management program needs to be expanded and that there wan't a clear distinction between the conversion, November enhancements, '98 expansions, and the new data base.
Can the fundamental data base design be changed gradually? No. There is a parallel design team examining the NEW data base system.
Examination of other application packages from other agencies, countries, etc. will continue. For example, STORET-X from EPA has a prototype available now and promises a production version next year.
Jon was concerned about the concept of the NWQ lab treatment as a separate input and output. The lab must be treated as a distinct system until the lab and the QW community can develop a common set of requirements.
NWIS Configuration Management Plan
Ken gave an overview of some concepts for configuration management. There was some discussion on the chair for the board and a discussion on the importance of software design and documentation of the design. Several members felt there was not enough emphasis on design, particularly given past events.
Review of AI's Graig reviewed both complete AI's and those still outstanding.
Alan, Ruth Thornberg, Kate Flynn, and BJ Bour are working on Software Library package development. Working through RIB(?) on Sun.
CPAC agreed to table the Total Cost of Ownership until the November meeting. Richard passed out copies of Steve's data for comment.
Tom and Verne gave an update on the status of the Annual Data Report Production group. A subset of the group will visit the Maryland District next week. Verne to hand out Reinitz e-mail on status.Cookbook for Preparing State Annual Water-Data Report
Equipment Inventory and Futures Graig distributed copies of tables of inventory information collected for the WR. Similar tables are being developed for the other regions. This information can be used by FutCom committees to follow and observe trends, by DIS for procurements and training issues, by regions for District Program Reviews, by Sr. Staff to note assets, and by districts to locate other sites with similar equipment.
GIS Directions Verne provided a briefing on ESRI's future directions. From the ESRI conference, ESRI announced that the Windows NT will be the new development platform, DG/UX Arc/Info will be static at revision 7.1.2 (which has yet to be delivered), and Unix functionality may be different in the future even though other non-DG/UX Unix will continue to be supported by ESRI.
FutCom3 CPAC agreed to charge a new subgroup, FutCom3, to update the year-old futures report.
New elements include:
The new charge:
The committee was concerned about how ConCalc differs from SedCalc and that the user requirements that went into ConCalc be documented.
Emergency Data Information Graig is a member of a Bureau-wide group that is investigating the dissemination of data during natural disasters. The committee has almost developed their first draft of the report but it has stalled in recent months.
Wednesday, August 20
DIS Analysis Jerad presented background of DIS analysis method. DIS has been asked to do too much and there isn't a critical need to do some of their current functions.
Brian added that we are moving towards a more diverse environment so can we continue business as usual. Can we continue using a centralized support program? Our solution was to lay out the priorities then lay out the costs so we can determine the bottom line.
Verne noted that the importance figures are nearly all under 2.0 and therefore HQ should be applying more resources into DIS.
Isabelle asked whether there was significant overlap between HASS and DIS (example: JAVA).
Jerad answered that the scope of this report remains within the DIS program office but the overlap is an issue that was not dealt with by this report.
Alan was concerned that the direction of support was for Suns and SGIs and wasn't certain as to where this came from.
Both the FUTCOM2 report and purchases in FY97 both indicate an investment in Suns and SGIs and that centralized support is more efficient than using local support. Jerad mentioned that with 40 or so Suns are deployed in WRD and it is likely to be cost efficient to support SUNs and SGIs through DIS in FY98. FUTCOM3 has been charged to re-examine WRD's technical directions for planning for the NEXT three years.
Verne and Tom requested a chance to review the numbers in the tables and will send comments back to the committee.
Discussion continued as to where to draw the line in Table 1.
A suggestion was made to create an additional table to add detail to training costs.
Also, Software Technology Research and Procurement should be moved to between Security and GIS. NCTM `98 is a different type of item and should be removed from the table or incorporated in the SA training item because this is a nearly firm item.
Discussion continued as to the background of the Annual Costs listed in Table 2.
Jerad added that the listing in Table 2 are in alphabetical order not priority order.
Scott noted that we can't wait until the next CPAC meeting because of the implications to FY98's budget.
Jon stated that the process of setting priorities in Table 2 is non-trivial. The support issues included packaging, installation, user assistance, enhancement, platforms, etc. and at what level and costs. How do we design a process to make priority order and selection? Is commercial support available and at what cost?
Break
In the HW & OS Support section, drop ending clause of third bullet. In the second bullet add clarity for support of W95 and NT and not others. In the final section, it isn't clear how to correct the 84% ratio of salaries to total budget. Can the intent be clarified? Jon added that if the pass-through costs are added in (over $1M in contracts) the ratio and the meaning behind this section changes. Can a statement be added that recommends an increase in the amount of discretionary funds?
LUNCH
NexWIS Architectural Concepts Alan and Ken described some initial thinking on architecture options for future version of NWIS. With the several constraints and assumptions that are in the document, there is not a lot of flexibility. One of the assumptions is that DGs and Ingres will be used for at least the next 18 months.
Objectives of NWIS include to considerably improve the utility of NWIS for internal users by the end of FY2000 and to enormously improve the utility of NWIS for external users by the end of the year 2000.
Architectural options that are available include the server and DBMS for a central data warehouse, development standards, and tools for web enabling applications, and the common desktop environment. One element of the vision statement is to use an object-oriented data base and development environment National retrievals are a very important issue to be addressed. It was noted that the current NWIS data base does not include some of the NAWQA data.
Some initial Recommendations for NWIS development by Century Tech.
Current recommendations:
Web Designer's Workshop and Web Activities in WRD The objective is to develop a Division-wide approach to serving NWIS data on the web. Focus on web-related applications for NWIS. Identify framework for doing web development (team, roles, environment, standards, tools) to obtain common ground. Identify methodology for web development. Identify design approach, testing plan, etc. Also, developments to date and have developers present their technical wares. Finally, develop an overall plan for disseminating data on the web. The first workshop should be a minimum of three days. The tentative target date is September 1997.
A leadership role needs to be established plus the workers need to be adequately funded.
Jon suggested scoping the objectives to meet the invited attendees. The compromise is to clarify that this first meeting will focus on surface water data.
Jerad added that there is a lack of good communication between the WRD Web development within WRD and district chiefs. The goals, objective, delivery dates, funding sources, structure, management, etc., should be reported to DC's via WRD memo.
February Meeting The February meeting will be in Austin, TX, beginning at 8:30am on Tuesday, February 10, 1998, through noon on Thursday, February 12, 1998. Isabelle des Fontainnes will be the recorder.