CPAC Meeting Minutes
August 18 – 20, 1998
Washington District, Tacoma, WA
 
 

Attendees Carl Goodwin,CPAC Chair, Miami, FL Lew Wade, Reston, VA Gloria Stiltner, Reston, VA Chris Barnes, Reston, VA Bill Carswell, Reston, VA Alan Lumb, Reston, VA Kevin Oberg, Urbana, IL Jon Scott, Oklahoma City, OK	Richard Hollway, Portland, OR Linda Pratt, Arvada, CO Isabelle Halley des Fontaines, Reston, VA Steve Brady, Lawrence, KS Scott McEwen, RCS, Lakewood, CO Bob Davis,  Helena, MT Gary Mahon, Tallahassee, FL Kathy Miller, Iowa City, IA
Guests Bill Kirby, OSW, Reston, VA Graig McHendrie, RCS, Menlo Park, CA Merritt Blalock, RCS, Reston, VA Cindy Barton, District Chief, Tacoma, WA Tom Zembrzuski, Tacoma, WA Scott Knowles Tacoma, WA	David Wilson, Tacoma, WA Mike DeAngelo, Tacoma, WA Tahn Le, Tacoma, WA Dan Gooding, CVO, WRD Tom Murray, CVO, GD

Table of Contents

Day 1
 

• Opening remarks
• The Washington District
• Cost Estimates for Sun Systems
• Reaction to FUTCOM3 Presentation
• Annual Water Data Reports
• Town Meeting -Tacoma District

• Discussion of Town Meeting
• NWIS Update
• Web Development
• Data Archiving Policy & Archives for Surface Water Data
• NWIS Data Archiving
• Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO)
• Strategic Direction Document (1)
• Software Sharing within WRD
• Seed Money for Software Development
• Policy on Choosing Corporate Hardware & Software

• Charting & Statistics Software and Policy
• CPAC Interaction with NWIS
• System Delivering Real-Time Data
• Interim GIS Group
• Strategic Directions Document (2)
• Closing Business

Opening remarks
 

• Carl Goodwin & Lew Wade opened the meeting.
• Introduction of New members and description of the roles they have on the committee
• Chris Barnes
• Gary Mahon
• Introduction to each other in the room.

Welcome from the Tacoma District

Cindy Barton – District Chief – Since Jan, 98
 

• Focus in District
• 2 distinct climates in WA
• West - Mountainous & too much water/Floods/Data for Flood Planning – Most of Population – Contamination issues – Lumber industry – Fishing Industry/Restoring Salmon Habitat
• East – Flat & Dry – Water for agriculture – Use of Agri Chemicals and impact on Water -

• District Program – $9M Budget –110 people
• Tacoma District (81)
• Field Offices
• Tacoma (13)
• Pasco/Tri-cities (5)
• Spokane (8)
• Sedro Woolly (2)
• Other Divisions – Large USGS Presence in WA State
• BRD-Region - Co-op Unit –
• GD Office at UW
• Minerals Office – WR in Spokane
• Cascade Volcanoes – WRD/GD – Vancouver
• Glaciers- Ice & Waters @ UPS – Alaska District

Dave Wilson – Computer Users Group (CUG)
 

• Managing Computer resources in the District -
• Computer App Section (4)
• CUG (13 Reps)
• Y2K Team (6 Reps)
• Web Team (8 reps)
• Data –Relay Beeper Team (3)
• Research computer issues for the future

Tom Zembrzuski, Hydrologist
 

• Funding for the Data Program – $3m
• 225 Gaging Stations
• 120 w/ DCPs

Scott Knowles – Section Chief
 

• Real-Time Data
• Origin of Data Relay – VHF systems
• 3 Step Process
1. Data collection – Downlinks –Collection
2. Dissemination
• Mt. St Helens changes way of doing RTD – moved to DCPs
• Pagers if DCPs were not collection data (1 hour)
• LRGS

Mike Deangelo – Computer Specialist
 

1. Reliable – Frame-Relay Lines Move LRGS to the office
2. Auto-Monitoring

• Big Brother (fs03) Perl Scripts check (Satin, Sentry, WEB, Sun, LRGS) and interacts with paging system on the Sun.
• Big Sister – On Sun - Checks to see if BB on FSO3 is running
• List of messages – Handbook to explain each message
• Cooperator interface in Ascii – access from PC’s & Mac’s – Pager & Telephone Access

3. Proactive

• Solving Problems before someone calls

4. Mobile

• Cell Phones, laptops, pagers
• Quick Response

5. Redundant Knowledge

• Less stress for team
• Warm & Fuzzy for Mgt.
• Staff becoming more knowledgeable
• Flow Chart Developed for Process Real Time data

Cost Estimates for Sun Systems

Gloria Stiltner

Intent: Brief on Cost Estimates

Process: Review/Present cost analysis. Go back and provide comments.

Accomplish this session:

• Receive input now
• Further discussion via email
• Decision on next steps

• Cost Analysis
• Provided map of Sun’s in WRD
• Sample estimate/quote on a Sun Server
• Quote = $46.000
• Map indicates 23 Sun Servers – 5 are capable of running NWIS

• Assumes maint on all DG’s not just NWIS DG’s
• Training

• Supporting documentation of move to Sun
• Needed for business analysis
• Sharpen the numbers

• Discussion on substance of numbers
• FUTCOM3 – Speaks to DG/Sun’s/ NT environment
• Leaves many questions
• CPAC needs to provide something to help Districts to make a decision
• Define a "CPAC Product" ***NWIS Platform Guidance Document*****
• Written from a District Perspective
• Provide "Clearest Possible View for the future for NWIS" – ie. John Briggs memo
• Link to Software selection Process

1. Technical Part (Arguments)
2. Costs - Provide a tool & apply it to the "Ideal District"
3. Recommendation ( Let Districts do their own Cost analysis based on tool)

Action Item – Technical Argument – Type of configuration – Richard, Graig, Alan
Action Item – Economic analysis (Stiltner, Shapiro)
Action Item – Use Cost analysis and apply it to 3 Districts (WA, KS, & ?) - Scott
 
 

Reaction to FUTCOM3 Presentation

Graig McHendrie

Intent: Review the FUTCOM3 process & share reactions

Process: Present outstanding issues concerning the report.

Accomplish: CPAC thoughts and Decisions on what is next (FUTCOM4?)
 

• Little reaction to the document itself.
• Some districts developed "Computer Strategic Plan" based on the document. (WA District)
• 2 issues:
• Role of Macintoshes Systems
• Windows Terminals

Action Item: Report on Windows Terminal Server (Brady & NT-TAC)
Action Item: Discuss Mac Issues (Graig & Greg)
Action Item: Futcom 4 (Barnes)
 
 

Annual Water Data Reports

Intent: Provide Status & Update

Process: Series of Briefings

Accomplish:

Greg Allord
Submitted Report for the Committee

Action Item: Provide comments to Greg (CPAC)

Merritt Blalock

Presentation of Scripts to automate production
 

• Run on Texas District DG
• Character based system
• Generates a paper document (MIF File)
• Can generate HTML document from report

Kevin Oberg
 

• Paperless Annual Data Reports
• "More than a Annual Data Report system" it will be an indexed database.

• Kevin & the Illinois District does not to work this project alone & would like to coordinate with other Districts.

Town Meeting -Tacoma District

Carl Goodwin
 

• Opening Remarks
• Presented Charter
• Had members introduce themselves to the District staff.

• Lew, Alan, and Gloria explained their roles and the direction of NWIS, OI and DIS.
• Isabelle explained the latest on AIS, T&A, and streamlining of the Project module in AIS.

• Policy on customers (cooperators) connecting to WRD computer systems
• Current Policy is access to data on projects, not actual computers.
• Can charge for computer time.

How long will DG-NWIS be around.?
 

• Database will remain on a Unix (Sun) in the future. Not for at least 18-24 months.
• Many customer lag behind in Technology. WRD tends to be leading edge is the impression.

• Currently not organized, but being pulled together. Jim Bisese developed the system for this in Texas.
• Rational approach to delivering software at the WEB Application Development group will be discussed.

• Graig M. referenced the FUTCOM statement. Referred to the Action item created in the CPAC meeting.

• Lew noted these comments. Need to rightsize HQ.

• Lew spoke about the new interim GIS unit and his support for looking into these issues.

• Alan said that there are plans to look into this and funding has been an issue.

• This is being looked at as a target date at the end of the year. This is a new effort, so there may be problems.

Discussion of Town Meeting

Carl Goodwin led discussion

Issue: Cooperator input to CPAC deliberations

Need a Division effort to find out what our "External Users" needs are.

Action Item: Letter addressing ACWI COOP (Wade)
Action Item: Letter to NWIS encouraging "outside" user groups. (Wade, Lumb)
Action Item: Selected meetings with major Co-op – Maybe Miami. (Goodwin)
Action Item: Pilot group – Real-time surface water users group (Oberg)
Action Item: Contact "Environment Canada" via letter (Oberg, Goodwin)

Issue: Dealing with Metadata in GIS – The Cost and Effort Associated with preparation of Metadata
 

Issue: MacIntosh being left off the FUTCOM3

Do Publications lose any functionality moving to NT
 

• Steve B has developed instructions on this process.

• Customers are becoming frustrated with lack of services.
• Lew Wade taken advice from HQ Review Team’s findings.
• GIS Interim team has been announced
• TAC has addressed Sun issues with information available on the WEB.

NWIS Update

Alan Lumb

Intent: Would like to receive feedback on possible help with processes

Process: Overhead presentation

Accomplish: Describe current NWIS Processes

Key Points:

6 User groups have been established – 2 NWIS Staff on each user groups
 

• Defined the role of the User groups
• Defined the requirements process
• What is a requirement?
• NWIS User Group Web site:

• Release Issues Team WEB site:

• Define hardware and software issues
• NWIS Support on SUN
• WEB Page for AIT
/cm/

• Ported and tested for the SUN
• Feasibility & Compliance issues for hardware & software
• Support for NWIS on DG until December 2001. It will be reevaluated as the date approaches.

• Subset of Senior Staff to address NWIS Goals

• New architectures and resources
• Training issues as NWIS becomes more feature laden.

Issue: Archiving for Legal Purposes. Need to become Compliant with Law.

Action Item: Archiving email and memos.Central Online data. (Kathy Miller)

AGENDA Item: Same
 
 

Web Development

Kevin Oberg

Intent: Web Development

Process: Overheads presentation of Archiving Policy & Discussion on if there is a Policy issue

Web Development team
 

• 2 Web Water data servers in HQ (1 DG & 2 LINUX)
• Install of Linux box has increased performance Water information

• Eliminate "Data-gap" between real-time & historic daily values.
• Real-time enhancements
• Improve performance for historic data.
• Work with NWIS
• All data provided from NWIS

Data Archiving Policy & Archives for Surface Water Data

Bill Kirby

Intent: Explain what needs to be done. Technical feedback requested

Process: Briefing with Overhead Slides

Key Points:

Archiving
 

• Rules with paper copies are related to correspondence.
• Digital data archived digitally – paper copy is not required
• Copying, annotating & concatenating information.

• Point of first availability to Technician
• After uploading; before NWIS DB
• ASCII & human readable
• Decimal numeric values
• Metadata

NWIS Data Archiving

Scott McEwen

Intent: Address Action Items

Action Item: Need to write chapter for NWIS System Administration. Step by Step procedure for NWIS data Archiving (Wade & Lumb)
Action Item: NWIS Data Archiving needs to be added to the class. Provide status of class. (Wade & Lumb)
Action Item: Publish Policy statement addressing existence of Archiving process in the manual. OSW Memo. (Kirby)
 

Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO)

Dan Gooding – Guest speaker – CVO Sediment Lab
 

• 9 Sediment Labs in the US
• Common Lab software for these systems – Common Database
• Sediment Lab Environment Data Systems (SLEDS)
• Open Road Ingres
• Conversion to PC platform in upcoming
• Issues include sharing this software, but costs for training, support and enhancements are incurred.

Geologic Division – Volcano Hazards Program – Tom Murray
 

• Funded from Congress 25% WRD – 75% GD
• Educate & Prepare the Public
• Study Volcanic Processes – Maintain Equipment
• Monitoring Background activity – Assessing Hazards
• ***Crisis Response***
• Foreign & US Volcanoes
• Would like to develop a Volcano Hazards Database
• PCs are used in data collection – Cheaper, learning curve
• New Program/DB will need to be developed.
• 2 Goals – Time-Series Data & Geo Spatial Data
• Time-Series DB Goal
• Raw to Clean Data requires;
• Time Correction to local time
• Offset & scale factors
• No archiving policy in place
• PC NT shop with a few Unix systems

Lew handed out this plan for 1998-2002. Look over and will discuss on Day 3.
 

Software Sharing within WRD

Bill Carswell

Intent: Share Senior Staff comments on software sharing library proposal

Process: Briefing
 

• Presented at a coffee staff.
• Discussed issue of Software sharing.
• Staff had not really read document thoroughly.
• Lew & Gloria helped with presentation.
• Current Problems: Not done in a timely fashion. HASS.
• Need a process to communicate what is most valuable.

• Process needed to communicate what is possible.
• Bulletin Board approach
• Incentive for contributions if accepted to Software Sharing Library. Reward contributors.
• Format for code & documentation for initial submittal.
• Funds for documentation of software for developer rather than supporting a Writer/Editor.

Intent: Improve Divisions ability to share software

Get more feedback from CPAC and refine proposal to submit before next meeting.

Seed Money for Software Development

John Scott

Intent: Seed money proposal
 

• Related to but not the same as the Software Sharing Library proposal.
• Process to have money allocated and spent for software development
• Jon provided a proposal via email.
• List needed to help present proposal for Software Library at next Senior Staff Meeting.

1. Ask Senior Staff for new money or End of Year money

OR
2. Redirect current activities

Will Include:

List of Field based "Computer Research & Software Development" funded by various WRD cost centers. Projects will include funding in FY 98 & 99. (CPAC Discipline office members, Barnes, Scott)

Office
Description
Personnel
Dollars (98, 99)

Action Item: Follow through on Inventory of Software projects. (Barnes)
Action Item: further discuss the proposal after receiving matrix of Inventory (Kirby,Scott, Carswell, RCS’s, Discipline specialists)
Action Item: Develop List of glaring examples of projects that would benefit the Division. (McEwen)
 
 

Policy on Choosing Corporate Hardware & Software

Gloria Stiltner – Goal #4 Policy on Choosing Corporate Hardware & Software

Intent: Share with you what has been done to date

Provided Report on Method of ranking National Software Support Activities.
 

• See document
• Index is a tool (Algorithm) to help make funding decisions of support.

• Installation & Support were lumped together
• Other products need to on list
• Who will be the judges for the ranks
• This will be a pilot to help influence DIS field dollars – if successful, can be applied to other decisions.

Provided report on Method of ranking National Hardware Support
 

• See Draft Document
• Same tool as for Software

• Use results to affect resource decisions
• Numbers are not realistic yet
• The Software ranking skews the results

DAY 3
 
 

Charting & Statistics Software and Policy

Jim Slack had taken his item. He did not receive much feedback and Tom Wood had taken this item.

Intention of group was to select a charting & statistics package.

Comments:
 

• Should this be to replace G2?
• Can this be ported? Apparently not cost effective and there are technical problems.

Action Item: Investigation & Proposal of Charting & Statistics packages. (Tom Wood)
 
 

CPAC Interaction with NWIS

Lew Wade

Intent: CPAC and its interaction with the various groups in NWIS. This could be a model for dealing with other programs.

CPAC
 

• Values to WRD
• Unfiltered input to Senior Staff
• Many independent voices
• Knowledge based group – many groups lack this
• Broad advice & critique

• Incremental software development
• Driven by Requirement Mgt. Activity

• Has many steps – Many groups in NWIS

• Deliberate the issues

• Can influence all these groups in variety of ways
• Forms of advice – "White Papers" – Feedback/Critique

• Instructions Given (SS)
• Input Received ( Various)
• Analysis (Staff)
• Decision Made (OI)
• Decision Approved (SS)
• Implementation (Staff)

Develop MATRIX for CPAC Interaction

EXAMPLE:
 
 
 

	User Groups	NWIS Developers	AIT	New Release IT	Strategic IT
CPAC Provides Input	X	X
CPAC kept informed	X	X	RIGID
CPAC Provides Representative Subgroup
Output through CPAC	X	X	All Products run through CPAC

 
 

User groups – We will do this and see what the results are

NWIS Developers -

Action Item – Propose a CPAC review "structure" for NWIS on an annual or bi-annual basis. (Wade)

AIT – Members of CPAC are on AIT. There is ample representation on AIT.
 

• Rigid Reporting
• All Outputs need to be run through CPAC

• CPAC Observer may be good.

Action Item- Develop this Matrix for CPAC to review and decide on (Wade)
 
 

System Delivering Real-Time Data

Scott McEwen

Intent: Provide Plan for Real-Time Data Delivery System

Process: Provide Handouts and discuss proposal

Provided 2 hand outs "Problems & Opportunities" (Summary and total Report)
 

• Scott developed an 11 step process of taking data from the stream all the way to the public.
• Issue is that there are a number of weak links along this process

• Raise our awareness of realtime data
• Recommende next steps

• First paragraph of "Executive Summary"
• CPAC has actions to address some of the issues

• Outlined most issues in report
• Had not read report
• Timeliness of our real-time data

• Graig McHendrie (LRGS)
• Bureau level efforts
• Al Gore initiated effort on providing global disaster network

1. Human Resources
2. Technology
3. Financial

• Define scope of the activities in report:

• Recommendation of addressing the human resources issue of having funding for 24/7 services for reliability.

Issue 2: Technology Issues
 
 

• 11 areas of interest to CPAC in the report
• Possible 12^th issue is the Y2K issue – Not addressed in current report.
• Scott presents 6 recommendations for CPAC to act upon in report:

6 recommendations

Recommendation 1 - Formation of Group
 

• Plus the 4 tasks in the report.
• Modified task 4 - The Findings will be presented to CPAC (not Senior Staff)
• CPAC Approves recommendation 2
• Other task recommended (6 major ones in report):
• Recommendation 1 is accepted

• Develop basic Checklist from Bob W. and Scott for basic troubleshooting.
• Have other group like DIS review.
• Determine enforcement….make more than a guideline.

• Additional handout - Memo on recommendation for improving the Availability of Web-served NWIS data

• Need a way to report telecom problems – Current system has too few people. They are the experts, however.
• Proposal to have DIS WAN personnel to make recommendation.

• Not refined yet and decision may wait until the prioritization.

Interim GIS Group

Bob Pierce

Intent: Provide Update on the Interim GIS Support Group

Process: Briefing over Conference Call

At ESRI conference, there was an meeting among the WRD GIS personnel. Recommendations for this interim group to make improvements in support
 

• Improve Communication (Web Sites & Newsletters)
• Information on Metadata
• Discussion with Managers in WRD – Educate them on GIS issues
• Issues are time consuming

• ESRI is redesigning software to be components
• One component standard
• Microsoft Component Object Module
• Still on Unix, but port from MS, will lose command line.
• Functionality will not be comparable between NT & Unix.
• "Flexible Platform Strategy" to be reviewed annually.
• New Version will have flexible licence manage (NT & UNIX)
• Metadata – Recommend FGDC meta tools – easier tools – requires training
• ESRI developing Metadata tools for ARC 8 – ARC catalog – only on NT.
• Timlely GIS Software releases
• Will there be a USGS version of ARC customized on the NT. AMLs & Scripts need to be ported to NT.

Bill Carswell

Asking for Feedback

Next step is to get with Dave S. & Susan T – Move forward with plan and present to CPAC at the next meeting

Action Item: Meet with small group (Meet 1^st week in sept) to refine Strategic Directions Document based on comments received. (Carswell)
Agenda Item: Present to group at next meeting (Carswell)

Closing Business
 

• Review Action Items
• Next meeting in the Miami Subdistrict (Nov 17-19)
• Need to schedule something in Feb 99. (The Week of the 8^th) – Central Region