Strategies in Enterprise GIS Implementation
Presented by Kenneth W. Bible, P.E.
SPAWAR Systems Center Charleston, SC
2001 Esri International Users Conference

The prevalence of GIS-based information systems at DoD installations has been steadily rising since the advent of true desktop GIS capabilities in the mid-1990's. The move from mainframe and high-end computing requirements to workstation class hardware facilitated the transition of GIS from an academic study to practical day-to-day use. The unique abilities of GIS technology to facilitate the management of data about infrastructure, natural resources, cultural resources and environmental planning, amongst many other aspects of installation management led to the creation of many GIS efforts - sometimes more than one at a single installation.

As noted by Major General Higgenbotham in the Forward to a 1999 USMC Headquarters GIS guidance document, efforts must be "focused at the installation level fostering joint cooperation and collaboration among base organizations to develop a geospatial information systems solution for integrated installation management."

More than a little anecdotal evidence suggests that the most successful installation-level GIS systems have grown around centralized databases, and centralized staffs of dedicated GIS professionals. The requirements for this trained cadre of GIS professionals will always exist in some form; however, the margins of this centralized view of GIS are beginning to fade as new and exciting paradigms take hold.

The evolution of GIS technology has led to capabilities to use GIS on the average desktop. New GIS technology promises to allow the map and data products produced by the specially trained planning or design professional to be published to "consumers" of these products. Further, technology exists to allow GIS to be embedded in the business rules and work flows of an organization. Thus the requirements for dedicated information technology staffs for GIS may be reduced, since the day-to-day maintenance of the GIS is embedded in business practices.

Planning and GIS resources may be re-focused upon other aspects of a larger enterprise system, continually improving upon the quality controls on data, managing an authoritative database, which can be made available to the virtual enterprise community through various intranets and internets. Under this paradigm, the most important staffing requirement for an enterprise GIS is the willingness of existing personnel to accept the new "spatially aware" tools provided to them to do their work.

Vice Admiral Art Cebrowki coined the term "network-centric warfare" to describe the evolutionary changes in information technology which have resulted in an incredible increase in the amount of tactical data available to the warfighter for decision-making. This trend has forced revolutionary thinking about how to use and manage the ensuing onslaught of information. One could argue that we are entering a similar evolutionary period of rapid development of the "network-centric GIS", and the changes in the use and management of GIS will be just as revolutionary.

We could continue to build larger and larger GIS staffs to accommodate the ever-increasing tide of requests for GIS products, or we can begin to decentralize the maintenance of GIS data, even as we begin to centralize its management and publication. The great promise of the current technological evolution is to allow the integration of multiple distributed GIS data sets from multiple sites on various internets to be seamlessly integrated on the client desktop.

The limitations of this capability (mainly, bandwidth) still exist, and are not easily overcome without significant infrastructure investment.

With those limitations in mind, SPAWAR Systems Center Charleston has been investigating other technology solutions that have led to the realization of several interesting capabilities that speak to the needs of a widely scaleable enterprise GIS.

Beginning in the Fall of 1999, an effort began to web-enable a natural resource application developed by SPAWAR Systems Center Charleston for a local sponsor. The application, based in Esri MapObjects, provided an intuitive interface linking tabular data records about forest stands to map data depicting physical boundaries of the features. Access to other GIS data enhanced the understanding of the management picture by allowing the forester to add other data of interest, such as aerial photography, hydrography, and man-made structures. Further, the relational database containing the tabular data also included details about past and future management practices for each stand. The objective of the project was to transform a paper data collection process, stemming the flow of paper reports from remote installation foresters, and providing a web-accessible tool for the installation to both utilize the GIS on a day to day basis, and provide dynamic updates.

Several technologies were applied (Active Server Pages, ActiveX, Java); however, after some investigation. A relatively old concept - server based computing - was revised to solve the problem. A Windows NT Server running Microsoft Terminal Server, and Citrix Metaframe was placed in service to deliver data and applications to desktop.

The client desktop systems were loaded with the appropriate Citrix ICA client. This client application is freely downloadable from the Citrix web site at www.citrix.com. One interesting aspect of the Citrix client is its availability for a variety of platforms including Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98/NT, Windows 2000, Unix, Macintosh, among others. This capability opened the possibility of having an enterprise solution that could accommodate most any client with their existing hardware.

Server-based computing provides several other significant advantages over other technologies, primarily by limiting the bandwidth requirements of the client. Each client session requires approximately 33K of bandwidth, which accomodates screen updates captured from the server; and key stokes and mouse movements of the client.

Server-based computing technologies may well be transitional in the context of a Web-enabled enterprise; however, they bring a simplicity and immediacy of implementation lacking in many Web-based products at present. These technologies also provide a compelling environment in which to conduct rapid prototyping or spiral development.

Management of the GIS enterprise is greatly simplified due to the centralization of hardware and software (including licensing issues). Software updates are centralized, and updating the enterprise with the latest data and applications becomes a simple matter of updating the server.

This type of enterprise solution may lend itself to the vision of embedding GIS within day-to-day workflow applications due to the ability to use standard commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products and development environment, and due to the ability to rapidly conduct software updates, and field them for review and implementation.

The introduction of the Geography Network last year by Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), Inc., which has now been codified as the g.Net architecture, adds a whole new dimension to the concept of server based computing. One can imagine having a geography network on the back end of an enterprise GIS described above. This concept begins the process of breaking down barriers between GIS efforts, allows realistic discussions of a GIS spanning an enterprise, and serves as catalyst for experimentation and development.

To quote Admiral Dennis Blair, USN in his article from the May 2001 issue of Proceedings, "The paradigm for the future should be based on putting a prototype system out quickly, then adapting and improving it as it is fielded." I believe this is not only a good paradigm, it is good for GIS development.

For more information on these and other information technologies, please contact Mr. Kenneth W. Bible, (843)218-4367, or e-mail at biblek@spawar.navy.mil.