GIS Shared Services From Ground to Cloud

1. GIS Shared ServicesFrom Ground to Cloud IPMA Forum 2012 May 22, 2012 Panel Discussion

2. Speakers & Topics • Joy Paulus, OCIO – Background • Michael DeAngelo, DFW – Vision, Governance & Budget • Tim Young, DFW - Technology & Staffing • Ron Holeman, DNR – Sharing Data and Services • Alan Smith, WSDOT – Benefits of Cloud Computing • Dan Saul, ECY – Considerations of “Freeing the Data”

3. Background Joy Paulus, Office of the CIO

4. Background geography.wa.gov

5. Vision, Governance & Budget Michael DeAngelo, Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

6. Vision • Most, if not all, data will have spatial elements • Consumers of the data will expect a spatial dimension • Build the capability to: • Allow more agencies to participate • Rapid deployment of new services • Share costs in an equitable way • Incentivize innovation, sharing, and adoption • Make it easier to share data with the public • Make the data easily consumable

7. Budget • Historical Budget challenges • Hat-in-hand approach won’t scale • Level of funding was limiting: • Deployment of new services • Public access to data • Agencies incurred higher costs to maintain services that had a shared value • Structure discouraged innovation and collaboration • Individual Agencies left holding the M&O bag

8. Governance • Rules/parameters/process for making data and services available to the public • Authoritative sources of information • Organization and descriptions of data • Rules/parameters/process/agreements around making data and services available to other agencies • Ownership and maintenance of data • Change management of the service • Rules of consumption?

9. Technology, BC Tim Young, Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

10. Technology Timeline Kickoff Kickoff

11. 1977 Cartography, Manual Workflow

12. Printed Circuit Board Design

13. Innovation

14. 1977 Digital Mapping System

15. Shared Data and Applications Shared Data & Applications

16. Technology Mainstreaming Technology Mainstreaming

17. GIS on the Web GIS on the Web

18. Google Earth

19. Shared Services Shared Services

20. The Cloud The Cloud

21. The Cloud, Epilogue Action 12 Study how to attract and retain highly skilled technology staff and build up technology interest groups that function as robust communities in state government

22. Sharing Data and Services Ron Holeman, Dept. of Natural Resources

23. Sharing Data: Sneaker-net to Internet • 25 year history of sharing GIS data • Cooperative data collection • Evolving with technology • Sneaker net • Internet • Much data, many sites

24. Example: geography.wa.gov

25. From Data to Services • 2009 created GIS Services Sharing Group • Why not share? • Federated vs. centralized approaches • 200 GIS services – 5 agencies • Why haven’t we succeeded? • May not be part of core business • Lack of capacity to serve the ‘world’ • Not wanting to hand over control

26. Needed to Facilitate Sharing • Governance • Security • Discovery • Configuration Management • Change Management

27. Benefits of Cloud Computing Alan Smith, WSDOT Delivering Scalable, Sustainable, Spatial Information Products

28. Incident Location Tool Map Content Tools/services WA GeoPortal WSDOT Client Application Vendor WSDOT WA GeoPortal Vendor

29. Enterprise Use Map Content Tools/services WA GeoPortal WSDOT Field Crews Operations Center Vendor WSDOT Business Areas WA GeoPortal Public Vendor

30. Delivering scalable, sustainable, Spatial Information Products • Spatial Information Products • Geo-referenced Data – X,Y, street address, measure along a feature, distance/direction from a feature • Cartography – map service, feature service, image service • Geoprocessing services – find an address, find a map feature, measure, query spatial relationships • Applications – A collection of the above, designed to perform a specified function

31. Delivering scalable, sustainable, Spatial Information Products • Scalable • Scale - The extent of consumers from small work group toglobal/public • Scale - FromSingle server to large cloud • Scale - The consuming platform from one to many (server, desktop, web, mobile…)

32. Delivering scalable, sustainable, Spatial Information Products • Sustainable • Generic functionality – generally useful is more sustainable than highly customized • Minimal dependencies – “hot swappable” data and service interfaces • Modular - plug/unplug components (Geo-referenced Data, Cartography, Geoprocessing services)

33. Benefits of implementing a services based architecture • Easier to share products (maps and services) across business areas and applications • Data and/or services can be replaced with minimal impact • Relatively easy and frequent reuse increase ROI

34. Benefits of a cloud hosted services based architecture • Automatic seasonal/event scalability • Easier to share products (maps and services) across departmental / organizational boundaries • Reduce redundancy (data, services) • Exposes redundant information products, published by different organizations.

35. Risks/Challenges (opportunities for improvement) • It’s an additional environment to manage. • If badly managed it can lead to orphaned data and service. • Could expose “bad” products (data, service), requiring some action. • Products are more easily discovered and used by less informed consumers. • It’s difficult to know who/what is consuming your services.

36. “Free The Data” - Easier Said Then Done Dan Saul, Dept. of Ecology

37. Implications of Freeing your Data • exposure to a range of new classes of users • new users that you may be surprised at • attempting to “mashup” your data into new combinations • more eyes on your data • your data may be misunderstood • more errors, omissions reported • expectations that problems be corrected

38. What do we know about users of Freed Data? • high expectations and curiosity • are familiar with Google and Bing Maps • expect that your map will perform and interact similarly to the big boys • won’t waste time on your site if they can’t quickly understand it • are curious about their neighborhood or a particular cause • just want to solve their problem and move on

39. Get ready for Freed Data • easy to display and digest • consider normalization and generalization • scale appropriate presentation • suitable basemap to put under your data • metadata presented in a convenient format • present in the Web Mercator projection for mashups? • enable users to comprehend, analyze and detect trends

40. Presenting the Freed Data • carefully consider the user interface • recruit the assistance of a good web designer • consider the many platforms available to consume your data: • Desktop/laptop computer • tablet • smartphone • resist the temptation to add lots of tools and widgets • provide a “contact us” form to gather feedback

41. Parting Thoughts • Keep It Simple - be minimalist and only implement what is needed • Usability is paramount to your success

42. Questions? • Panelists: Michael DeAngelo, DFW CIO Tim Young, DFW GIS Data Services Manager Ron Holeman, DNR GIS Team Leader Alan Smith, WSDOT GIS Branch Manager Dan Saul, ECY GIS Manager • Moderator: Joy Paulus, State GIS Coordinator