The Future of GIS
in
West Virginia
Think Geospatial Collective
The problem
How can West Virginia entities
implementing GIS utilize their
existing geospatial investments
more effectively?
To understand where we want
to go we must first look at
where we came from 
The beginning of
West Virginia GIS
• There was a single desktop
• Then … there were more
• Next came the file
server & the LAN
• But we
outgrew that!
DEP file server
DEP LAN
• So several years
Remote LAN n
ago DEP created
the first
Remote LAN 2
SDE/RDBMS
deployment in West
Remote LAN 1
Virginia.
Remote LAN 3
• But field office
access to ALL
data for 50 to 100
people was still a
huge bandwidth
issue.
DEP LAN
DEP
• Sharing licenses
SDE
was desirable but
also not easy.
Working in a collective … DEP’s 1st.
step was over a decade ago.
• Office of Surface Mining Technical Information
Process System (TIPS)
I need to run
Arc … can I
– Multi million dollar pool of technical computing
have a license?
licenses (including Arc/INFO) shared by:
two OSM Regional Offices (Pittsburgh & Denver) Thanks!!
You •got
it• twenty-three coal producing states
!
• five native American tribes
License
server
OSM LAN
Denver, CO
DEP LAN
So … Citrix (terminal services)
Citrix
DEMO
• How does it work?
– Applications install
and run 100% on
server (A)
– Only screens,
mouse
clicks and
keystrokes
travel the network
(B)
– Applications
accessed from
desktop PC or thin
clients (C)
B
C
A
Can be combined
with Virtual Private
Network (VPN) and
used anywhere
• Recently several
State agencies have
successfully
deployed additional
SDE/RDBMSs
• SDE servers
provide
enterprise level
performance
encapsulating
spatial data into a
RDBMS.
RTI
SDE
DEP
SDE
RTI LAN
DEP LAN
Back to the present and
… how can West Virginia
entities implementing GIS
utilize their existing
geospatial investments
more effectively?
One possible answer is 
The West Virginia GIS
B-ORG =
Broadband-Orchestrated
Regional Group
Your SDE server’s technological
distinctiveness will be added to
our own.
How Does the B-ORG Work?
• The
SDEhive
end provides
users
the ability
could
be federal
to access
RTI LAN
geospatial
partners
(OSM
data
RTI
SDE
using broadband
already
accesses
access to SDE
WVDEP’s
SDE
WV Backbone
servers outside
server),
state,
your Agency
county,
higher
(NRAC
• education
The potential
DEP LAN
also
DEP
existsaccesses
to add to
SDE
WVDEP),
etc.
the collective.
Network design planning factors
• DC client = standard ArcGIS desktop client,
data from SDE, using ArcSDE direct connect to
DBMS
• AS client = standard ArcGIS desktop client,
data from ArcSDE installed on the server
• Terminal client = access to ArcSDE running on
Windows Terminal Server. Data required to
support display = 100 KB per query.
• Browser client = access to a standard ArcIMS
image map service.
• Web GIS client = ArcGIS desktop client access
to a standard ArcIMS image map server.
Tomlinson, Roger.,
Thinking About GIS: geographic information system planning for managers,
CA: ESRI., 2003.
Network design planning factors
Platform
client
Data per query
Traffic per
query
Bandwidth
per query
Kbpq
Compressed
Kbpq
Kbpq
Kbpq
1,000
5,000
50,000
5,000
1,000
1,000
10,000
1,000
1,000
500
5,000
500
Terminal
client
100
28
280
28
Browser
client
50
50
500
50
Web GIS
client
100
100
1,000
100
File server
client
DC client
AS client
Tomlinson, Roger.,
Thinking About GIS: geographic information system planning for managers,
CA: ESRI., 2003.
Network design planning factors
Platform
client
Data per query
Traffic per
query
Bandwidth
per query
Kbpq
Compressed
Kbpq
Kbpq
Kbpq
1,000
5,000
50,000
5,000
1,000
1,000
10,000
1,000
1,000
500
5,000
500
Terminal
client
100
28
280
28
Browser
client
50
50
500
50
Web GIS
client
100
100
1,000
100
File server
client
DC client
AS client
Option using smallest bandwidth and
providing most technical capabilities
Network design planning factors
Platform
client
Data per query
Traffic per
query
Bandwidth
per query
Kbpq
Compressed
Kbpq
Kbpq
Kbpq
1,000
5,000
50,000
5,000
1,000
1,000
100
1,000
500
28
10,000
5,000
280
1,000
500
28
Browser
client
50
50
500
50
Web GIS
client
100
100
1,000
100
File server
client
DC client
AS client
Terminal
client
Option using smallest bandwidth and
providing most technical capabilities
How well does it work?
Test
Time in seconds
Load/display County layer
20
Load/display Roads
(TIGER)
96
Pan & redraw (~ 10 mile
extent)
3-5
Select Roads in Kanawha
County
24
Export selected Roads to
local shapefile
27
First test of B-ORG concept
SDE connection testing DEP to RTI – Jan 17, 2006
B-ORG DEMO
So join the West Virginia GIS BroadbandOrchestrated Regional Group (B-ORG)
... a collective of SDE servers
empowering State government agencies
with the ability to access each other's
remote geospatial data more
efficiently. To become part of the hive
you will need a collective user id and
logon.
Resistance IS
futile