North Dakota GIS Conference 2006: Presentations
Leveraging Open Source to Minimize the Financial Risks Associated with the Development of Spatially-enabled Management Infrastructure
Presented by: Chris Bader, IT Manager, North Dakota State Water Commission
» PowerPoint Presentation 1 (2.67Mb ppt)
The development of an integrated spatially enabled management infrastructure is inherently costly. Unfortunately, organizations tend to focus on the costs of hardware and software, which represent a very small percentage of the overall costs associated with deploying this type of infrastructure. As a result, hardware and software costs tend to dictate the success or failure of many of these types of projects. This becomes more of an issue when long-term funding becomes a critical element to support the hardware and software. Any form of interruption in support or funding for the hardware and software places the entire management infrastructure at risk, which threatens the long-term stability of the management program and places significant development efforts at risk. Open Source solutions have evolved significantly over the past decade, and open source now provides viable options that can eliminate the financial and political risks associated with funding and maintenance of a commercial based infrastructure.
Managing North Dakota's Water Resources; Building the Data Management Framework for the Future
Presented by: Chris Bader, IT Manager, North Dakota State Water Commission
» PowerPoint Presentation 2 (8.19Mb ppt)
The North Dakota State Water Commission is tasked with managing North Dakota's water resources. One of the more difficult challenges associated with this task lies in the development of a data management framework capable of addressing the complexities associated with water resource data. In order to be effective, the data management framework had to be capable of addressing storage, management, and analysis of the spatial and temporal relationships that exist within the water resource systems. Addressing spatial and temporal relationships within the context of a traditional data management system is inherently difficult and could only be achieved through the integration of a broad range of tools. The Water Commission makes extensive use of open source solutions, which provide a unique opportunity to integrate a broad range of specialized components into a more cohesive management solution. The standards model employed by open source has made it fairly simple to chain individual applications together to address an array of functions to extend the capabilities of the legacy data management infrastructure. This has provided the Water Commission with the unique opportunity to build a data management framework capable of addressing future requirements without the need to retool or rebuild significant components of the existing infrastructure.
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