"The Windows NT operating system does more than provide a solid and cost-effective foundation for today. It's also instrumental in helping Rural America 2000 become a model for what a cooperative academic and local-government facility can look like by the end of the decade."
James Farley
Technical Director
University of Arkansas Center
for Advanced Spatial Technologies
Industry
Geographic information systems
Business Solution
System providing accessible geographic information to farmers,
businesses, and local government agencies in rural communities
Architecture
Client-server network running 2 servers, 50 client computers,
and an assortment of peripherals with connections to the World
Wide Web
Products and Services Used
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows for Workgroups
Microsoft Windows NT Server
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation
Informix
Intergraph MicroStation® Modular GIS Environment
Benefits
To farmers, rural communities, and local governments, the solution
provides information easily and at no cost; formerly, this information
was difficult and costly for such users to access
To many of the people who depend most heavily on timely and comprehensive geographic data, the term information explosion may seem unfortunately fitting. For decades, government and academia have collected, managed, and archived data on everything from soil quality to natural-disaster readiness. Yet for users in rural communities it can be difficult to access the data, which is scattered in a seemingly haphazard array of locations and formats and resides on remote, costly, and hard-to-use mainframe or minicomputer systems.
In response, a project at the University of Arkansas is making crucial geographic data available to farmers, county and local governments, businesses, and others in hundreds of communities throughout the state. Known as Rural America 2000, the project is a model for technology transfer to the local level, explains James Farley, Technical Director of the University's Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST). As he also explains, the project wouldn't be possible without the help of the Microsoft® Windows NTTM operating system.
Rural America 2000, part of a federal effort to further the technology transfer of geographic information system (GIS) applications, is one of 20 such projects now underway at CAST. Recently, CAST, which was launched in 1991, has been honored as a National Center of Excellence by the California-based Trimble Navigation Corporation. CAST also has been named an Intergraph® Center for Excellence in Mapping and Geosciences by the Alabama-based Microsoft Solution Provider and manufacturer of GIS workstations and software that play a major role in Rural America 2000 and the other CAST activities.
"In terms of system administration, we've found Windows NT Workstation to be more cost-efficient than UNIX. We also like the Windows NT Plug and Play capabilities, its application-to-application interoperability, and especially that it runs the Windows-based user interface and desktop-productivity applications that people already know."
James Farley
Technical Director
University of Arkansas Center
for Advanced Spatial Technologies
Operating Costs and Interoperability
When Farley and his colleagues began planning the technology that would support a project such as Rural America 2000, they looked for an operating system that would meet four criteria. First, to be easily accessible by people and organizations representing a range of skills and backgrounds, it must have a standard and easily learned user interface. Second, for the same reasons it must be cost-efficient to operate and administer. Third, it must integrate smoothly with UNIX®, the industry-standard GIS platform. Fourth, it must support several key GIS applications from Intergraph. Using these criteria, Farley and his colleagues selected Microsoft Windows NT Server and Windows NT Workstation.
In January 1995, after six months of development, the system supporting Rural America 2000 was ready for operation. The system is based on two servers: one runs UNIX and another, a PentiumTM-based symmetric multiprocessing system, runs Microsoft Windows NT Server, both accessing an Informix® database. Connected to these servers over a TCP/IP local area network is an assortment of peripherals and 50 client computers that also support other CAST operations. One of these computers runs the Microsoft Windows® for Workgroups operating system, while the others are split nearly evenly between UNIX and Windows NT Workstation. The primary software solutions are based on the Intergraph Modular GIS Environment, a family of spatial-analysis applications.
Farley considers Windows NT Workstation an ideal operating system for the client computers. "In terms of system administration, we've found Windows NT Workstation to be more cost-efficient than UNIX. In addition, it was very easy to integrate with the UNIX machines using PC-NFS from Intergraph," he says. "We also like the Windows NT Workstation Plug and Play capabilities, its application-to-application interoperability, and especially that it runs the Windows®-based user interface and desktop-productivity applications that people already know."
Providing a Structure
CAST provides no-cost access to the Rural America 2000 facility for individuals, agencies, and organizations working on farm service, environmental planning, tax assessment, urban planning, water and wastewater, utilities, highways, parks, education, and forestry. Through their familiar user interface, Farley says, the Windows NT products' ease of use plays a major role in supporting the activities of Rural America 2000.
"Compared to other GIS environments, users find the Windows NT environment in concert with the Intergraph Modular GIS Environment quite easy to learn," he says. "This helps lower training costs."
Another usability advantage comes from the Windows NT ability to integrate data types from diverse vendors and models, Farley says. "Whatever the application, the system integrates and coordinates the data, corrects redundancies, and gives users a structure with which to tie it all together," he explains. "Plus, the OLE Component Object Model eases the user's burden by keeping the complexity in the background."
On the provider side, he adds, the benefits of using Windows NT are equally compelling. "We've found that Windows NT provides a scalable solution, and in turn a far lower investment in platforms and applications," he says. "We've also been able to keep our maintenance costs low by running a standard bus."
Performance is yet another advantage, according to Cliff Kottman, Executive Manager at Intergraph Federal Systems Branch. In particular, he points to the open-graphics-language (OGL) tools embedded in Windows NT Workstation. "With OGL in Windows NT Workstation, Intergraph GIS software developers have rewritten applications to create complex drawings 30 times faster than they did when using internally coded routines," he explains.
"One-Stop Shopping"
As for their continued use of Windows NT Workstation, Farley and Kottman both look forward to future capabilities, such as support of distributed OLE. For implementing distributed-GIS applications, they're evaluating the Microsoft Visual C++TM development system. They're also planning an ambitious new application using the Visual Basic® programming system and Intergraph Geomedia. This application would access the three-million-entry soils database of the Natural Resources Conservation Service and could be distributed on CD-ROM so that farmers and other individuals could access it at their own office computers.
Other plans call for development of an Internet-based data archive. "The Windows NT Workstation 'Internet readiness' should be a great help with this tool. Through this archive, rural communities will have the same access as large institutions to data at the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, and the Interior, as well as NASA, Tennessee Valley Authority, and other federal agencies," Farley explains. As Kottman points out, rural businesses also stand to benefit. "Such a system can represent a gold mine for small businesses, giving them the market-research power of a Fortune 500 company at no cost," he says.
Whatever the application, Farley notes, Rural America 2000 provides a much-needed central point of access. "Now, farmers and others can do one-stop shopping with the government," he says. He also points to the project's potential long-term contribution and the support behind it of Windows NT technology. "The Windows NT operating system does more than provide a solid and cost-effective foundation for today," he says. "It's also instrumental in helping Rural America 2000 become a model for what a cooperative academic and local-government facility can look like by the end of the decade."
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© 1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Microsoft, Visual Basic, and Windows are registered trademarks
and Visual C++ and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
MicroStation is a registered trademark of Bentley Systems Inc.,
an Intergraph affiliate. Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corporation.
Intergraph is a registered trademark of Intergraph Corporation.
Informix is a registered trademark of Informix Software, Inc.
UNIX is a registered
trademark of Novell, Inc., in the United States and other countries,
licensed exclusively through X/Open Company, Ltd.
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0595 Part No. 098-59399 (printed document)