Segment Architecture Guidance - Federal Geographic Data .

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0 Collaborative management of geospatial investments can be made more adaptable,proactive and inclusive.PurposeThe purpose of this guidance is to outline a common approach to the planning and deployment ofimproved geospatial capabilities within the Federal Government. It provides program managersand architects strategies for program design and delivery using a segment architecturemethodology. Presented are high-level actions, planning considerations and implementationrecommendations to help the Federal enterprise leverage geospatial capabilities.Objectives of this guidance include: Provide background on geospatial information and geospatial programs and how they canbe leveraged to support a wide range of agency business. Present the business case for geospatial programs through the identification of keybusiness drivers and benefits. Illustrate the key players and compliance initiatives involved in geospatial programs. Provide guidance on adoption of geospatial segment architecture methodology. Enhance the Geospatial Platform design process through expanded use of geospatialsegment architecture. Prepare agencies to develop transition plans and activities that support a cohesiveGeospatial Platform target design. Enumerate and provide references to technical standards that are applicable to geospatialprograms. Expand interoperability and re-use. Identify cost savings from improved planning. Share lessons learned.This guidance is for Federal Government personnel involved in program planning, design andimplementation; however, it may also be a valuable resource for systems integrators and otherorganizations such as State, Tribal and local governments seeking improved interoperability withFederal geospatial programs. Federal agencies are at different stages in the implementation oftheir geospatial architectures and programs. As a result, they will need to approach segmentdevelopment and alignment with the Geospatial Platform from varying perspectives.ScopeThe scope of this guidance covers the formation of Federal geospatial segment architecture forcivilian and defense programs with unclassified assets. This includes programs within individualagencies and across multiple agencies, and those utilizing emerging information technology (IT)approaches such as software and storage as a service. Implementation specifics are provided onlyas lessons learned where available. It is anticipated that some programs involving partnersoutside the Federal Government will require alternative and/or additional strategies outside thescope of this document.September 1, 20105

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0Addendums and revisions to this document will be necessary as the Federal geospatial enterprisematures and new information technology practices evolve. In the event that this documentcontradicts established Federal Government policies and standards, those documents takeprecedence.ReferencesMore information on the Federal Enterprise Architecture can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/e-gov/fea/.More information on the Federal Segment Architecture Methodology can be found at:http://www.fsam.gov/.September 1, 20106

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0CHAPTER 2: GEOSPATIAL CAPABILITIESThis chapter provides background material on geospatial topics essential to discussing segmentarchitecture. Included is a discussion of the cross-cutting nature of geospatial information as abusiness asset, how advances in technology are shaping the manner in which geospatialcapabilities are implemented, geospatial policy origins and their implications and institutionalsupport for geospatial coordination. Upon finishing this chapter, the reader will have anunderstanding of the uses for geospatial capabilities within government as well as their historicalcontext and emerging direction. The reader will also have an appreciation for how geospatialcapabilities can benefit from a common operational platform built on architecture, planning andguidance developed from prior efforts or best practices.Geospatial as a Cross-Cutting CapabilityLocation is inherent in many endeavors. People frequently organize information using locationas context – where they live, where they work or the location of the nearest bus stop.Furthermore, location is also extended spatially to encompass boundaries or other derivativemeasures – the extent of a school district, distance to relatives or the range of cell phonecoverage. Location-based information is pervasive and can take many forms including placenames, street addresses, highway names and markers, latitude-longitude coordinates and mapsand images of places or resources of interest. It can be structured, stored or combined with otherinformation resources in a variety of ways to answer many different questions related to “place.”When location-based information is processed or integrated with other data to provide moredescriptive spatial intelligence or analysis it becomes geospatial information and the dataprocessed with it become geo-enabled (e.g., bathymetry).Geospatial information, or geo-enabled data, are used in a variety of business processes. Thisincludes asset and personnel management, natural resources, environmental and healthmanagement, transportation, homeland security, intelligence and defense. Some examples ofgeospatial information or geo-enabled data used for these business processes include propertyrecords, vehicle routes, species ranges, crime patterns, electronic health records, trafficcongestion, utility networks, hazardous waste management, airspaces, watersheds, satellite andairborne imagery.A common use of geospatial information is in emergency planning and response. For example, aforecast of the progression of the track and intensity of a hurricane is based on geospatialinformation represented as a map, as shown in Figure 1. Many sources of geospatial informationwere joined together to make this map: base maps of the political boundaries and place names,current position of the storm and the output and projected location coming from a hurricaneprediction model. This map, and the data behind it, could be used in other software systems fordisplay with other data, such as population, highway networks, evacuation routes, emergencyfacilities, etc. in support of emergency response.September 1, 20107

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0Figure 1: Predicted Path and Intensity of Hurricane Katrina over the Gulf Coast and Inland StatesHurricane Katrina response efforts required significant use and cross-agency collaboration ofgeospatial resources and represent a specific example of how the above benefits can be appliedto real world situations. The geographic tagging of business data can be a key element inbusiness process re-engineering, and can result in large returns on investment in terms ofimproved workflow and resource savings resulting from broader use.Geospatial information includes not only information that is obvious to most people, such asdriving routes and maps, but also other types of data, including elevation, satellite imagery andlocation information acquired from a global positioning system (GPS). Additionally, location isoften an important feature of other types of information that many people may not think of asgeospatial: Human resources systems capture the location of office buildings and rooms as well ashome addresses for each employee, enabling optimal distribution of resources against aspecific geography. Inventory and asset management systems generally identify where a piece of equipmentis stored or used, enabling optimum utilization of assets from an enterprise perspective. Business performance reports often itemize results according to an organization’s regionsor jurisdictions, allowing for comparisons of performance between differentorganizational units and locations. Grants and funds to address specific community concerns are often distributed based onproximity to population centers or other relevant factors, maximizing the business utilityof grants or funds to the population as a whole.September 1, 20108

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0Other situations may require that a moving asset or phenomenon may be tracked according to itsgeographic location to enhance or optimize its business utility. Examples of a moving asset caninclude aircraft, trucks, vessels or even individuals on a watch list. Commercial shippingcompanies track every truck and package and can plan delivery routes to optimize or minimizetravel distance.Business operations based on the use of location, as well as collaboration facilitated through theeffective use of geospatial information, can provide government and private sector organizationswith many benefits, such as: Means for organizations to collaborate with other government agencies or organizations,particularly in times of emergencies or where rapid decisions are needed for businesspurposes. Improved sharing of geospatial information and services based on common semanticsand functional capabilities, which foster geospatial partnerships contributing to interagency and inter-governmental interoperability. Transparency to the taxpayer. Empowerment of citizens occurs by providing visual toolsthey can use to make personal, family and business decisions. Enhanced availability of geospatial services and networks in the Web environment thatfacilitate development and use of geospatial information and functionality withinorganizations. Standards-based geospatial information resources created and documented usingstandards (e.g., metadata) by many organizations, making the resources accessible andusable to many others. Proven coordination mechanisms and examples of partnerships for shared dataacquisition within the geospatial community to serve as models for those new to the useof geospatial resources.Geospatial TechnologyTechnology that directly supports the development, modification, storage, use or disseminationof geospatial information is referred to as geospatial technology. This may include hardware,software, databases, network communications or any other IT resource that makes geospatialservices possible. Geospatial technology may be developed specifically to support geospatialoperations or may be generic in nature and support operations as an aspect of overall enterpriseuse. Numerous advances in technology over the last 30 years have contributed significantly tothe ability to productively use geospatial information within business processes. Although theseadvances represent general improvements in the world of computing and networking, geospatialservices would not have evolved as quickly without them. For example, the advances in bothcomputer processing power and telecommunications capacity ensure that large and complexgeospatial information can be processed in a more efficient and timely manner. Several of theseadvances are critical to geospatial architecture and are described in this section.Geospatial technologies and information that were either completely unavailable, or costly andrestricted to skilled and uniquely trained staff, are now widely available at reasonable or even nocost to millions of individuals. Non-expert professionals can now take advantage of geospatialinformation on the desktop and through the Web. The Web in particular is leading aSeptember 1, 20109

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0transformation in the availability and ease of use of location-based content or applications.Commercial vendors are rapidly leveraging geospatial technology into a variety of Web-basedgeographic services for consumers. The development of open platforms and standards, increasesin technical interoperability and faster access to content have led to a dynamically expanding listof “mash-ups;” applications capable of providing new or enhanced geographic services orinformation. The integration of GPS technologies into common mobile applications is leading toan emerging culture of locational awareness. Users can leverage these capabilities to support awealth of geographic-centric business processes identified within an agency’s enterprisearchitecture.The following sections outline some common geospatial technologies deployed within an agencyenterprise geospatial program. These technologies have different roles within an enterprise butall contribute to the eventual deployment of geospatial capabilities.Geographic Information Systems (GIS)Geographic Information Systems (GIS) isoften defined as the hardware, softwareand data needed to capture, manage,analyze and display geospatialinformation. GIS, originally known as“computer mapping,” originated in theearly 1960s. For many years, agenciesthat bought and attempted to use GISsoftware were faced with a significantlevel of effort to digitize or geo-code theirdata in a way that allowed the hardwareand software to manipulate those data.Increased availability of data based onsignificant investments, thousands oforganizations using GIS and theproliferation of means to share those data(e.g., via the Web) have made it far easierto access and use GIS software to addressreal issues.Geographic Information SystemsGeographic Information Systems (GIS) softwarefacilitates the combination, clipping, and processingof multiple coincident geographic datasets to supportproblem-solving. In this figure, three spatial datasetswere numerically combined to create a new datasetthat quantifies a model of plant species richness.Initially GIS was thought of only as amapping tool, but unstructured maps(rather than data) served as a barrier tointegrating geospatial analysis intooperational business process. Over thelast decade, software companies haveFigure 2: Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) toincreasingly added functionality to GISanalyze plant species richnessand these tools now support complex datamanagement and analytical functions through the desktop and the Web. The emergence of serverbased technologies and extraction of GIS business logic means organizations can craft customGIS support applications for enterprise specific purposes.September 1, 201010

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0Over the last decade, the cost of GIS hardware and software has decreased and the availability ofenterprise licenses for geospatial software and data has increased significantly. This makes avariety of tools accessible to nearly any organization with the interest in managing data based onlocation.Global Positioning System (GPS)GPS is a satellite system that provides the means to capture highly accurate location informationvia GPS receivers. GPS devices package a receiver, often with basic mapping capabilities, inmobile hardware to allow for collection of location data. These location data are either uploadedvia wireless networks or through office networks. A number of vendors have enhanced GPSservices to provide better accuracy than the nominal 15 meters offered by GPS satellites natively.This supports the collection of more precise positions required by some business practices (e.g.,facility management, emergency response). These capabilities allow agencies to affordablycollect and then use or share location information where such positions are linked into themission databases and systems.Remote Sensing and Image ProcessingSatellites and aircraft collect remotely sensed digital geospatial data in multiple spectra andimage formats. These remotely sensed data provide a means to measure and examine featuresand phenomena on the Earth’s surface. To leverage the analytical power and utility of these data,GIS and image processing software have evolved to not only provide support for manipulating orextracting information from remotely sensed geospatial datasets, but to also integrate them withother geospatial data formats for enhanced analysis or geographic visualization. Continuouslyincreasing quantities of accessible and usable remotely sensed data offer rich opportunities tomonitor trends, changes and characterize locations. Many commercial organizations have begunto use remotely sensed data in the services they are providing on the Internet, which leads toenhanced public visualization of geospatial information.Geospatial Simulation ModelsAdvances in computer technology—processing speeds and storage, in particular—have made itpossible to run complex models that rely on massive volumes of data. Many types of modelingapplications are increasingly available (some at no cost) for different business purposes,including contaminant plume modeling, agricultural crop models, epidemiology, urbandevelopment and scenario simulation. Simulation models offer a geographic visualizationcapability for mission driven business processes.Geospatial Web ServicesWeb services provide a standard means of interoperating between different softwareapplications, running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks. When geospatial parametersare applied, a Web service provides a means to support geospatial queries, analyses, intelligenceand visualization over the Web. Combinations of data from different sources can be used toprovide an integrated view over time of events, tracked entities and their locations to supportdecision-making during operational planning, preparedness, prevention, response andremediation. An example of such a Web service is the National Oceanic AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA) Fire Weather Forecasting tool, as shown in Figure 3.September 1, 201011

Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0Geospatial Web services can be customized to support specific user requirements and representcross-cutting business capabilities. Systems that process or provide geospatial information havetremendous potential to integrate seemingly disconnected activities and a variety of data sources.Geospatial services can be used to transform, manage or present geospatial information to users.Examples of geospatial services of potential use to many business applications and users include: Displays of agency information within a geospatial context to visualize situations orevents in relation to other relevant geographic features and entities of interest. Determination and display of the geographic coordinates corresponding to an address(geo-coding) to assist with locating assets. I

Sep 02, 2010 · Federal Geospatial Segment Architecture Guidance Version 1.0 Collaborative management of geospatial investments can be made more adaptable, proactive and inclusive. Purpose . The purpose of this guidance is to outline a common approach to the planning and deployment of improved geospatial cap