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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Dear Bruce, Ben, Cameron, Simon and others,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This discussion is very welcome and timely and I
congratulate Bruce on taking the step to start this thread. I’d like to
provide some information on activities with which I am involved as I believe
they can provide some much needed resourcing and facilitation going forward.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Following Cameron’s lead I will “pigeon hole”
myself as I may well be a new contact to most reading this list: I have a
background in commercial software development and R&D, in particular
commercialisation and technology transfer, involving geospatial information management,
interoperability, e-Research, high performance computing and numerical
analysis. I’m now the Director of Auscope Grid (an NCRIS initiative -
NCRIS 5.13 <a href="http://www.auscope.org/">www.auscope.org</a> ) and the
Project Manager for the Spatial Information Services Stack (SISS - which Ben
Searle mentioned is part of NCRIS 5.16). To round out the responsibilities, I’m
also responsible (not solely, but I’m accountable for the services and
conferences) for the community forum on open geospatial standards called the Solid
Earth and Environment Grid (SEEGrid - <a href="http://www.seegrid.csiro.au/">www.seegrid.csiro.au</a>)
and a member of the NCRIS Australian e-Research Infrastructure Council (AeRIC)
and the NCRIS Engineering Architecture Taskforce (NEAT).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>For a number of years my team (which is more than just CSIRO
based but that is a story for another day) has been working with others towards
the creation of an open standards based interoperable geoscience infrastructure
for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Collaboration with both Australian and International organisations resulted in
the formation of the SEE Grid community, a number of testbeds (e.g. CGI
interoperability experiments with GeosciML, Minerals Council of Australia and
Geological Surveys Geochemistry, ebXML registry and repository) and various
information models and tools (e.g. ANZLIC ISO metadata profile, GeosciML, OGC
Observations and Measurements, Geoserver community schema support, Fullmoon and
Hollow World GML application schema modelling tools). Most of these outcomes
have completed their “testbed” phase and some are moving to ISO
standardisation or broader uptake.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The reason I say this GeoNetwork discussion is timely is
NCRIS has provided an opportunity to make the step change from testbeds and
demonstrators to production grade services. To date many of the activities have
been, as Cameron noted, “for the work being done, …under-resourced”.
This is particularly true as a move from testbeds to production grade services
requires considerable investment and appropriate staff to achieve quality
assurance, branch management, help desk support, deployment, and so forth. It
is a credit to the NCRIS process and the Auscope board and AeRIC, that this
investment is actually being made (to the tune of nearly $10 million by mid
2011) and the strategic objective, in an open standards/source way, is to
achieve production grade infrastructure for geospatial & geoscience information.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>To this end, the NCRIS activities I am involved with
(Auscope and SISS) are:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<ul style='margin-top:0pt' type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Seeking feedback and engagement
with the broader community on where best to target the available resources
to achieve the production grade services infrastructure – fill in
the gaps to production services and complement/support the existing
activities. Flexibility and cooperation is a key ingredient<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Establishing a quality
assurance framework around the Spatial Information Services stack
including – packaging/installation, regression testing/unit-test
suites<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Performing development on core
open source technologies in the stack so they are interoperable, in sync
with the open source community developments<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Establishing a maintenance and
support environment including help desk, priority bug fixes in the
Australian and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New
Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region> context, deployment assistance,
training, sample deployments<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Developing features necessary
to support the Australian and New Zealand geospatial communities –
in particular those areas represented in NCRIS noting that is a very large
group of Government and non-government organisations already.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Seeking to facilitate/assist
organisations and communities that might be able to sustain the stack
beyond the lifetime of the NCRIS investments so that the organisations
that deploy have a sustainable technology base – with my CSIRO hat
on success is defined as my not having a job at the end of the activity!
<grin><o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>On a more technical note, the SISS is currently based on the
following open source technologies:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<ol style='margin-top:0pt' start=1 type=1>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Geoserver – with
community schema extensions<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>GeoNetworks<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>THREDDS, Hyrax<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Web Portals and Desktop clients
– various samples are being made available particularly for training
and regression testing purposes (e.g. Googlemap portal, udig, sample java
desktop clients)<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>OGC standards<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>GeosciML standards for
geoscience information<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
</ol>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Due to our previous work we already have reasonably good
links with the open source communities involved and broadly the Australian and <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place></st1:country-region> activities
around Geoserver. Geospatial and Geoscience information standards and the Web
Portal and Desktop clients. We are less well connected with the GeoNetworks
community (something we are actively seeking to improve) though we have a
strong involvement in registries, metadata standards and the ANZLIC profile.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Whilst I believe the strategic intent of these activities,
our collaborations, and the investment level are capable of contributing to the
broadly desired outcomes Bruce mentioned in his initial e-mail, the move to
production services and actually having a large investment does create some
additional challenges both in project management and the, more important,
social interaction side of the community.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Flexibility and communication are clearly keys to achieving
our shared objectives and I welcome any feedback or suggestions on how the activities
and resources represented by the Auscope and SISS investments could serve the
ongoing development of GeoNetwork , Geoserver and more broadly the spatial information
services stack. We do have a plan to keep things moving but it is not set in
stone and there is flexibility in the resourcing to “grease the wheels”
so to speak to ensure the necessary gaps can be filled – you may just
find we change the plan to resource the need.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I look forward to continuing this conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Rob<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-element:frame'><font size=3 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Dr Robert Woodcock<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-element:frame'><font size=3 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>CSIRO Exploration & Mining ,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-element:frame'><font size=3 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>ARRC, <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address
style="BACKGROUND-POSITION: left bottom; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(res://ietag.dll/#34/#1001); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat-x"
tabIndex="0" w:st="on">26 Dick Perry Ave</st1:address></st1:Street>, <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-element:frame'><st1:City w:st="on"><font
size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Kensington</span></font></st1:City><font
face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>, <st1:State w:st="on">WA</st1:State>
6151 <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-element:frame'><font size=3 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Phone +61 8 6436 8780 Fax +61 8
6436 8586</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-element:frame'><font size=3 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'><img
border=0 width=67 height=86 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image002.jpg@01C8BA72.9FEEBB00"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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