Virginia Tech’s Vice President of Information Technology announces launch of Enterprise GIS website

By Patrick Fay

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 26, 2009 – Today Virginia Tech’s Vice President of Information Technology, Erv Blythe and the Enterprise GIS group announced the launch of their website, www.gis.it.vt.edu.

The website establishes an online presence for the newly created Enterprise GIS Research and Development Administration group within IT, and contains information, tutorials, tools and software geared towards the needs of university researchers, administrators, and related partners interested in integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis or visualization tools into their activities.

The Enterprise GIS Research and Development Administration Group provides centralized storage and hosting of GIS data, web mapping applications hosting and design assistance, and a centralized base map for the campus and the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

This base map is made up of layers owned by various units of Virginia Tech with an aim to support Virginia Tech’s research , teaching and engagement missions as well as select outside partnerships. 

These new resources are intended to reduce barriers to adoption of GIS by faculty, staff and students. Mr. Blythe provided further details on the benefits of this approach, “through Enterprise GIS, we can provide efficiencies of scale and significant cost savings to University departments seeking access to GIS data relevant to their research, as well as for services of GIS data hosting and storage, freeing them up to focus on their research area of interest.”

Brenda van Gelder, director of Strategic Partnership Initiatives in IT, which oversees the Enterprise GIS, explains the benefits of the new website, “it was our intent to provide our users with an easy-to-use site that will help them access the University’s GIS data information and utilize it to the fullest extent possible.”  By providing the computing, storage and security infrastructure supporting GIS, faculty can fully leverage GIS data without having to be server administrators and network security professionals.

The website will allow users to not only learn more about Enterprise GIS, its services and procedures, but also provide access to GIS datasets, account management tools, user support and training, and downloadable GIS software. 

The site will continue to develop as information and training materials are expanded and data sets grow over time.  A major objective of the website is to enable collaborative efforts among university researchers and other GIS stakeholders and to facilitate quick and easy access to GIS resources.

About Enterprise GIS
The Enterprise GIS Research and Development Administration Group was created under the aegis of “Strategic Partnership Initiatives”, and reports to the Vice President for Information Technology at Virginia Tech. This is considered a strategic initiative of IT for serving the Virginia Tech research and administration, as well as a limited selection of external partners who are associated with the Commonwealth of Virginia and its localities.

The group was formed as a means of addressing the need for cost-effective storage and hosting of GIS data, as well as access to and training for GIS tools and other resources.

By being created under the IT administrative area, the GIS data that is hosted and stored in Enterprise GIS is maintained in the most secure computing environment available for university computing and is monitored 24/7 for security and uptime. 

The system is designed to enable various university departments to share and access layers of data securely in the Enterprise GIS database by decentralizing data ownership and giving data owners full control over access permissions. 

Enterprise GIS utilizes ESRI ArcSDE, ESRI ArcGIS Server, Google Earth Enterprise and Google Maps software in a hybrid computing infrastructure with a mix of virtualized hosts and dedicated application servers in order to provide these services.

The group consists of a highly trained and qualified staff, and is supported by the entire IT organization, whose various subunits provide backend services including: database management, security, operations support and networking. 

An immediate benefit for university departments is that the Enterprise GIS group has paid the annual license fee for ESRI GIS software for the entire University, thus eliminating the need for individual colleges and departments to make that expenditure for their GIS users.

For further information please contact Patrick Fay at pfay08@vt.edu or (540) 231-1853